Interview Ted Tremper

Over the past year, relatively new Chicago filmmaker Ted Tremper has earned critical acclaim and attention for his improvised web series, Break-ups, which features the city’s finest comedic actors creating short, stand-alone scenes about the moment a relationship falls apart. The hilarious, sad, and bittersweet series earned Break-ups “Best Original Series” at the 2010 Vimeo Awards, among other accolades. This year, Tremper, 28, is releasing a new improvised web series, Shrink, which will attempt to craft a long-form narrative solely through improvisation.

So far, Shrink—starring Second City actor, improv veteran, and 2011 Jeff Award winner Tim Baltz—has evolved into a peculiar story of a man trying to connect with others in the middle of a personal crisis that has served as the premise of the series. As a recent graduate of medical school with half a million dollars in debt, Dr. David Tracy (Baltz) can’t find a residency program that wants him. With no job, no foreseeable future as a physician, and massive debt coming his way, Baltz’s character decides to become a registered therapist. He has six months to gain employment before losing his medical license. So, he decides to cram the 1,750 required hours needed by law of recorded therapy sessions with whomever he can find to avoid losing that license and to become a registered therapist, all in a dank, cold basement that is harshly lit and lightly rattled by a train passing by every 15 minutes.

The A.V. Club spoke with Tremper about Break-ups, Shrink, and how he believes that using improvisation to develop a story line, as opposed to using improvisation to reach an already-determined story line or plot point, could work on television or film.

The A.V. Club: Improv can be so good, but it can also be so good so little of the time. For these series, you’ve been able to represent how good improv can be through a medium other than the stage. That isn’t always easy.

Ted Tremper: That’s all due to the people involved in it. I really believe there’s nothing that I have done other than create an opportunity for them to be as great as I think they are. They are literally my heroes, still, when I go and watch them. I picked up a camera just so I could have a reason to talk to them. I really adore them. It’s the nicest work to have to do, to just make other people feel about your heroes the way you do.

I came up with the idea [for having Tim Baltz in Shrink] because of the “Tim And Mary” episode in Break-ups, just seeing how he approached that.

AVC: That episode was one of the more bittersweet ones.

TT: The thing I like most of that episode is the breakup happens for reasons you don’t understand. People ask me what the reason was. With Tim and Mary, it’s like, “These people are perfect for each other. Why don’t they get that?!” That’s where the truth is. Everybody has had a couple they know, when they break up, you’re like, “Oh, no!” They have their reasons, and they go on to other people, but there’s never a situation where they won’t be shaped or affected by that [previous relationship]. That’s what’s interesting to me: showing those moments in those relationships.

Ted Tremper’s “Break-Ups” from Cinefile.com on Vimeo.

AVC: You got quite the lineup of people for that series, too.

TT: The goal is to [figure out] how do I make people feel about improv the way I feel about it. A lot of that relates back to the fact that nobody in my family has seen improv. I don’t come from a comedy family. The older people in my family actively dislike the Break-ups series, specifically because of my episode with Katy [Colloton]. My grandfather said, “It’s just not how you talk to a lady.”

AVC: You don’t tell a lady, “You’re shit.”

TT: [Laughs.] Yeah, it’s weird. The first episode of Shrink—“Corn Meal,” with Colleen Doyle and John Shotts—was the first thing I’ve ever made on film that makes my dad laugh. He said it was “funny as hell.” I said, “Did you watch the second one?” And he said, “Yeah, I didn’t really like it.” [Laughs.]

Shrink - John & Heather - “Corn Meal” from Ted Tremper on Vimeo.

AVC: Some of the episodes of Break-ups, like “Paul And Cecily,” are quite sad. Was that intentional?

TT: In Break-ups, I wanted to do one that was intentionally sad. It was really important that that episode was sad. If my goal is to show honest material, you can’t be funny all the time.

Break-ups: The Series—Paul and Cecily from Ted Tremper on Vimeo.

My mom was very, very ill when I was 7 until when I was 12, and then from when I was 16 until she died when I was 20. The sense of humor in my family was the only thing that carried us through that. It’s impossible for me to separate how close humor and tragedy are.

I like Ricky Gervais because, with him more than anything I’ve ever seen, he’s able to turn that on a dime and switch from everything being totally okay to playing out this chasm of real emotion and real sorrow. I’m thinking of the “Christmas Special” [from Extras] where he’s on Celebrity Big Brother, and he turns to the camera and addresses his friend. It’s just a moment where you see somebody you love so much hurt so much. There’s nothing greater a comedian can do.

AVC: What was the motivation behind Shrink?

TT: I felt that an improvised therapy session would be a really good form for improvisers to remain honest in a way I’m interested in. I feel all good improv focuses on honesty, and it’s important to provide a platform for improvisers to do whatever they feel like. Originally, I was trying to think of a way that I would be able to improvise with my heroes and perform with them, and I liked the idea of a guy who is completely in over his head. The sort of narrative element of the guy needing to perform 1,750 hours of clinical training in six months came second, as a result of doing more research. 

AVC: Why did you pick Tim instead of doing it yourself?

TT: Getting Tim to do it, he was the first and only person I would have asked to do it. There are people who are great improvisers, and people who are great actors. I feel Tim is both. I feel like he can fire on all cylinders to be able to handle episodes that could potentially be sad or could be funny. He’s one of the funniest improvisers in the city, but also one of the best actors in the city. He was the only person I asked. If he wouldn’t have done it, I would’ve done it myself, and I don’t think I would have done as well. [Laughs.]

AVC: What are you and Tim aiming for with the character of Dr. David Tracy?

TT: Part of the interest that I have in the world that we’re creating is that the story line is evolving as well. We just shot an episode where coming in, the actress, Megan Mercier of the Neo-Futurists, had the idea that she wanted to just go in and get a prescription for Xanax. Knowing how weird the situation was, she was hoping she could get a prescription for these drugs she wanted. The chemistry between them was so magnetic that, by the end of it, you were watching these two characters have such similar problems. Everything they were going through together seemed very, very right. At the end of the episode, it develops into a romantic relationship. That’s something none of us ever could’ve anticipated, but that’s the whole process of being open to where the improv is going.

AVC: A lot of popular television shows or films that use improvisation use it to meet a plot point that’s already planned out, like Curb Your Enthusiasm. With Shrink, it’s the opposite, in that the plot points are discovered as the improvisation happens.

TT: They’re being shaped by the actors as it’s happening. In the way it’s evolving, all the improvisers and me are sort of developing the story as they are happening, and then trying to respect whatever the improv is bringing. Aidy Bryant [of the Second City E.t.c. stage] had this idea for an episode she was in, where she wanted to be somebody that knew David and had know him for a really long time. She wanted the majority of the problems she had come from things that David had done to her while she was a kid, which I thought was a really funny idea. So, we just decided to make her the little sister of Doug [who is David’s childhood best friend in a previous episode]. So now, Doug has a little sister, and David knows her, because they all grew up together. The process is as simple as that.

AVC: Do you think that approach or process could work on a larger level like television or film?

TT: I think so. What I hope is we’re proving ourselves enough as creative professionals to get the investment to develop it, or take the existing material and develop it into a long-form project using the model that the industry is comfortable with. If, say, they need to see six scripts or six episodes, basically what we would do is just get together and rehearse them and shoot them improvisationally. I would edit them, and we would just submit the improvised script, because that’s really what we’re doing—writing extemporaneously. I think that’s the process I feel like translates what the industry would be more comfortable producing.

If somebody gave us $10,000 tomorrow, or whatever, to do this, I feel like the only upgrade I would make would be a difference in technology, or shoot in a location where there aren’t trains passing by every 15 minutes. [Laughs.]

AVC: Do you feel any sense of pride in showcasing Chicago improv to people outside of that world? Saying, “Hey, this is really how improv is, and more than what you see on Who’s Line Is It Anyway?”

TT: If I’m doing anything correctly, it’s hopefully capturing the voice of the generation of improvisers I love watching. If I can find a way to allow themselves to express themselves, and do it for the entire scene [of improvisers] that I came up [with]—just involve as many people as possible—that’s a worthwhile goal. That’s something I’m interested in.

My primary goal in picking up a video camera was very specifically to make people feel the same way about improv as I do. Improv, to me, is an art form where individuals are able to share the truest versions of themselves through characters using the entirety of their emotions, the entirety of their intellect, and the entirety of their memories, and combining that with other people in real time to create artwork. That, to me, is a great art form, and I care about that art form more than anything else.

It’s so strange to put it on tape, because as soon as you put it on tape, it’s such an odd beast to harness.

AVC: It seems hard to remount on video, film, or stage. You usually just have to say, “You had to be there.” But a very simple still shot, like what you use in Break-ups and Shrink, allows the viewer to be there.

TT: Yeah, maybe subconsciously part of the way I’ve always experienced improv is from a one-shot. I did five camera shoots with TJ [Jagodowski] and Dave [Pasquesi] for TJ And Dave, and the way I did that was getting extreme close-ups of their faces and seeing the decisions that they make.

Having the one-shot is definitely a conscious choice. Shrink is toying with the idea of playing with more of a mainstream model, because it’s a longer form. Because I’m focusing so much more now on the ability to create a narrative out of strictly improvised work, I want it to be able to control that pacing a little bit more with three cameras. It adds more editing work, but also adds so much more material, which is great.

AVC: The orange cone in the wide shot of Shrink is nice as well.

TT: [Laughs]. I’m glad you noticed that.

Shrink - Scene-lette - John & Heather - “Cyborg” from Ted Tremper on Vimeo.

AVC: How much did you and Tim talk about the character of Dr. David Tracy beforehand, and as this develops how has that character changed or surprised you?

TT: One of the things we talked about is that his character can never lie. If he does lie, he’ll either correct himself that it’s not a lie, but if he must lie, it makes him feel tremendously uncomfortable. David is a very honest person. The character is such a good-natured person, and he’s operating from a place of where he already feels like he’s a total failure, so it’s difficult for him to get any joy out of what he’s doing.

As the narrative expands, we’re going to get to see more of his life outside of therapy, but I wanted to make sure we were setting a really strong foundation for how lonely and alone his character is. I feel like a lot of people I know, and myself included, are at a point in our lives right now [similar to David’s]. This is a guy who has trained for eight years and probably wanted to be a doctor for his entire life. He got to the very last checkpoint and didn’t get it. We were promised by our parents when we were little kids that if you work hard, go to school, and get a job, everything will be great. That’s kind of not how it works. [David’s] story is the most accidentally direct example of that, because he basically was one step away from getting whatever he wanted. It’s the first time he’s really had to deal with a real existential crisis. He’s really struggling with the same stuff that a lot of people of my generation are struggling with, which is basically we were told we can have everything we want, and that’s not really true. [Laughs.]

It’s tough when you realize you can’t be an astronaut anymore.

Shrink - Scene-lette - “David’s Story” from Ted Tremper on Vimeo.