Feb 4, 2022

Devon Ferguson – Film Director and Expert Laugher

I saw that you had @kingbach in your comedy sketch “Stakeout”. Who reached out to who?

Crazy story actually. I learned about him by scrolling through youtube and pretty much thought the guy was hilarious after watching his ‘fences parody’ where he plays Denzel Washington. (he nails it!) After that I started following him and about a year went by until I realized he was in town filming a movie so I thought to myself ‘wouldn’t it be crazy if I reached out to him to see if he needed any help filming sketches while in town’ (it’s important to know that at this time he had like 20 million insta followers at this point) but that didn’t stop me…. I slid into those DM’s and to my surprise he got back to me 20 minutes later. We planned to meet up at a Tim Horton’s (which if you don’t know is the most Canadian place on earth) and Voila! I pitched him a few sketches and his answer was ‘great can we shoot it tomorrow?’ I had nothing written but confidently said ‘of course’. He was great to work with and I ended up shooting a couple of sketches with him over the next few days. I had a blast and am hoping we can work together again soon.

Is there a formula to comedy sketches?

Kinda – Premise, escalation, escalation, twist. (Brent Forrester, a comedy writer for the Simpsons teaches this and I think it works great!)

The best advice you’ve gotten about your craft?

Become a Writer.(instead of just being a director)

What do you think about SNL in 2021?

I haven’t watched it lately but the sketch show ‘I think you should leave now’ is probably the best thing on Netflix. (The writers from that show are ex SNL writers I believe)

Are you involved in the editing process?

Yes, I usually edit everything I shoot. Not because I want to, it’s mostly because I have no one else to do it and zero budget to hire someone good.

Does the way you cut a video important to the way it’s received?

In comedy, editing is a huge part of a video’s success. The timing of a ‘look’ or a ‘beat’ can be the difference between ‘meh’ or ‘haha’.

A celebrity you’d love to collaborate with?

I’d love to work with Vince Vaughn on anything… he’s just funny and my favorite flick of all time is Swingers and Wedding Crashers.

You do a lot of commercial shorts, where the acting and directing is spot on, have you ever dreamt of doing super bowl ads?

Yes. In fact, I was invited to the Superbowl in 2015 after my entry ‘Selfish Sneezers’ became a finalist for the ‘Doritos Crash The Superbowl’ contest. All Ten finalists were flown in from around the globe to watch the game from the Pepsi box at the stadium. One lucky person got their commercial aired and made 1 million bucks. I didn’t win but it was an amazing trip!

Stanley Kubrick once said, “Some of the most spectacular examples of film art, if you leave content out of it, are in the best TV commercials”. Do you think this is true?

Commercials have such a short window to try and tell a story or make you laugh that when it’s done well, I do believe it can be more memorable or have more of an impact than long form content. But, making a good movie is still much harder than 30 sec. commercial. I would imagine.

Which is more important, visuals or story?

Story for me.

Where do you get your ideas?

Watching commercial spots that inspire me or just make me laugh is a really good place to start. Sometimes a really funny scencerio or tag for a brand will come to me and I’ll build a spec spot around that. I’ll start with the ending and then figure out what I need before it, to have it pay off the most.

Who finds the actors?

Most of my experience comes from making Spec. Commercials or contest Commercials. I’m not used to having budgets for casting sessions so my spots are usually filled with friends that are actors or people in the acting community I think are really funny.