NEW YORK, N.Y. - Dave McCary, a newly hired director at "Saturday Night Live," got his start in Monroe making shorts for Deb Schilt's film class at Monroe High School.
At the time, in the early 2000s, filmmaking as a career wasn't on his radar. Mrs. Schilt's daughter was.
"I really got into it because I wanted to impress my girlfriend's mother," said McCary, 28 years old and a 2003 Monroe High graduate.
He channeled his desire to impress into a 30-minute buddy-cop flick called "The Blind Detective," shot in part at the Monroe Police Department and starring himself and a friend as detectives. They even got a real cop to make a cameo and say one line.
"It was just ridiculous," he reflected in a recent interview from his East Village apartment, where he's getting settled after moving from Los Angeles to join SNL in New York. "There was nothing innovative about that video."
A decade later, a copy of "The Blind Detective" is likely tucked deep in storage in his mother Vicki Phillips' garage in Monroe.
And the girl he was trying to impress? Stopped being his girlfriend long ago.
But directing movies stuck. Earlier this fall, SNL hired McCary and two other members of the sketch comedy troupe Good Neighbor, which has built up a following since 2006 with funny shorts on YouTube. McCary is working as a segment director, while his friends Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett are in front of the camera.
Tonight, Oct. 26, they'll have their videos air on an SNL episode hosted by Edward Norton.
'High octane'
McCary has had two videos air so far this season: "Miley Sex Tape" and "Beer Pong." In the latter, Mooney and Bennett play imperious fraternity brothers instructing two pledges on the rules of a beer pong game so elaborate no beer gets chugged.
On "Miley Sex Tape," Mooney misses his good chance at sex with singer Miley Cyrus by worrywarting about it to his friends. Cyrus was hosting SNL that week, fresh off her controversial performance at the Video Music Awards, and played herself in the video short.
"We were really pleasantly surprised by how easy she was to work with," McCary said. Cyrus was being "pulled in all sorts of directions" in the hectic week leading up to the live show, but she was a trooper, he added: "Her instincts were always spot on with how to deliver each line. She didn't need much direction. She got it immediately."
Cyrus has been depicted as a young artist at the mercy of opportunistic music executives, but McCary found her to be self-possessed. She's "definitely in charge of conceiving her own musical stuff and the aesthetics of that," he said.
The behind-the-scenes vibe at SNL is "high octane," McCary said. "Very little sleep is had by everybody involved. It's exciting. I've never had that type of workflow before. We've usually sat on videos for weeks if not months after we've filmed them, to regain some perspective. This way of doing it is rapid-fire. I've never experienced that type of adrenaline before. You don't have time to second-guess."
This season's SNL cast includes many new faces, which has made it easier for a newbie like McCary.
"I'm over the moon about everyone," he said. "Everyone's very supportive. It's such a great crop of people who know how tough it is to be there as the new guy."
Comedy roots
McCary was born in San Diego, but his parents divorced when he was young and he split his time between California and Wisconsin, spending his summers in Monroe living with his mom. He switched to Monroe High School his sophomore year, seeking freedom from his strict dad, a minister in San Diego. "I really wanted to get out there and go crazy. My mom was a little more lenient," he said.
It was in Monroe that he got into filmmaking. English teacher Deb Schilt, now retired, had recently started the film course McCary took. She remembers him as an exceptional student.
"It was very clear that Dave was already looking at film from the other side of the camera," Schilt said. This was pre-YouTube, and film equipment and editing were "very much a clunky undertaking" for beginners back then, but McCary was "pretty sophisticated. I'm not at all surprised he's in the profession."
McCary's love for comedy has deeper roots.
"My mom was actually really into standup specials and watching comedy in general. She's a big laugher," he said. She also had a knack for hamming it up. At age 10, he remembers he and his mom putting soapy rags on their feet and dancing around the kitchen to wash the floors.
Around the same time, in grade school in San Diego, McCary became best friends with Mooney. He remembers them lying on the living room floor together in sixth grade, watching old Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Will Farrell videos. They were obsessed even then with SNL.
'Keep making funny videos'
Fast-forward a decade, and the same friends started making and posting funny videos to YouTube. They committed "pretty hard" to it, McCary said, inspired by The Lonely Island, another sketch comedy group later hired by SNL after gaining followers on YouTube.
"They kind of paved the way for us," he said. Good Neighbor started getting noticed, too. Steven Spielberg saw their parody of "Hook" and sent them an email that McCary can quote verbatim to this day: "We just howled with laughter. Keep making funny videos."
Working together as friends first and artists second forms the work the Good Neighbor guys do.
"It's genuinely friends making each other laugh, not writing things that are trying to get a huge audience," he said. They find inspiration by "searching the depths of YouTube" for unintentionally funny amateur videos - clumsy sports talk shows, teens filming themselves goofing off, guys asking their girlfriends to prom - anything that is uncomfortable, authentic, hilarious and ultimately "endearing."
"We're very inspired by found footage and authentic moments, as opposed to manufactured comedy," he said.
Eventually, McCary wants to come back to Monroe to film a feature-length movie, loosely based on his upbringing and early obsession with baseball. Talking about it takes him back to the time he spent growing up at the Goetz Theatre, in the parks and going to the Suisse Haus every week with his grandma.
Monroe "will always hold a place in my heart as a very endearing spot to me," he said.
At the time, in the early 2000s, filmmaking as a career wasn't on his radar. Mrs. Schilt's daughter was.
"I really got into it because I wanted to impress my girlfriend's mother," said McCary, 28 years old and a 2003 Monroe High graduate.
He channeled his desire to impress into a 30-minute buddy-cop flick called "The Blind Detective," shot in part at the Monroe Police Department and starring himself and a friend as detectives. They even got a real cop to make a cameo and say one line.
"It was just ridiculous," he reflected in a recent interview from his East Village apartment, where he's getting settled after moving from Los Angeles to join SNL in New York. "There was nothing innovative about that video."
A decade later, a copy of "The Blind Detective" is likely tucked deep in storage in his mother Vicki Phillips' garage in Monroe.
And the girl he was trying to impress? Stopped being his girlfriend long ago.
But directing movies stuck. Earlier this fall, SNL hired McCary and two other members of the sketch comedy troupe Good Neighbor, which has built up a following since 2006 with funny shorts on YouTube. McCary is working as a segment director, while his friends Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett are in front of the camera.
Tonight, Oct. 26, they'll have their videos air on an SNL episode hosted by Edward Norton.
'High octane'
McCary has had two videos air so far this season: "Miley Sex Tape" and "Beer Pong." In the latter, Mooney and Bennett play imperious fraternity brothers instructing two pledges on the rules of a beer pong game so elaborate no beer gets chugged.
On "Miley Sex Tape," Mooney misses his good chance at sex with singer Miley Cyrus by worrywarting about it to his friends. Cyrus was hosting SNL that week, fresh off her controversial performance at the Video Music Awards, and played herself in the video short.
"We were really pleasantly surprised by how easy she was to work with," McCary said. Cyrus was being "pulled in all sorts of directions" in the hectic week leading up to the live show, but she was a trooper, he added: "Her instincts were always spot on with how to deliver each line. She didn't need much direction. She got it immediately."
Cyrus has been depicted as a young artist at the mercy of opportunistic music executives, but McCary found her to be self-possessed. She's "definitely in charge of conceiving her own musical stuff and the aesthetics of that," he said.
The behind-the-scenes vibe at SNL is "high octane," McCary said. "Very little sleep is had by everybody involved. It's exciting. I've never had that type of workflow before. We've usually sat on videos for weeks if not months after we've filmed them, to regain some perspective. This way of doing it is rapid-fire. I've never experienced that type of adrenaline before. You don't have time to second-guess."
This season's SNL cast includes many new faces, which has made it easier for a newbie like McCary.
"I'm over the moon about everyone," he said. "Everyone's very supportive. It's such a great crop of people who know how tough it is to be there as the new guy."
Comedy roots
McCary was born in San Diego, but his parents divorced when he was young and he split his time between California and Wisconsin, spending his summers in Monroe living with his mom. He switched to Monroe High School his sophomore year, seeking freedom from his strict dad, a minister in San Diego. "I really wanted to get out there and go crazy. My mom was a little more lenient," he said.
It was in Monroe that he got into filmmaking. English teacher Deb Schilt, now retired, had recently started the film course McCary took. She remembers him as an exceptional student.
"It was very clear that Dave was already looking at film from the other side of the camera," Schilt said. This was pre-YouTube, and film equipment and editing were "very much a clunky undertaking" for beginners back then, but McCary was "pretty sophisticated. I'm not at all surprised he's in the profession."
McCary's love for comedy has deeper roots.
"My mom was actually really into standup specials and watching comedy in general. She's a big laugher," he said. She also had a knack for hamming it up. At age 10, he remembers he and his mom putting soapy rags on their feet and dancing around the kitchen to wash the floors.
Around the same time, in grade school in San Diego, McCary became best friends with Mooney. He remembers them lying on the living room floor together in sixth grade, watching old Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Will Farrell videos. They were obsessed even then with SNL.
'Keep making funny videos'
Fast-forward a decade, and the same friends started making and posting funny videos to YouTube. They committed "pretty hard" to it, McCary said, inspired by The Lonely Island, another sketch comedy group later hired by SNL after gaining followers on YouTube.
"They kind of paved the way for us," he said. Good Neighbor started getting noticed, too. Steven Spielberg saw their parody of "Hook" and sent them an email that McCary can quote verbatim to this day: "We just howled with laughter. Keep making funny videos."
Working together as friends first and artists second forms the work the Good Neighbor guys do.
"It's genuinely friends making each other laugh, not writing things that are trying to get a huge audience," he said. They find inspiration by "searching the depths of YouTube" for unintentionally funny amateur videos - clumsy sports talk shows, teens filming themselves goofing off, guys asking their girlfriends to prom - anything that is uncomfortable, authentic, hilarious and ultimately "endearing."
"We're very inspired by found footage and authentic moments, as opposed to manufactured comedy," he said.
Eventually, McCary wants to come back to Monroe to film a feature-length movie, loosely based on his upbringing and early obsession with baseball. Talking about it takes him back to the time he spent growing up at the Goetz Theatre, in the parks and going to the Suisse Haus every week with his grandma.
Monroe "will always hold a place in my heart as a very endearing spot to me," he said.