''The Exquisite Corpse Project'' is a 2012 crossover comedy/documentary from director Ben Popik and the comedy group Olde English. In the film, Popik challenges five comedy writers to each write a fifth of a film, with the constraint that each writer can only read the previous five pages of the script before writing their section. The final film is a combination of the movie written by the writers, and a documentary about the argument-provoking writing process.

Title and structure

The film takes its title from a

Surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

parlor game called

Exquisite Corpse Exquisite corpse (from the original French term ', ) is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g., "The ''adjective'' ''noun' ...

, in which a group of artists complete a drawing in sections with each artist having almost no idea what the other artists have contributed. The structure of the film is true to that concept—each writer writes a fifth of the movie, but is only allowed to read the previous five pages of the script. Accordingly, while the second writer is allowed to read pages 11–15 of the script, the fifth writer is only allowed to read pages 56–60 before writing the final section of the film. Additionally, Popik filmed interviews at every stage of the process, beginning with the initial assignment of the challenge, and snippets of those interviews are used to provide comedic commentary on the film. According to the review in

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an American online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. ...

, "It’s like having all the special features of a DVD playing at the same time as the movie, only instead of being a distraction it enhances the experience."Bell, Mark (June 24, 2012). "
The Exquisite Corpse Project
'" -

Writers

The film was written by Olde English Comedy members

Raphael Bob-Waksberg Raphael Matthew Bob-Waksberg (born August 17, 1984) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, and voice actor. He is best known as the creator and showrunner of the Netflix animated comedy series ''BoJack Horseman'' (2014–2020), for wh ...

, Dave Segal, and

Adam Conover Adam Conover (born ) is an American actor, writer and comedian. He created and Television presenter, hosted the half-hour truTV show ''Adam Ruins Everything'', based on the CollegeHumor series of the same name. He was also the host of the Amer ...

—as well as former member Joel Clark and OE collaborator Chioke Nassor. The order of the writers was chosen randomly, and each writer was given a week to write their 15-page section. Since the movie is one-third documentary, the writers themselves are major characters in the film.Nelson, Noah J. (May 30, 2012). "'". Turnstyle News.

Cast

The film stars Olde English comedy member Caleb Bark, as well as a number of longtime OE collaborators including actress Julia Frey.

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

-
Olde English Comedy: Sketch Pilot
' * Caleb Bark as Marc * Megan Raye Manzi as Adayit/Meg * Julia Frey as Stephanie * Trevor Williams as Yustus * Tavon Bolourchi as Todd * Geoff Lee as Mr. Kim

Accolades

Since its festival premiere in June 2012 at

Dances With Films Dances With Films (DWF) is an annual independent film festival located in Los Angeles, California and New York. It was founded by Leslee Scallon and Michael Trent. Lineup Taking place every year since 1998, the festival is dedicated to representi ...

, the film has won the following awards:

References

External links

* (Archived October 2, 2016) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Exquisite Corpse Project 2012 films American comedy films American documentary films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films