What happens when you combine winning comedic chops and a large surplus of free time? For recent U.Va. graduates Josh Luckenbach and Keaton Monger, the answer to that question is one long summer of late nights writing, directing, editing and acting in a feature length film. tableau caught up with the Luckenbach and Monger, who were both members of La Petite Teet, U.Va.'s first and only sketch comedy group on Grounds, for a quick Q&A about their hilarious new film, Cute Kitten Video (Please Watch).
tableau: Tell us a little about the movie.
Monger: Cute Kitten Video is a comedy movie about two high school students and two security officers. The entire movie is all about the jokes.
Luckenbach: [There's] time travel. It seems like a pretty generic plot, but it gets pretty crazy, too. [There are] a lot of cute kittens, too.
tableau: How many cute kittens, would you say?
Monger: Just one, in the title.
tableau: What was the whole movie-making process like?
Monger: It was pretty intense. We filmed almost all of it in two weeks, so we were incredibly tired. We would film all day, and then at the end of the day, we would do pre-production stuff - getting together props and preparing storyboards for the next day of shooting. We wouldn't sleep very much. Then before filming it, we wrote [the script] in two to three weeks.
tableau: What were the biggest obstacles you faced in making the film?
Luckenbach: Time. We knew we were both getting ready to move and had actors that were going away. So, we knew that it was going to be a really rough process. But at the same time, it may not have gotten done any other way. It really forced us to be efficient. [We] still took the time to make it good, but did that as efficiently as possible.
tableau: What type of person do you think would enjoy your movie?
Luckenbach: Most humans.
Monger: I think it ranges a lot. We have a lot of jokes that are really stupid that anyone is going to enjoy - like a 5-year-old would enjoy. Then we have jokes that a teen would like. Then some jokes are so crazily out-there that if you're really into comedy, you're going to like these weird comedy meta-jokes, these jokes about jokes.
Luckenbach: Even the really stupid jokes are so obviously intentionally really stupid, [it] makes them funny, even if you are some idiot, like a 5-year-old. But hopefully, if you are smart and like funny things, you'll also think [they're] funny.
tableau: What are your plans for the film? Where do you hope it takes you?
Luckenbach: We're shooting for film festivals next year. We are not at a stage where we have looked into that a whole bunch, but that's the goal for right now. We're going to send it to pretty much every place possible. We just want to try to get as many people as possible to see it. We think it's going to be really good and really funny.
tableau: If you could do it all again, would do anything differently?
Luckenbach: I was always surprised at how well everything turned out. We always got stuff done, even the parts that seemed like they would be really impossible to do, like getting enough extras there or making the set look good. We were really happy every time. Every time, we said, "Yep, we did that. I don't know how, but we did it."
For more information on the film and to view the trailer, visit cutekittenvideopleasewatch.com.
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