Mark Little in Roller Town

Halifax comedy troupe Picnicface has come a long way since its founding in 2006. After toiling for awhile in relative obscurity, the eight-member group’s sharp, absurdist YouTube sketches caught the eye of none other than Will Ferrell, who invited them to become regular contributors to his “Funny or Die” shingle. After that, Picnicface’s popularity soared, many of their videos generating hits in the tens of millions.

Inevitably, things grew from there. The troupe landed a book deal with HarperCollins, the result of which was last year’s Picnicface’s Canada. And in the fall of 2011, they made their television debut with a 13-episode Comedy Network show called, simply, Picnicface. Sadly, ratings weren’t great, and despite a rather ambitious internet campaign to keep the show afloat — savepicnicface.com — it wasn’t renewed. Now, most of the Picnicface gang are moving on to new projects, but the troupe has one last parting gift: a feature film that was shot before the TV show, Roller Town. Directed by Andrew Bush and written by Bush, Mark Little, and Scott Vrooman, Roller Town is a funny, loving tribute to ’70s-era ridiculousness, and it opens across Canada this weekend. We chatted with Bush and Little about it, and about the group’s future. 

So why rollerskating? Was it just for the short shorts?

Mark: No those were a perk.

Andrew: We’ve always been fans of late-70s, early-’80s films like Skatetown U.S.A., Roller Boogie, and Xanadu in particular. They were giants in the world of cheezy cinema, and they inspired us to try our own version. 

Going from online sketch comedy to feature filmmaking must have been a bit of an adjustment. Did you learn anything?

Mark: I learned that you don’t have as much time to mess around and find jokes. In a way, the acting in a movie becomes an afterthought to the lighting and the sets. People want to create beautiful scenes and you have to be ready to get in, say your lines, improvise maybe one or two takes, and then get the hell out. 

Andrew: The pacing of a film is so much different than the pacing of a two minute Internet clip. You have to take so many other factors into account: character development, act structure, pacing. There’s a lot more stress that goes with juggling all of those things. I lost 20 pounds directing Roller Town. So I guess I learned if I want to lose weight again I just need to direct another movie. I’m getting kinda fat these days.  

Mark, you spend pretty much the whole movie on skates. What was that like?

Mark: I had to learn to skate from scratch, and it was tough. It’s not intuitive like rollerblading — it involves a lot of weird lateral pushing, plus the brakes are on your toes, which is nonsense. Sometimes I’d be whipping around the city, concentrating really hard, and I realized there’s nothing more absurd than a grown man frowning on roller skates. But by the end I loved it. I learned some rudimentary moves and started to feel really comfortable.

Was anyone in the cast an especially incompetent skater?

Andrew: Most of our younger extras hadn’t really been on skates before. All the older ones had. I just edited around it. In some of those ’70s films, there’s moments where people look like they’re in serious trouble skating around the rink, but right before they fall the director cuts away to another skater. I can only assume the former skater died. For the record, no one died on my film. That I know of.  

Mark: Scott Vrooman never learned how to skate backwards, so we wrote that into the movie. Every time his character has to skate away, his friends pull him back.

Mark, you’ve gone on to a supporting role on Gerry Dee’s CBC sitcom Mr. D. What’s Dee like? Is he a diva?

Mark: Gerry Dee’s a sweetheart. The first time I did a stand-up tour with him he bullied me the entire time. It was great. 

You guys cleaned up at last month’s Canadian Comedy Awards, with Roller Town taking home three trophies and your sketch show taking home another three. Was that enough for you?

Andrew: We’d also like to win best female artist at the Junos next year if possible.  

Speaking of your Comedy Network show, which has tragically been cancelled, what happened to the internet campaign to save it?

Mark: The campaign is done.

Andrew: We’d be happy to be picked up again but, alas, Bell Media [which owns the Comedy Network] has made its decision. We’re all pursuing our own projects now. If you know of any crazy millionaires who want to own a TV show, please let us know.   

How did you feel about the show, in the end? Was TV a good fit for you? 

Andrew: We’d have loved another shot. We had a blast doing the first season, but there were a lot of things we still wanted to try.

Mark: TV’s weird. It was closer to the movie experience than the online one. There’s just no time to do anything, at least not with small budgets like ours. I think we got certain things right. The best parts were when we tried something we’d never tried before — like longer, narrative sketches — and realized we could do it. The sketch “High Five Portal” is a good example of that. It’s one of my favourites. But we also found lots of stuff we weren’t good at, and I think that’s why shows need second seasons; you get to sharpen the good stuff and minimize the stuff you’re bad at. That’s how a show like Parks and Recreation was able to distance itself from the American version of The Office and find its own voice. I think with time our show might have found its voice.

So will we ever see Picnicface together again, or is this it? 

Mark: You’ll probably see lots of stuff from individual Picnicface members — everyone’s got something going on — but as for a unified project, time will tell. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came together for another movie or something.

Andrew: Some of us are hoping to evolve into balls of pure energy and beam jokes into the collective consciousness of Canadians. And, um, I think some of us are applying to be writers on some comedy shows. Personally, I’m trying to beat Mega Man II. It was so easy when I was 10! What gives?

____