CLUB VIDEO GLOWS UP
CLUB VIDEO is a DIY film festival showcasing experimental comedy shorts from 30+ creators. Launched in 2021 by hosts Micah Phillips (Comedy Central, Disney+, Nickelodeon) and Whitley Watson (John Wick 2, Adult Swim, JFL), Club Video celebrates independent filmmaking and the Brooklyn comedy spirit.
Industry professionals, and first-time filmmakers, adhere to two simple rules: The videos have to be under three minutes and they can’t have been screened anywhere else before.
In Brooklyn, maybe you’ve noticed every other week it seems some cherished place closes, a studio is shuttered, and underground venues (like the late The Glove) are fewer and farther between than pre-pandemic. But there is still life churning under the surface if you know where to look. Club Video, the short-form experimental comedy video festival, made the leap from a dubiously legal after-hours event in a fabrication workshop to a ticketed showcase at a legitimate venue.
On a recent weekend, I donned my (pleather) boots and scoped out “Leather Spaceship” their 11th show, and the second at their new home, Silo, at 90 Scott Ave. Hosts Whitley Watson and Micah Phillips met me as I entered the space about an hour before showtime and chatted about the upgrade as they set up a merch table, putting finishing touches in place.
Asked what prompted the move, Watson said, “The big thing was safety. KLN [the fabrication workshop] is so wonderful and so good, but after a while they were like, ‘I don’t know if we can have this at our business, our place of work.’ There was a bit of a crush sometimes. We kind of got too big to succeed there, and I do think there were too many people towards the end. It got to a point where we were worried about too many people being in the space.”
“So this is great here. And we have eight times the bathroom! That’s a big plus!” she continued. In their previous home, the line to the single shop toilet was indeed a never-ending trail of impatient, fidgeting beer drinkers. I scoped out the spacious bathrooms behind the merch table and an octagonal infinity mirror. “This space is just equipped to have the volume of people we were getting, and we hope it will continue growing.”
From left to right: Whitley Watson, Marshall Louise, Micah Phillips
One of the things I loved about Club Video was the DIY ethos, the heart and drive behind organizing events in spaces that perhaps didn’t have the proper license or paperwork for this or that. Now, on their second screening at Silo, I wondered if changing locations and doing things above the board altered any of that.
“I mean, I think that's what we're kind of experimenting with and how to figure it out,” Watson said. ”We like Silo specifically because they also started as an underground thing, so I think they really understand us. Working with them has been really great. But we've had to experiment a little bit with how to make this still feel the same in spirit, even though it's in a much more professional space.”
Phillips added, “I would say the thing I'm personally bummed out about is that we used to do free beer. We're still getting to know our new host, but we want to see if eventually we can work something out.”
There are no longer buckets of tall boys on ice at Club Video. Beverages could be purchased at the bar, where there was also free help-yourself water and cups, though knowing the crowd, I’m sure at least some people snuck in drinks.
“We're trying to figure out how to bring back some of the stuff like the free beer and the street party, and things like that,” Phillips said. “We're getting comfortable now, so we're gonna try and integrate more of the ambitious stuff that we did before that made it so exciting.”
Coproducer Marshall Louise was still bringing cheeky Usherette energy, her strapbox packed with the usual cigarettes, Zyn, poppers, club video pins, and matchbooks. “We bought sticker paper and matchbooks, but didn't realize until it was too late that they sent us matchbooks with no matches inside! I had to hand-stuff them with matches myself, for two nights in a row.”
She also slyly told me that someone would be hawking weed chocolates to the crowd tonight. Then she turned and joined the rest of the Club Video crew, applauding the Silo bouncer who donned a Club Video T-shirt.
“Are you guys gonna get on the mic and make us laugh?” I asked the hosts.
“That's the goal,” Phillips said. “We always underprepare and then the day comes and we’re like…oh, maybe we should have prepared!” Phillips added with a laugh. “And then we just wing it. We always have at least vague ideas of what we're gonna do.”
“But it's not like, about us.” Watson made sure to tell me. “We're not really trying to make it the Micah and Whitley show here.”
As people arrived and trickled into the space, I asked some of them what they thought of the new home and if they missed the sawdust from KLN. Two first-time audience members, named Emilia and Dustin, told me they only heard of Club Video from a friend who had a film in tonight’s program and weren’t aware of its past life at KLN. “I’m just excited to see new films, and art’s for art’s sake.”
One woman, Julia Desmond, said, “This is so cool. I’m only just in the front door, and my brain’s exploded, it looks incredible!” She tells me that she’s been to many Club Video events at the old space, but this is her first time with work in the lineup. “Congratulations,” I told her. “You finally made it!” Asked whether she knows any of the filmmakers, she said she knows “a lot of the other filmmakers,” including the man to her side, Ibhan Kulkarni, who said, “I love this show, there’s nothing else like it.”
Were there a lot of filmmakers in attendance tonight? Did Club Video attract new people in the new location? Phillips said, “It's been about 50 people we tend to keep bringing back, and then also many new people. I feel like we've had an increase in submissions for the past two or three shows, which is nice. But we try to strike a balance, since we do have a bunch of people who've done the show a lot and we sometimes have to say ‘You've done the show 20 million times, maybe next time.’”
The last time I came to a Club Video show, I felt there was a sort of running gag being used through the videos, with corporate logos and skewering companies. Maybe that was just a coincidence. Would there be any sort of undercurrent to tonight’s lineup?
“We don't see the videos beforehand,” Watson told me. “We pick people and then they make videos.” So she hadn't watched any of the submissions? I asked her, and she confirmed that it was the case.
“Don't you find that is perhaps a little dangerous?” I pushed.
“Yes. I mean, it's very dangerous,” she said.
“So you're saying at some point there might be, I don’t know, minors doing drugs maybe, or naked bodies...”
“Well, yeah, that's gonna happen, definitely. At least in my video, nudity’s happening,” she was quick to reply. “We do find that every time there are themes that happen, which is interesting because it's in the Zeitgeist, or just what's going on with people’s lives. It's nice when you feel like everyone in the community is working on things, talking about what they're doing. It's exciting for me to see it for the first time. Because that's always what we want, to show new stuff. It doesn’t have to be made for this, but it must be brand new.”
In a location more conducive to dancing than a workshop, the music for the evening is handled by Buurpcast, aka Headlong Snipers and DJ Dark Bass. Whitley told me they're good friends. “They're extremely talented and funny, so we brought them in and just said to go absolutely bonkers in here.”
The space was much larger than KLN, and equipped with professional AV equipment—no forklifts here. Club Video now uses the stage back wall of Silo as a screen to project the films on, as well as psychedelic ambience.
I took a place on the side of the theater as Micah and Whitley got up on the mic and threw Marlboro Reds into the audience to hype everyone up. The show was starting.
Most of the films were simply silly and fun, but several japed heavy topics—politics, religion, genocide—with irreverence. A good chunk (maybe almost half) featured animation, and several were produced vertically, one would assume as future social content. Though still raw, I felt like the lineup was more polished than before. The films got big laughs and none landed with a thud, as far as I could tell. Some received raucous cheers at the mere name of the filmmaker on screen before the video even began, with many bringing groups of friends and fans to the event.
At Intermission, Whitley came out in a gimp mask in the name of feminism, chanting “Girl Gimp! Girl Gimp!” The bathrooms and bar bustled with activity, without getting overwhelmed. It was packed. When the second half of the show concluded, the hosts gave the crowd a sendoff with a few parting jokes and a We Love You endscreen as the music turned up.
Now that they’ve made one jump, I asked if they had thought even further ahead. Did they anticipate that this would perhaps even outgrow this space?
“I mean, I feel like not yet, at least, for sure. It's still pretty early here. We grow at a steady pace, but we're still kind of in the same ballpark attendance-wise, as KLN,” Watson said. “...But I don't know. We're always trying to get the word out more and find new ways to tell people about the show. It's still mostly just word of mouth at this point. People think it's a good show and tell more people to come. When we were doing it regularly, it was building quite steadily. Then it was less regular because we couldn’t sustain the increase. So we're hoping to get back on schedule with consistent programming, and that might see it grow a bit more. But as long as we break even, we're happy.”
I asked the hosts what they had been up to outside of Club Video.
“I'm about six pages away from finishing my second comic book.“ Phillips told me. “A lot of authors say that, but it’s true, I promise, I promise! It's happening this year.”
“I've been making some music videos for Matthew Danger Lippman and Star 80, some work with this guy, John Roseboro,” Watson said. “And then I have my own comedy special coming out on October 1st—On YouTube.”
“Oh, my god, that’s huge!” I joked.
“Prestigious DIY, baby.”
Check out Club Video’s site and Instagram for more info and updates
All photos by Sylvea Suydam
Sylvea Suydam is a Brooklyn-based producer, filmmaker, and writer
