Jon, was the idea always for you to be the sole director on Portlandia?
Krisel: It’s only episodic TV that has a bunch of directors. I never really thought of it like, “I’m going to be the only guy directing.” The three of us write it together, we rewrite on set, the editing is really important—it’s more like a craft project.
Kyle, you and the three stars of Workaholics started out together with the web series/sketch group Mail Order Comedy, but while you sometimes act in the show, you’re much more behind-the-scenes now. Why?
Newacheck: That was my goal: the editing, the directing and the producing. The acting is more of a skill for me as a comedic director than it is a skill that I exercise because I like acting. I act because I like to improv with my buddies, but I also like to know what it’s like on that side of the lens.
Do you write all the episodes before you start filming?
Krisel: We write everything ahead of time, but then you’re constantly rewriting—but it’s nice to go in with a little bit of a blueprint of what you’re going to do. You can’t wing it.
Newacheck: We gotta have that blueprint. I don’t direct every single episode like you, so we gotta have the directors that can carry it out, too.
Have you ever had an outside director on Portlandia?
Jonathan Krisel speaks at the “Portlandia” season 5 premiere in L.A., Jan. 5, 2015. Matt Sayles/AP
Krisel: This season we have two for the first time. I started working on another show [Man Seeking Woman, Jay Baruchel’s show for FXX that also premieres Jan. 14], so I had to leave for the last two episodes.
Newacheck: Busted! You abandoned them, bro.
Krisel: I wanted to make sure it didn’t feel like that, so I brought on people who were friends of the show.
Kyle, you’ve done some directing on other TV shows. When you do that, do you feel like you’re able to put your imprint on it or are you just fulfilling a role?
Newacheck: There are different directorial responsibilities on different shows. You figure out where to put your best swings in. With Parks & Rec, that show is its own style, you’re just working on the comedy. But then on a show like Community, that is more about the directorial approach—they go on these genre missions pretty much every episode, so that one was more challenging technically. Happy Endings was right in the middle.
Jon, have people approached you about doing stuff like that?
Krisel: A little bit. They’ve never seemed that enticing. I always felt like I wouldn’t know what to do. I’ve done commercials where it’s like, “Do they even need me here? I’m trying to give suggestions, but…”
Newacheck: It’s super frustrating. I did a pilot for NBC and holy smokes, it was the worst experience ever. They brought me in to direct it, so I didn’t do much in the development of the show except for casting. I couldn’t believe the amount of people that sat around the table and discussed the project. There had to have been 20 people at every single high-up creative meeting—I sit in a room with four guys, and that’s hard enough to make it funny. I don’t think I’ll do it again unless it gets really crazy and I need the money.
You guys are both entering your shows’ fifth season, do you feel like you’ve gotten more ambitious as it’s gone on?
Newacheck: Yes, we’re always raising the bar. Right now I’m visually breaking the episode where the dudes take peyote. It’s a total mindfuck and it’s really a fun process trying to make these tricks and optical illusion—and to do a lot of them practically, not just relying on the digital aspect of, “We’ll just put some shit in here.”
Krisel: The format of the show has morphed into this more narrative season, so there’s definitely more emphasis on storytelling. Usually we have an idea that kind of tells a story over three sketches, but now each episode this whole season has a single narrative. The ambition for me is keeping it as funny as possible and keeping the style of the show the same, but expanding it to tell a little story that’s just a fun journey to go on with these characters that you’ve gotten to know over these last four seasons.
When you started doing these shows, did you feel like you knew what you were doing or were you totally making it up as you went?
Newacheck: When I first started Workaholics, I was still living in the house we were shooting it in. I was living with the dudes, so it was like we were living this show. Nobody could have made the show except for me, but I didn’t know what I was doing.
Krisel: You have a vision of what it could be, then you start realizing what the look and feel and tone is as you go along. When you make a pilot, you’ve never seen the show before, you don’t know what it is.
Over time, you’ve both created this very strange but very specific sense of a place, plus an expanding world within it. Was that something you set out to do or is that something that has developed over time?
Krisel: That was definitely part of naming the show Portlandia—it was going to be about this city and they’re going to play all the characters in it. This season is the first season where we’re going to tell stories about it. I kept bringing in this video of Tales of the City, the PBS series, to see how we can make our show more like it. I’d watch it and be like, “I have no idea,” but that was kind of what we did this season. We have this rich depth of weirdos.
Newacheck: None of us have ever even been to Rancho Cucamonga, other than driving through it on the way to Big Bear or out to the desert or something. We were making a show about Van Nuys, because that’s where we lived, and then we just changed it to Rancho Cucamonga because it was a funnier name.
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