Epic Magazine

Jeph Porter is a comedy director in the same way Winston Churchill was a public speaker: it’s something that comes so intrinsically that it’s often hard to tell just how easily it comes to them. I’ve known Jeph since college and was interested to see his new venture, directing his friends in the comedy troupe Lady Parts who have a webseries on Blip Tv. The series is all over the place in terms of influences and well worth a watch. I interviewed Jeph regarding the show. He’s a real class act.

EPIC: Lady Parts. Did you guys pick the name to look good on a flyer or what?
JEPH PORTER: Yeah, I’m not going to pretend it has any deep significance or anything. The name came about purely as a way to get people’s attention. I attribute it to 99% of our success. The other 1% is definitely NOT Justin Howard.

Tell us about the start of the group.
I had done a web show once before with Justin and Dane called The Dirty Cricket Show that was literally shot in my apartment in a day. It wasn’t much more than an experiment to see if we could get something on the web but it was fun. In the year and a half that elapsed before we started Lady Parts a few things came together. One: Justin had begun to take classes at the Annoyance Theater in Chicago and was really developing as an actor. When we did the Dirty Cricket Show I think it was literally his first time acting. He had been bugging for sometime to “do something creative again”. Also my brother’s girlfriend, Leslie Baird another member of Lady Parts was in Chicago for the summer and was interested in working on some sort of project to complete her theater training for school back in Alabama. She kept telling me to “let her know” if I had anything. I was also interested in getting a project going and was exploring options when I started working with Jessica Christopher and Jayme Joyce of Joone Studios in Wicker Park. They where in the midst of filming their own webshow - Wet Dream (not pornography unfortunately). I came on and helped them a few days and we started talking about the idea of doing some sort of live show at their studio space. So yeah all these factors where going on and eventually it all came together when I summoned Leslie and Justin together one night at his place to talk about some ideas. I had managed to fill a notebook with little skit ideas and when we got together and improved some of them out we sort of figured out we could make this work as a group. It was like a month later we’d filmed a handful of skits and came up with another handful to do live. We did out first show on Sept. 25th 2009 at Joone Studios to a packed house.

As an transplant to LA, what’s different out there than in the midwest?
What is most interesting to me about the west coast is the parts that are the same as the midwest. This area of the world is probably more media soaked than anywhere else. And for a generation that grew up on MTV and reality shows I feel like I’m practically at home out here. But when you see, say, a Target store thats the same layout as the one back in your hometown? That freaks me out.

Comedy influences?
I’ve just always been attracted the the comedic value of the taboo. It’s funny to me when people place importance on stuff. I guess I’ve always been that kid who wants to freak everyone out by saying the worst thing possible at the worst time possible. Andy Kaufman, The Daily Show, Mr Show… those are all big influences.

Can unfunny influences transfer to comedy? Your shooting style is more cinematic than regular sketch comedy.
They totally can. One of the biggest difference between what we’re doing with sketch comedy and what is normally out there is our emphasis on style and quality of the finished product. We shoot on the Canon 5d Mark II which makes such a beautiful image that it’s hard not to doll it up. But it was a conscious decision to try and make the quality of the footage top notch. I work with an amazing DP, Corey Powers and we’re both highly influenced by traditional cinema. Terry Gilliam is a big one (it’s probably that Monty Python connection) as well as work by Alfonso Cuarón and P.T. Anderson. All three filmmakers that I respect and admire and who’s influence can’t help but bleed into my work.

What are some unfunny influences to your shooting style / the troupe?
Might sound weird, but Kafka and Bret Easton Ellis. Alan Moore (wrote The Watchmen, V For Vendetta), and Gilligan’s Island, too.

We’ve had a terrible election that tore the country apart. So, funniest U.S politician.
 I’ve certainly laughed more at George W than any other president but I have this sinking suspicion that Reagan was a pretty funny guy too.

What’s next for Lady Parts? What’s next for you?
Lady Parts is looking into continuing to do some live shows in Chicago and eventually a second series of the webshow if all goes well. We’re trying to keep the momentum going basically. For me  - I’ll be working on Lady Parts and hopefully getting some other projects going. My company Dirty Cricket is currently developing a few projects that may or may not see the light of day. Hopefully you’ll get to see some of that sooner than later!

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Photo by Ian Broyles for Epic Magazine.

(Source: epicmag.co)