Barbie Just Got Konged: Katie Repman Guest Blog Post

Katie Repman is an actor in NY and my niece! She blogs at Barbie Kong and recently embarked on a thirty day character challenge. 

She created a Barbie Kong you tube channel for all 30 of the videos. Katie acted, wrote, directed, and edited a different comedic character everyday for 30 days. She wanted to embark on this project to challenge herself to work, on a daily basis, on characters of different genders, ages and dialects. 

I'll let Katie take it from there ...

As some of your know I am really into comedy and I want to explore it more on my blog; specifically the impact that woman have had in comedy over the last few years (hello Bridesmaids). I'm still probably going to throw in the odd movie review every now and again (hello Tree of Life) but it will be primarily based on this wonderful new generation of funny ladies.

Here are a few examples of the videos that I created during my 30 day character challenge. You will see that each of the videos has a different feel and represents different aspects of the comedy that I would like to explore.

A New York City Runner's Guide: In this video I used sound and editing capabilities to enhance the comedy of the sketch. By using the slates to describe the action in a serious way and then to show the action in a more absurdist way the comedy emerges. I also like this video because we shot it outside and it gave the video a more grounded feeling. The audience could feel more connected to the character and relate on a more personal level, I mean who hasn’t gone running just to come home and pig out!? I also used a loose narrative to show the journey of this failed athlete. Using the narrative, the game (the premise of the sketch-comedy term) became more heightened which allowed the boundaries to be pushed even further.

Teen Mom Jenelle Evans: This is a your straight up, old school character sketch. Single hand held camera looking directly to the actor. I didn’t want to over complicate things here. I simply wanted to show Janelle in all of her wonderfulness. The writing in this sketch was enough to sustain the comedy and there were no fancy bells and whistles that needed to be added. This is by far my favorite character, I think I like it the best because I really didn’t have to put much on it, most of the ideas (the credit card) was taken directly from the MTV show. Of course, it wasn’t word for word but Janelle Evans is a real person who has a lot of problems and sometimes you don’t need much more than that. The truth in Janelle’s story allowed for many comedic opportunities, think Tina Fey doing the Palin sketches, most of that was taken directly from words and comments Palin had said. Sometimes you just need to Observe and Report (also the title of a hysterical Seth Rogen movie, netflix it……it’s good).

Lady Gaga Fan on the Train: This one was probably the scariest video to shoot because it was really depended on the reactions of everyone around me. In this video I used a more gorilla style approach. Think Sascha Baron Cohen in Borat. The comedy lies in the absurdity of what I am doing juxtaposed by the reactions of everyone around me. Because it’s New York most people didn’t blink an eye but some of the reactions of annoyance from the passengers around me are simply priceless. This was fun to do because in way it felt like performing in front of a live audience, I had to remember what I was doing and why I was doing it and not let my harsh critic take over. For those of you who know clowning terms, I really had to use clown logic in order to believe the imaginary circumstances that I had set out for myself.

 Anyway, I hope you all stick with me and help me embark on this new journey - Barbie Kong 2.0!