The August McFunFunFun Monthly
August was for releasing a web series, shooting a short, drawing on planes and admiring a house in Vienna.
Good morning, Beautiful One. I’ve had a big month and so this is a big update.
DENISE SELLS HOUSES
Last week my friend Will Sonheim and I released the 4-episode web series that we’ve been working on for the past year or so. Here are the episodes in beautiful horizontal, which is the intended viewing experience:
We got a nice boost on the first episode when Lilly Wachowski (director of a lowkey indie called The Matrix) posted about us!
How sweet is that!?
Also, someone responded to her and said “im not often one of the first hundreds of people to watch something like this! thanks for the heads up!” which made me smile, as if millions are going to watch Denise. Keep your acrylics crossed.
If you would like to send the series to someone, forward them this email and add a line like “check out this web series, u gorgeous rat!”! Or text a link to the Youtube playlist, or a to the first episode on Instagram. Thank you to my friends who shared the episodes!
Now for some BEHIND-THE-SCENES.
The kernel of the idea was this: I wanted to build beautiful, small houses, place them in public places and take photographs of them. So it began as an art project. Specifically, I had a vision of a little Victorian house on the lakefront, with the skyline in the background.
Then I thought, well it would be funny to use those photos for fake real estate listings. And if it’s going to be even a little funny, then I’d like to make it all-the-way funny and turn it into videos where I play a realtor.
This idea sat in my notebook for—yes— years. And then last spring Will emailed me about getting coffee and maybe collaborating on something. We sat in the window of a coffee shop and talked for a long time and right when it would be a normal time to leave, I pitched him this idea and asked if he’d want to film it. He said no, but he would like to direct it. And so it became a collaboration.
The first house I built was made from a box of cat litter, which I came to regret because it never stopped smelling like cat litter, even after I wiped it with soap and water times three. Luckily, the house was ultimately destroyed by slobbering dogs and then dumped in the trash.
The second house, the pajama house, was made from cutting up a nightgown that I’d thrifted for my short film, Kim’s Big Date, many years ago.
In the process of deconstructing the nightgown, I made this TikTok:
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One of the most bothersome parts of house building was that I realized having empty windows made the houses look extra fake. So I dug through the recycling and washed old strawberry containers and plastic clamshells that had once contained dill— anything that had a clear plastic surface—and then I cut shards of that and taped them to the inside of the houses.
It was a weirdly fiddly and time-consuming part of construction.
Oh, and the roofs. No matter how precise I thought I was being with my measurements, the house always ended up a little crooked and so the roof would lay unevenly.
For the brick bungalow, I tried a new type of roof. First, I made a little paper model. Then I scaled it up and cut it from cardboard. And the roof, well, it still came out wonky.
The funny thing is that in my imagining, I was making extraordinarily cute and elaborate houses, with porches and eaves and turrets. And in reality, it was very hard to make these look good, even using the simplest shapes possible. Perhaps my X-acto knife was too dull, my acrylic paints too cheap, my hands too soft and weak. They turned out very differently than I planned. But I love them anyway.
So I wrote the episodes in June. We did one day of shooting in July and one in October. Then Will edited the footage, for which I am so grateful, especially because he could pick out the good improvised moments without me having to watch it all and judge myself.
I made the opening logo with an Apple pencil, heavily inspired by The Nanny.
And then I made the credit panels by painting portraits of the houses with gouache and scanning them onto my computer. And then hand cutting the title letters out of construction paper and scanning those. And then painting the other lettering with a narrow paintbrush. And guess what? I scanned those as well. And then I arranged it all in Photoshop. I’m very proud of the credit panels!
Overall, I’m so pleased with how the series turned out. And proud of our little crew and funny cast. I wanted to make a comedy that also looked beautiful and interesting, and I think we succeeded.
SOME NEWS: A SHORT FILM SHOOT (“ACHIEVER”)
A very cool thing happened to me, which is that I was commissioned to write a short film by Madhouse Productions. Charlie and Katherine came to me with an idea, I wrote the script this past spring, and then we filmed it over three days in August.
I’ve never done a project like this where after I wrote the script and did a few rounds of edits, I didn’t think about it for months. Then I showed up on set and it had all been cast and set-designed and costumed and lunches had been ordered and call sheets printed and there was even a coffee cart in the yard where I got a limeade and then forty minutes later, an iced latte with a “cream top.” In other words, I wasn’t involved in the pre-production at all. It was such a cool experience to arrive and see little details I forgot I’d written appear as props and costume piece and camera choices.
The short is called ACHIEVER and it is, I won’t lie, a sex comedy. A comedy about sex. Which is something I wouldn’t have naturally written but I was given PERMISSION and PAYMENT to do so, and I’m so glad I did, because it was fun!
And in classic sex comedy fashion, I played a Mennonite. It is a brief role that I personally requested. Here I am, in costume:
Here are other fun photos from set:
I would bet this won’t be publicly available to watch for a long time (a year?), so we must all be patient and sit nicely beside Mother. But I wanted to share the set experience while it’s still fresh and so exciting! I was driving home each night alone like: 😄.
SOME NOTEBOOKS: DRAWING ON THE PLANE
Lately I’ve been drawing on the airplane. On my monthlong European whirlwind, I had several opportunities to shift my plastic cup of Coke Zero to the edge of my tray table, pull out my pencil case, and go to town with some markers. Here are my plane drawings:
SOME INSPIRATION: THE ERNST FUCHS HOUSE
On my way home from Greece, I stopped in Vienna with my sister Caroline. We had breakfast each day in plazas, watched an opera projected against a church, and only experienced one (1) crash out from heat exhaustion.
The best thing we did was visit the Ernst Fuchs House, which was built by the architect Otto Wager, who is famous for making very symmetrical, Wes Anderson-y buildings like this train station:
Wagner designed and built himself a house on the outskirts of Vienna, which was then purchased and remodeled by an artist named Ernst-Fuchs. I loved it.
How amazing is that? I’m inspired to make my house more interesting. Fabric on the walls (why not), cool mosaics everywhere (difficult since I’m renting but okay), painting the frame as well as the painting (excellent of course), aqua blue everywhere (yeah).
Incidentally, I made this video after our trip, which has rather resonated with sisters on Instagram.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Please come see me do comedy live! Here are my upcoming shows:
Horse Around, Nico’s Wine Bar
Tuesday, Sept 9th @ 8PM
I’ll be doing some sort of solo thing, yet unplanned. This is one of my FAVORITE shows in LA. Tickets here, only $5.
Midwest F*ckfest, The Elysian Theater, Skunk Room
Friday Sept 12th @ 8PM
I’m in a new monthly improv show! Our team is called Hello! Tickets here.
Spooky Dookie, UCB Franklin
Tuesday, Sept 23rd @ 7PM
Spooky Dookie is back! That’s sketch comedy. We’ve expanded our show (TBD New Planet) to an hour. Tickets here.
Claire + Kim, Union Hall (NEW YORK)
Saturday, November 8th @ 2PM
NEW YORKERS! Kim and I are doing New York Comedy Fest! This is the show we developed last fall in Chicago, did once in Richmond, and are now bringing to New York. Please send your New York friends! Tickets here.
That’s certainly enough from me. Happy September, be well. Love you.
Claire
Denise Sells Houses was delightful! Really enjoyed the behind the scenes look too.
Very excited to see you perform in NYC!
Is that Demi Adejuyigbe next to you as a fellow Mennonite?!!?!? He's so talented! I saw his backflip show twice in NYC. So cool that he's in something you wrote (unless he just happened to wander onto set for that picture and that was the outfit he was wearing... I shouldn't leap to conclusions...)
I, too, love the credit panels!