In a move described by his producer as "poorly thought out", New
Zealand's favourite satirist, White Man Behind A Desk, has decided
to mock all the people who could give him a job.
The WMBAD team is creating a new video to mock the funding
models of New Zealand's private media companies, as well as the
strange Staliny way in which our government funds content project
by project.
In unrelated news, we're in need of some funding. If you want to
join this project and help us take on the people that control all
the money, then we'd be extremely grateful. It costs us two grand
to research, write, perform, record, edit, and release a
video.
And if we don't hit our target, we'll politely shut up and follow
the more conventional method of surviving a job in the media -
writing hot takes about reality TV or bicycle lanes, but we hope it
doesn't come to that.
***
THE TEAM:
PRESENTER:
Robbie Nicol is the co-creator of numerous webseries, including
The Candle Wasters' Bright Summer Night, Happy Playland, and
Tragicomic, as well as his own White Man Behind A Desk, for which
he won Best Web Show at the 2015 NZ Web Fest. Nicol won Best
Newcomer - Wellington at the New Zealand International Comedy
Festival 2017, and was honoured to become SPADA's New Filmmaker of
the Year with the rest of The Candle Wasters that same year.
WRITER:
Finnius Teppett has been the head writer of White Man Behind A
Desk with Robbie Nicol since 2016, co-writing every monologue and
live show. He graduated from the IIML in 2016 with an MA in
Creative Writing (Scriptwriting), receiving the Michael Hirschfeld
scholarship. His play My Dad's Boy was awarded 'Highly Commended'
for the 2016 Adam NZ Play Award. He recently directed his first
short film, Democracy, with support from NZFC's 'Fresh Shorts'
funding.
PRODUCER:
Eleanor Strathern is a Wellington-based producer and publicist
behind the one-woman production powerhouse A Mulled Whine. One of
NZ's most in-demand independent producers, she has been the
organisational and accounting rock behind several massive national
tours, a regular festival cabaret show, a year-round international
touring schedule for comedian and storyteller Jon Bennett, and
dozens of theatre productions all across Aotearoa. 2018 earned
Eleanor awards including Most Promising Emerging Artist (NZ Fringe)
and The George Webby Most Promising Newcomer Award (Wellington
Theatre Awards).
***
PAST WORK:
To know if you actually want to join the WMBAD team, you might
want to look at things we've done in the past and decide if you
think it's good or terrible.
Here's a video from Facebook:
[https://www.facebook.com/WhiteManBehindADesk/videos/1974528559490141/]
Here's a video on YouTube:
***
Nice quotes:
"Each video is a metaphor-heavy crash-course on a social or
political issue that you might know something about but you
probably don't have all the facts on. They're well-researched and
well-attributed, but more importantly they're well-structured" -
The Pantograph Punch
"satire genius" - Jacinda Ardern
"less shouty than John Oliver and even cuter than Rove McManus.
It's an impossibly winning combination." - Theatreview
"satirical media sensation" - New Zealand Herald
"researched, polished, paced-up, empathetic and on point." -
Theatreview
"top-drawer brilliance … superbly subversive" - Theatreview