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Hey, here's edition listeners. This is David Kabuka, a producer for The Daily Show. We are back with another exclusive behind the scenes conversation, and I am here talking to David Paul Mayer, the director of The Daily Show. One under.
Move one ready, four move four tank stand by screen screens ready five move five tank ready, dissolved two and dissof.
Thanks so much for leaving the control room to join us. For sure, we are coworkers, colleagues, yes, but we have known each other for ten years. August two thousand and eight, and this is the first time. Wait, firstly, August two thousand and eight, not to interject, Yeah, I wasn't paying attention to the date because you were just some white guy from a marriage.
Yes, I remember it, you don't. I come to Johannesburg, South Africa, August two thousand and eight. I'm doing a documentary about stand up comedy in South Africa from my thesis at the University of Southern California. All of what I just said, you assumed I was lying. You guys were like we don't believe anything that he says, but he does have a camera, so let's see and you're told yes. So that's how I met you, and that's
how I met Trevor. And I realized the last time we sat down and had a recorded interview was when I interviewed you for the documentary, and we used some of that in the documentary and it was quite good, and I was thinking, I'm going to get so much more with this guy. And then when I came back, you were like, no, it's fine. You were like, I give you that one interview and I did get some stuff from it, but you're like, no, forget me, follow Trevor instead. This is essentially what you said to me
at lunch in Johannesburg. I'll never forget it. And in hindsight, I'm so glad I took that advice for both of us.
Yes, you were like, you.
Don't want to follow me, follow Trevor around with your camera, and I did, and then the rest is history.
Now we're back here working at the Daily Show for almost coming to ten years now close eight years. Dave is the director of the Daily Show. I said, now we're here to talk about your journey. Now, firstly, you did not study film as your first that's true, my first discipline. Yeah.
No, I'm from North Carolina, very rural North Carolina. I grew up literally in front of a cornfield. Then I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I got a degree in computer science because I heard there was money there.
But you always love film, I assume I always love the vision.
You always love film and television, especially because where I grew up, Listen, there was a lot of rules around what you could watch and not watch because it was a very conservative area. Yes, so there was always this sort of like, oh, yeah, there's a little danger there. What's on the screen when you're watching soap operas and
tough Yeah, it's crazy that you know that. It was the soap operas, yeah, because those are like You're like, there's gonna be some potentially PG thirteen sex in what I'm watching.
I mean with that, it's almost like, you know, let the soap oper give me this it up. I'll use my imagic Yeah, to fill interest, because it doesn't take much.
It does not take much. It doesn't take much to fill in the gap. So, yes, I did the computer science thing because you know, this is a responsible way to.
Have a career. And it was difficult as well, very difficult. Yeah, but I did well.
And I was working as a software developer at the software company in North Carolina. And then I had support from people I was close to at the time to just kind of like apply to film school. So I applied to the University of Southern California, a famous film school as well.
Well. I went to uscisis some would say the top film school. We have listeners of from old schools, so we don't like too.
Yeah, but I also have to you know, the usc people would expect me to say that, but so I'm we run a business. But yes, and I also understand I am in New York and there's a lot of NYU people there, so respect YU. You don't want people just switching it off now, Yeah, exactly, that's fair.
Fair. So one of the top, one of the tops, I got accepted. I thought it was a mistake. Called them.
They were like, yep, no, you really did get accepted. So yeah, this was two thousand and six, picked up my life, moved to Los Angeles to become a filmmaker. Two thousand and eight, the beginning of my third year there is when I went to South Africa, met you and Trevor.
You meet me and Trevor. He's just here doing a documentary. We don't believe you or not believe you. I mean you have equipment. Yes, I say, I'll give you one interview, but the real star is Trevor obviously. Yes, you follow Trevor. You do a documentary Township to the Stage, Yes, which we then renamed. You laugh, but it's true. But I love that you call it. That's very niche, right, you just said that. Yes, the original name one of those you're one of those g's, Yes, exactly, you laugh, but
it's true. Was the name of it. Yeah, still out there. People can watch it. As someone who's only been doing comedy for just over two years, I think I'm very far from even calling myself a good comedian. I'm just okay for now.
You can watch it on Where's it now? It's everywhere. You can watch it for free on YouTube even Oh really yeah great, so free?
And you hit it? Yeah all right, great, you now form. Trevor's one of your best friends. This is a known fact, and you guys have this wonderful relationship. Yeah. He came he lived with you here. Yes, he asked me to direct his stand up special. You've directed all of them? How many? Like the one I did now in Detroit was the eleventh one eleventh stand up specials? You get you guys have had? He comes to the Daily Show. Then he's like, okay, cool, I gotta call my my boy.
Yeah he called the Two Davids. Yeah, the Two Davids. Is I come through? Come through? And we came through. You come to the Daily Show? You work here as a first because you just start off as a director.
Did not start off as director. I worked in what at the time was called the field department, So I was a field producer. That's where you you know, are those classic Daily Show pieces where the correspondents go out into the field and tell some new story with jokes essentially, And that's where I started because it was actually a perfect position for me, having come from a background off documentary and also doing a lot of comedy videos.
What did you learn or what did you express?
Let's say that that was my exposure to the Daily Show. The culture of the Daily Show, you know, the field and now they call it the packages team. Yes, but that is a very signature part of the daily shows. Fabric and culture, in my opinion, are these field pieces, because these are still things that you don't really see
that prevalently anywhere else. So being thrown into that and working with all these legendary correspondents, yes, and working with a lot of the people here who'd been here for a long time, so like Tim Greenberg and Stu Miller, who both used to work at the show. They were sort of like my mentors when I started, and I really got to learn a lot about like what is directing, what a story telling? What is writing? What does comedy
look like? Encapsulated into this thing where you also have to be the producer and the director, you have to learn how to work with all the other departments, You have to get to know everybody. It really gave me like a grasp, which I always believe, like with filmmaking, same thing with the documentary on Trevor, I was the
director and the prouser. I did everything from asked Trevor questions for the documentary to booking the flights and the car rentals, and so it kind of taught me everything about creating good art or content whatever you want to call it.
For this show. Yes, and just a question that popped into my mind. You were a huge fan of The Daily Show? Huge fan?
Oh my goodness, A massive fan, A massive fan like I. When I was an undergrad doing computer science at NC State University, Go Wolfpack Cool. Ninety nine freshman year, a
man called John Stewart took over the Daily Show. And remember, I'm coming from the conservative, rural North Carolina world that I came from, where TV and all these things are dangerous, and here's this guy on television telling jokes, poking holes in just like the whole like world that I had been brought up in, and like exposing the bullshit to use his term, And I was immediately compelled. I was a fan from the beginning, watching it in my dorm room.
And then I remember where I was nine to eleven, and I remember seeing John. You know, I know that's he's not telling jokes there, but look we all remember his what he said. Yeah, we were watching it, and I was just like, man, this guy is the best. And I just like, I watched it every night. And then you know, Obama got elected and I was like, well, all our problems are over, so everything is solved. So
I don't need to watch The Daily Show anymore. John, we don't have there's nothing more to talk about, right, And in fact, the Daily Show and John talking about comedy as catharsis was kind of like a through line that inspired me while I was making the documentary in South Africa, because obviously the parallel there was during a part time you didn't have comedians of color on stage, weren't black comedians on stage, and now that it had ended and you'd only had comedians on stage for like
twelve years, maybe at that point when I came there was still very much this like cathartic through line of like we joke about all this heavy shit that happened in our history, and like that was informed, I would say, from watching The Daily Show and seeing oh, how you take comedy from tragedy these ideas like that, how does that work? And then on that trip in two thousand and eight, I said to Trevor, you know, I watched the show The Daily Show. You should watch you. She's like, oh, yeah,
I've heard of it. I was like, nah, dude, you should watch it. I think you'd really like it. This is in two thousand first time we met. I was like you should watch the Daily Show, so imagine the full circle moment coming here. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy, it's unbelievable. It's crazy. It's truly unbelievable. I'll never win a lottery or anything like that because those series of events that led to this is the thing, you know what I mean. The Daily Show very formative for me,
working in the field team, very formative to me. Eventually moved into segment directing, which all that really meant was like I directed a lot of the scripted stuff, the sketches and things like that, and then the whole thing with the pandemic happening.
That's an interesting point, was you sort of took the helm, let's say, or eased your way into it, into being the director. Yes, during the pandemic, And a large part of it had to do with your computer science background.
Computer science, my history with Trevor, my history making the document. All of these things that we've been speaking about led up to the moment where it's like, okay, pandemic, everything's shut down. We have no studio, we have no cameras, we have no audio, we have nothing. We have no way to make a television show. But Trevor from working with me and seeing the stuff that we had done just the two of them. He's like, well, you used to make the stuff when it was just you. Do
you think you could do that in my house? Because I've known you at this point that was, you know, twelve years. I trust you in my home. Yes, would you be willing to help me make this show from my home? And I was like, yeah, of course, buddy,
like this, we've been doing that. That is our history, and so we know each other, we have all the shorthand, so just that the sort of the one man banding it with Trevor that I had been doing for so long on so many projects, because we did not just stand up specials, but we did our own little sketch comedy stuff and all that stuff before I came to the show. All our history was what allowed us to work with him at his home and make the show from his home with just iPhones essentially, which I was.
Fortunate enough to have been there basically as your assistant. Yeah, and I really saw how good you are with you with technology. I was like, completely amazed by your skill. It's quite mind blowing. So the pandemic happens, you make it one man banding. Yeah, I really it was.
Two man banding because we were there. You just teld me to do stuff, go and get it. Yes, no, I mean yeah, maybe a little bit. Push this button here, okay, fine, hold this light. Yeah yeah, our in our little COVID bubble together. We shot that show for two years like that. Yes, with a team obviously, you know, coming in the zoo. Yes, if you zoom and we'd send the footage out. Chris Trevor had the best internet in the world. Yes, all right,
we just need to take a short break. We'll be right back, ready.
To dissolve, forma CG one and move forward. Dissolve. If you had to do a career day, yes, you know, and you go to the children, and then you have to explain what a director of the Daily show does. That's good. What would you say?
So?
I always think of my days kind of split up in the upstairs portion of my day and the downstairs portion of my day. Upstairs, we have writers, we have producers coming up with the creative. It always starts with the script, right, it starts, well, I guess at the show, it starts with the news of the day, the meeting where everybody's sitting around watching the news together, cracking jokes, a lot of free flowing creativity gems being thrown out, kind of like what's happening right here?
Like what's happening yet? Dropping podcast gems podcast.
So I'm maybe running like an hour and a half after the initial sort of creative meeting, and the writing starts maybe an hour and a half after that. Things start to come up. Hey, they want to have a conversation with the host and a correspondent. The host is at the desk, the correspondent is in Washington, d C. So we have a green screen in our studio that allows us to place the correspondent anywhere in the world. The magic of television, magic of television, and surprising, not surprisingly,
this is a very funny person. By the way, guys, don't be fooled. Yeah, compared to now where I'm boring as shit. No, no, no, usually really pretty funny. No.
The thing I want to say, the reason I'm saying that i'm a professional word, the reason I'm saying you're laying you're setting that I get it is because one thing I think that makes you so great with comedians. Yes, you yourself are a funny person. Fair enough and so to be in this you have your very intelligent that we know, but your sense of humor is what makes you makes you understand, at least from my own point of view, you like get it.
Yes, and I think I'm always trying to think visually, how can I execute this thing on the page visually in a funny way. Yes, that's always coming in. How do I talk to the to the producers making sure that we have those visuals. What are those conversations like of terms of like what would be a funny way to present this person in Washington, d C. Yes, we're always thinking about those in terms of the imagery of it for the show. Absolutely, there's a meeting. We look
at the news. We then we sort of put the script together. You come in, you look at the script and turn this this script of words into a visual experience. Yes, so that starts off with a meeting with the show run and some of the other producers who work on the show from different apartments. This producer deals with the team that works on graphics. This is the producer who deals with like, we need a clip from Washington, DC that we can use as the background so it looks
like they're there or whatever. This is the person who's the art director, who does props and wardrobe. If there's a bit with like we had a bit with Ronnie Chang where we had to get a stunt coordinator in here so that he could sit on this guy's shoulders and wear a big trench coat, the old trench code trick. What's your take on ron Desanta's using lists.
I think it's pathetic.
Charlamagne, all right, ron de Sanda doesn't needs to stop trying to pretend that he's one of us naturally tall guys.
Ronnie, what the hell are you doing?
Man?
Oh, you want to do some something. No, I've always been this tall.
People just think I'm short because I'm sweet and saut polkan, but I'm actually six ' eight. Just that one bit, it's like Ronnie's made to look by doing the trench code bit. There's a lot of pieces just to that. So it's like you got to be like, how are.
We going to do that?
Is he's sitting on a ladder, he's sitting a stool. No, let's get a stunt coordinator so it really looks like he's a weirdly tall person. All these conversations all happening at once, and you have to learn how to multitask, yes, and you have to learn to talk about a whole bunch of different people, and you have to really, in my opinion, learn to help empower them to do the thing.
It's not about you doing all those things. It's about you having communicating and same paging a lot of people honestly, yes, and then letting them run with those things. And then you know, it all comes together and we get to execute the script and then I get to put director on it and like take credit for all these other people's hard work.
But wait, but it's a joke. But like the show is the full staff, Yes, it really is. Meeting one, we come up with the script for the listeners out this simple We do this script Meeting two, you and the show run and a hold on departments. Turn this script that is still being written, by the way, Yes, you turn this script into a visual experience. Ben, you go with downstairs. So that was all upstairs talks. Now
now we're going downstairs. Now I go into the control room, yes, And I go into the studio floor and that's where the crew is. And we have the best crew in the business bar. None every position are highly trained specialists. We're also very funny people, by the way, and great at everything from shooting the perfect shot, lighting the perfect shot, making sure the audio is perfect on the shot. And it's like, all right, here's the script with all these
visual elements we've discussed downstairs. Let's start looking at them, Let's start rehearsing them, blocking them. Making blocking just means like let's do the thing, not for real, but like let's practice it, practice it. Essentially, let's practice this stuff, practice practice. Let's communicate all these things. And so they're all working.
All the people out on the studio floor, camera operators, lighting audio, all the people in the audio room, all the people in the control room, the guy operating the switcher that's switching between cameras, the teleprompter, the person who's hitting making sure that the graphics are being hit at the time that they need to be hit based on me queueing them to hit it. Yes, we're all working together. Now we have the script and we start practicing this stuff.
Matt on your one, two, three fourth shot, I like how you start with the audience, but then you need to come around the other way. If you come around then I think you'll be out of phil shot. That's the other reason not to get to stay back there. Okay, I'm ready to do one more. Is anybody what George? You had something?
I was just telling you that. We asked for people and Benny to care, but they moved like the upright part of the mic standoff to the side so that it booms a little wait, you know, just on the straight on. It's not like a line through.
It looks good.
So you start practicing. Then we have a rehearsal.
Yeah, we do the rehearsal and we go through all that stuff that the script, the visual elements, the practicing of it comes together in rehearsal. We look, we see it. We're all sort of doing a run through of the show together to see how how does this feel? How does this feel?
Road track moved to insert the ots.
Yes, change across the country and Democrats had been more nervous than Justice standby with Sound's memoir.
Well, last night they got some good news. Tech. I thought that opened looked good.
I think Jet My only wonders if you want to once you get all the way across, if you want to move and we get a feeling for it, and then obviously writers then have their process where they go and work on the script of the host, and we also rework our stuff too.
Oh that shot didn't work. It's funnier if we cut from this camera to this camera.
Actually a lot of it's technical, but also a lot of it's creative, you know, Like we had a thing where Ronnie was on location somewhere and then we wanted to change the background to an American flag waving with music playing. That's a comedic thing, but and it seems like, oh, that'll just be funny, but it's like, no, how long is that transition? How long is the fade from where he was standing to the flag coming up to the music? You know, it's just be a half second, one second,
three second. We try to figure out what's the best way to make sure that visually we're executing the bits so that it is as funny and as impactful as possible. So we're continuing that as the script is being rewritten. Sometimes new things come up that haven't even been on the show, and then you just kind of have to like trust that, like doing this every single day makes you in a place where you can roll with these
last minute changes, you know what I mean. So, like as they come up, it's like, you know what, they had to kill that story and add this one.
What's in it?
Okay, this graphic of this, Oh, they're gonna do this, And a lot of times we're like, let's get it the best way. We're not gonna have trance to rehearse it. It's just going to be performed for the first time in the show. But there's patterns of like how you prepare and how you practice that make you able to roll with the changes when the show is actually happening. What are you doing I'm eight years old. When the show is actually happening, what are you doing? So again,
we have thirtyish people on the show. Each one is rare to do their job and they do it better than anybody else in the business. But they need someone queueing them or telling you basically go go go. So in a lot of ways during the show, I'm queuing, so I'm saying ready camera two, Take camera two, which means ready camera two, you're about to be We're about to be using your camera shot. And then when I say take camera two, that means punch the button that
puts his camera online. You're sort of like a coach colling place. Yes, I'm like the quarterback calling the plays. Now, you know blue fifty two, hut hut top your stuff.
The problem change stand by loose.
The problem is actually the phrase pro.
Life animate off center, Ready effects move, Let's go live to.
The Ohio State House with Grace Coolie. Ready boxes take. So do you have a visual idea of what the script is? Yes, I'm iving your mind very much, so, very much.
So. What I've learned with with with directing is you have to trust the image in your head. Okay, you have to see the thing playing out in your head, and you have to, as best you can in the moment, execute that thing that's in your head.
You have to be very.
Present to your own sensibility of comedy to execute it at the time, but also be present to the sensibility of the host who's performing it. So I had the shorthand with Trevor. I've done a specials, I've edited his comedy.
I've done all of that so much.
And the key to doing all of this is you really once you're doing the show, now, taping the show in front of a studio audience, the key is we follow the host's lead.
Yes, and that's what I do.
I follow the host's lead. And by doing that with fIF you know, for so many years with Trevor, it became very easy, came second nature. Now we have hosts coming in every week who have their own history, have their own background in comedy or whatever, who have their
own style of performing and very little time. So the big way my job has changed from when Trevor was on the show to these guests host is now I have a very small amount of time to try to get in because you're following your own sensibilities, but even more so, you're following the host's sensibility and their performance and their rhythm. And how do I wrap my head around the host's performance style to make sure that we're hitting the jokes in the way that feels true to the host.
Right. So that's this challenge.
And before we started doing the guest host Jen had the idea of, like, let's break down all of our processes through the day and really rethink what we do, when we do it and why we do it. And one of the things that came out of it was we should do a run through at the beginning of the week in the studio where we have a test script where we kind of go through all the examples of all the different visual things that we can do on the show. We put it into a test script.
We have this person who's there for a week come down and run through it in the studio, and it's only maybe thirty forty five minutes, but it really gives me like a heads up. It gives me a feel of, oh, this is how they are. This is how they retele aprompter, this is how they look, this is how they smile, this is how they move their body or whatever to
make a punctuline. I start studying and absorbing, and really a lot of it is shutting up and listening and watching and observing the host and then taking that into the rest of the week.
Also, a wonderful thing we do is we do music. Yes, you know, which is which doesn't seem like an obvious quote unquote fit for a political satire show, right, But every now and then we get we get a musical performance, and you really have taken those to another level. Didn't Brandy Carlisle get some nomination?
We got a nomination, I got a Director's Guild nomination off of the episode where she came and did a performance of the music.
Yes, So I mean so you know and music is close to your heart. Yes, So how do you tackle that?
So music is a beautiful thing, and like, yeah, it doesn't necessarily make sense when you think New satire, but when you think Late Night, which we're kind of both, it does make sense sometime. It's like a fun thing. Especially if the guests that you have on is a musician, then it kind of makes sense. Yeah, let's have him
perform the song. So the thing that I love about doing mus us because it does give me a different experience from the general day to day of making the show, and that is we get to collaborate with artists outside the show, and each artist is different. Some of them are kind of like they're just like I'm going to perform the song like this and that's it. Whatever the
visuals are, that's fine. In the case of Margot Price, she had some ideas and so I took that and then I pitched to her some visuals and she was like, yeah, I love it. I did have one pitch because I watched the live performance of it that you did at the church. There was a moment and if I think it's actually the last lyric you looked into the camera, okay, And so I'm pitching that as like at some point in that line for you to feel it, it would
be the one that's pretty much right in front of you. Benny, our stage manager who's on the floor, will show you. But that's I'm just pitching like if you feel it, like look into the camera for that line. You're working with artists and their teams, and then I'm working a lot with our assistant director Adrian to break down the song so that we're sort of counting out the song, the rhythm of the song as I'm directing, So there's sort of like we're kind of singing in the control
room almost as I'm queuing cameras. In a way, there's like a cadence to it, right because on the one hand, the one is sort of your following a script and you're just sort of like hitting making sure you're hitting the jokes that had already written with the music. You really get to sort of delve into a lot of My background in filmmaking was in like narrative filmmaking, working
on set, not necessarily in a control room. This lets me do a little bit of that, and that I'm sort of sitting down, I'm watching this song I'm writing. I'm coming up with a shot list beforehand, based on a creative pitch for it. I work with our lighting designer George a lot on those, and we come up with We get to have these creative conversations about how do we want to show this song being performed? What's the lighting, what's the imagery?
So what I'll do is I won't bring up the key lights there. I'll wait till it until she starts singing reading the key lights, and now lights go. The second HUO that I had was bringing up those beams behind her she started singing.
But if you want all that to come up when you starts singing, I would say, actually, because she's gonna do harmonica at the top.
Yeah, I guess we have to have her lit somewhat so we see what's going on? Should we try another run through? Here? Does she want to do one?
All?
Right?
Here we go, Okay, let's go to Silhwett please and stand by lights.
It's its whole separate thing. And then you're working with the with the artists and their team and you're working with the camera operators, and it's it's all very compressed into a very tight timeline, and you're already trying to make the rest of the show on the same day. So it's definitely like a special sort of deviation. But I love it because it unlocks even more creativity. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been David Pool Maya, thank you, he's cold. He got a nickname when he got your
DPM DPM if one calds him depa. They were like, that's too many words. It's a little too extra. You go and buy three names. So we're going to shorten agen our showrunner game yet and it has stuck better than any nickname I've ever had.
DPNPM and I will say that you are a perfect, perfect director for a show called The Daily Show. That's very kind of you, David, And it was a pleasure sitting with you. Thank you, wonderful pleasure.
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