2006 | PILLOW FIGHTER | CLIENT: MTV2

Emerging Talent No. 14: Waverly Films
Waverly Films is a Brooklyn-based filmmaking collective whose six core members met at New York University’s film school and named their group after a nearby diner. Ben Dickinson, Christopher Ford, Jeff Kaplan, Jake Schreier, Duncan Skiles and Jon Watts create short movies, internet virals, television spots and shows together as Waverly Films (and separately as well). Members’ portfolios include clients like MTV, VH1, McDonald’s, Heinz Ketchup, Sprite and musical artists such as The Rapture, Fatboy Slim, Death Cab for Cutie and TV on the Radio. Recent Waverly Films projects have included work for Burger King, ESPN, Trident and Reebok.

“We formed the group to continue working on each other’s projects and started a website in the early days of online video,” says Ford. Soon after joining forces, they self-financed a music video that garnered a lot of interest at ResFest, then North America’s most prominent digital film festival. This led to other music videos and eventually to commercials. Instead of producing work through an existing production company, the filmmakers found they could get a lot more done by forming their own company and producing themselves.

“They’re like a weird, low-fi cocktail of Funny or Die meets SCTV that’s building its own fan base,” says Tim Roper, VP/CD, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. “To use a cliché, they’re just scrappy. They’re clearly using whatever resources they have at hand. If you watch all their Clips of the Week on WaverlyFilms.com">, you can piece together every square inch of Chris’ apartment.”

Waverly Films’ work is decidedly un-slick. “Our work is kind of about going for a cinematic feature-film approach without using big budgets,” explains Ford. “The result is a unique sensibility that has the warmth and fun of something homemade, but with an energy and life that low-budget projects tend to lack.” Waverly Films revels in the low-budget look, making it part of the joke. “Even if we’d had big money to shoot something with more cranes and explosions,” Ford adds, “we would also find ourselves messing around with a camcorder and puppets made out of garbage.”

These are seriously funny people doing work that’s unexpected and more than a little bit wacky. G4TV.com"> called them “today’s Kings of Dot Comedy.” From the beginning, Waverly Films posted weekly clips to their website. These clips and shorts can also be found on YouTube, where Waverly Films was nominated for Best Web Series of 2007 and won YouTube’s annual Sketchies contest in 2008. Recently, Waverly Films made a webshow and a horror/comedy pilot for Comedy Central called The Scariest Show on Television. Their goal is to do feature films—horror and comedy—and they’re now working on concepts. “They’re so prolifically goofy ... or goofily prolific. I can’t decide which,” says Roper.
www.waverlyfilms.com