Shameless Plugs: My First Novel!

While many of you might be familiar with my work in the (mostly Canadian) film and television landscape, my tiny blogger bio in the top right hand corner of this page says I'm an actor and author. An author you say? Would that new button that's popped up in the sidebar in the past week have anything to do with that? You sure you betcha it does!

That button on the sidebar will link you to the iTunes bookstore, where, if you have access to any iDevice be it Pad, Phone, or Pod you can buy my debut novel, Archie Hartigan and the Frost Wolf!

The book is a tie-in novel based on the world of Seth On Survival, a web-series I starred back in ’09, created by Teri Armitage and Torin Stefanson. Since then, SOS has racked up over three million viewers and spun off a secondary, werewolf-based webseries Your Lupine Life which I wrote an episode of (and guest-starred in)! Teri, Torin and I have become good friends and collaborators over these past couple of years, and when they suggested a new attempt to monetize the SOS franchise by releasing a series of tie-in novels, I jumped at the chance to write one!

At the center of Seth On Survival is the character Seth Greening, who I portray in the series. He’s a supernatural survivologist with a web-show that teaches its viewers how to better prepare for a vampire attack and or how to zombie-proof their home. Seth (quite often) responds to viewer comments, so I figured a great way into a spin-off novel would be to have the book be the story of one of Seth’s viewers, and have Seth “transcribe, edit and annotate” the adventure. That way we were also able to take advantage of SOS’s awesome trans-media wheelhouse and “enhance” the eBook with pop-up annotation by Seth and inter-chapter video content where Seth weighs in on what he might’ve done in the place of the protagonist. Welcome to 21st century young adult fiction! Multimedia! The internet! iPods!

And so, the book is an adventure starring Seth On Survival superfan Archibald Hartigan, an amateur monster hunter who accidentally gets turned into a werewolf while investigating a number of mysterious disappearances in his sleepy and geographically nebulous Northeastern North American hometown. This, of course, leads him to finding out a bunch of his close friends were also secretly monsters, including a cyborg and a high-functioning zombie! Archie and his friends then team up to defeat the werewolf that turned Archie into a monster, and uncover the vast and ancient conspiracy said werewolf brought with him to town. Spoiler alert! There may or may not be universe destroying Lovecraftian monstrosities lurking just off-screen. Also, zombies and flying saucers.

The novel is (in my opinion) is a rollicking action-adventure-horror-comedy for kids aged nine to buys-the-adult-covers-of-the-Harry-Potter novels! The book has been out for two months, and thus far the highest praise I've received has come from my sister (who also created the beautiful cover-art). She read the whole thing in an afternoon when she was very sick. In her words, Archie is "like Harry Potter meets The Princess Bride! Insofar as it sucks you in, and is also very sarcastic." She also said it "totally made [her] forget [she] was incredibly ill!" High praise indeed.

And the book is only 1.99$ on the iTunes Bookstore! What value! Click here or the button on the sidebar to buy it now! Writing this novel has been incredibly fulfilling to me, and if you decide to check it out, I hope you like it (and tell everyone you know to buy it)!

Shameless Plugs: The Rocket Scientists are the BEST OF THE FESTIVAL!

Last time we checked in with my sketch comedy troupe The Rocket Scientists (composed of myself, Brandon Hackett, Chris Small and Kevin MacNeil) we were just about to go on stage at the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival! Well, just letting you know, it went well.

BECAUSE WE WON A FREAKIN’ AWARD!!

The Rocket Scientists were lucky enough to be the recipients of the Steamwhistle Producer’s Pick Award at SketchFest this year! There were four awards at the Festival – one chosen by the audience, one by a panel of judges, one by the performers, and one by the festival producers. The Producer’s Pick Award is obviously the one the producers took care of. It was awarded to us not only because we were pretty funny but because we were consistently going out to a myriad of SketchFest events and participating in all the extra shows around the festival like Nerd Off and Sketch-U-Bator. This was mostly on Chris’ insistence, due to my crippling inability to have fun with other people and fear of public laughter (difficult for a comedian) but I’m sure glad we got into the spirit of the Festival and participated! Technically I wasn’t actually at the event where we won the award – I was being a lame-o sitting at home on a Sunday night watching Star Wars on Blu-ray when Chris called me and said “WE WON AN AWARD! YOU’RE NOT HEEEERE!” Apparently Brandon literally yelled “WHAT?!” when they announced we’d won. It was a very pleasant surprise!

The award not only gets us a bunch of free Steamwhistle Beer swag (I’ve heard it rumored that last year’s recipients got a lot more free beer than they were expecting, which is bad for my current attempt to get abs but great for my sense of joy) but we more importantly got an automatic spot in the “Best of the Festival” encore show this Friday the 14^th at Measure (formerly the Poor Alex)!

Technically the show is part of NXNE, which is pretty darn cool. I don’t know when NXNE started incorporating Comedy into their programming, but I’m pretty freakin’ excited to say I’m playing the same festival as The National. And Ludacris. I mean come one. I’m much closer to being a rock star now.

We’re incredibly excited to be sharing the stage with two incredible sketch troupes, She Said What and Deadpan Powerpoint. I saw Deadpan Powerpoint’s set at Sketchfest back in February and it was absofreakin’lutely incredimazing. Two months later and I’m still chuckling to myself occasionally over their lecture “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Dogs.” It’s entirely possible that the Encore Show will be Deadpan Powerpoint’s final performance, so I’d come out just to be able to see their schtick before you can’t anymore. Seriously, they’re incredibly funny people.

The Rocket Scientists are going to be bringing back some of our very favourite bits for this Encore show – we’ve only got a fifteen minute opening act slot in the show, so we know we’ve got to make every gag count! We tested the set out at Chris and Brandon’s high school on Monday (the Grade 12 drama class just did a sketch comedy unit and we were invited to give them a short performance and give a talk-back as ‘industry professionals’ – HA. THE FOOLS) and it went over excellently. Fingers crossed this discerning Friday night audience will agree!

You can get tickets for the show RIGHT NOW! And I suggest you do!  Hope to see you there!

Shameless Plugs: The Rocket Scientists @ Toronto SketchFest!

So, it’s been a while, Blogosphere! My bad. My bad. Under five posts previous I’d apologized for a delay over Christmas, and then suddenly I go off the radar for a month and a half! Terrible! I apologize sincerely for the lack of new and vaguely interesting material from this guy – I’m back on the horse! I swear! To be fair, the horse is ornery and slightly out of shape... but I’m back on it nonetheless! Huzzah!

One of the reasons I’ve been so out-of-touch, blog-wise for the past several weeks has been that it’s been a busy month for my sketch comedy troupe, The Rocket Scientists. We had a supremely kickass first best-of revue show. We sold out the John Candy Box Theatre and many laughs abounded! Chris had to re-apply the incredibly elaborate fake tattoo Brandon scrawled on him at intermission due to the gallopin’ sweats, and I may have given Brandon permanent brain damage after smoking him in the noggin’ with our on-stage door, but other than then, show went off hitchless! We kept up that momentum in February by putting in an appearance at the very funny Moniquea Marion’s variety show The C Bomb. We did a twenty-minute set to a small but very appreciative crowd, and it was awesome to do a show for people who’d never seen our work before!

This week is a very busy week for the Scientists. We’re very proud to have been chosen to take part in the 8^th annual Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival (our name is on the festival's t-shirt! And we're in bold! WE'VE MADE IT, GUYS). We’ve got a show this Thursday at the Lower Ossington Theatre as part of the festival. We’ll be sharing the stage with some terribly funny troupes – Tony Ho, a troupe that has been called “the haunted house of sketch comedy” for their weird and dark material, and Primo, the “The Premium Brand Sketch Comedy of Toronto.” I haven’t caught a Primo show yet but I did get to see Tony Ho’s set last Friday at Comedy Bar, and it was fantastic. Super weird and twisted – I’m extremely excited to share the stage with such outstanding jokematicians. Also it turns out I went to theatre school (for 20 minutes, as I dropped out in my first week due to conflicts with my TV work) with one of Tony Ho’s members, Miguel Rivas. Cool guy! Very funny guy.

The Rocket Scientists have been trawling a bunch of Sketch Fest events this week – we took part in the Saturday night “sketchubator” where performers from the festival are invited to drink free beer and do their dumbest sketches in a safe environment of fellow performers. Comedy Gold! Chris and Kevin did the sketch that required Chris’ fake tattoo at that event – thankfully by that time we’d perfected the application process – and I did a special performance of Goldman Socks which went over pretty well too! We’ll also be competing for the “Stan Lee Cup” tonight at Comedy Bar as part of the festival’s “Nerd Off” competition.

We’re all super pumped about our set this Thursday. We’ve been rehearsing like mad all week and even got a couple notes from my dad, former Second City comedy teacher Todd Jeffrey Ellis. If you’re in the Toronto area, come on down to the Lower Ossington Theatre at 10pm, support local comedy, and laugh with us!

Also, this happened. Weird, huh?

Shameless Plugs: The Rocket Scientists present 'The Alright Stuff'

As the brief mention in my sidebar bio declares, when I'm not gracing your TV and movie theatre screens, I'm a proud member of a sketch comedy troupe called The Rocket Scientists. Check out some of our sketches on the Tubes! (I suggest Existential Heckler, which I wrote and am particularly proud of!)

The Rocket Scientists been doing shows on-and-off for a year and a half (we originally planned on doing a set of new material every month, but it's been more like once every two months) and have finally put together our very first 'best-of' revue, called 'The Alright Stuff' (NASA references! Ha!) It's going to be a raucous two-act set with an intermission and everything. Not only that, instead of falling back on our usual (and super awesome) venue The Comedy Bar we've booked the John Candy Box Theatre at the Second City Training Center (70 Peter Street, Toronto, Ontario). It's going to be weird but incredibly fun to be in a new space doing older material. I'm really looking forward to revisiting some of our 'classic' bits. If you spend a day or two writing a sketch, it feels like a waste to perform it only once - especially if you test it out and find that it works. Hence this show!

The Scientists were originally a three-man troupe made up of myself, Brandon Hackett, and Chris Small (The fourth gent rounding out our quartet is Kevin MacNeil, a former co-worker of Chris who used to do a lot of improv back home in Nova Scotia). I'd met Chris through a friend during university, and Brandon soon after when we both starred in a Ryerson University production of Neil Simon's Rumors that Chris directed for his senior thesis course. Apparently during that show I convinced Chris and Brandon I was funny, because when they decided to start up a sketch troupe they asked me to join sight-unseen.

The cast of Chris Small's 2009 production of Rumors - from left to right, Matt Bernard, Jessica Thorp, David Fisher, ME, and Brandon Hackett. It was from the ashes of this Upperclass New York City Farce that the Rocket Scientists were born!

Though I'd done several comedic roles on TV, I'd never specifically worked in more short-form comedy like sketch or stand-up before, unlike Chris and Brandon who were both seasoned comedians. I'm forever grateful to Chris and Brandon for asking me to be in their troupe when I essentially had no experience in the medium. The fools!

That being said, I'd like to think I've taken to it pretty quickly! It's been really rewarding to do these shows - especially the writing. Again, I'd never worked in sketch before and it's been an incredible learning experience to just jump right into writing for a medium completely different than what I was used to! And unlike a lot of the writing I do on my own time (novels and screenplays), sketch is short form so you get to see a 'result' from it a lot faster, which is very satisfying.

The Rocket Scientists contemplate what exactly killed this tiny, tiny man. From left to right, Kevin MacNeil, Christopher Small, Brandon Hackett, and me, Ephraim Ellis. (photo credit, Erin Gerofsky)

I've got an oddly sentimental attachment to the art of sketch comedy since my father used to work at the Second City in Toronto back in the 70s and 80s. He was a stage manager and comedy teacher at the Old Firehall, and eventually went on to be the special props builder for the seminal Canadian sketch series SCTV, which starred Second City alumni like John Candy and Andrea Martin. It's been really neat having my Dad come to our shows and give us scathing (and constructive) notes afterwards. I respect honesty amongst family (especially from those who have invaluable opinions on your art). It's been neat to dip my toe into something akin to the "family business."

After this best-of show, the Rocket Scientists hope to keep moving up in the comedy world! Brandon recently became a member of the Sketchersons and can be seen weekly at Comedy Bar for Sunday Night Live, and the Rocket Scientists themselves were just informed that we're going to get to take part in the Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival! This troupe has provided me with a heckuva lot of artistic fulfillment (and laughs). If anyone reading this hasn't much to do this Saturday night, come on out to the John Candy Box Theatre (70 Peter St. in Toronto, Ontario) at 8pm and have a couple laughs with us!

Shameless Plugs: An Excerpt From "Roomies"

Welcome to the first edition of Jetpack Wonder Stories' feature Shameless Plugs, where I blatantly talk about work I'm doing and why you should watch / buy / eat all of it. This week, I'm taking a look at a delightful short film I did about a month ago - Insomniac Productions' Roomies.

Let's start at the beginning. Throughout August and September of this year I was out of the city up in Parry Sound, Ontario, shooting a yet-to-be-released feature film called Stage Fright. More on that closer to its release when I'm no longer under the threat of spoiling anything! Anyway - whilst shooting this feature I met a strapping young man named Kent Nolan, who, in addition to having starred in a couple Terry Gilliam movies, makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing with my life. This is mostly because he and two of his creative partners have recently started up a production company and were about to embark on shooting their first short!

Somehow, I convinced this lunatic that I would be a good fit for the lead role in the aforementioned short film. Without even reading for the part! The fool. The fool.

Me preparing for a shot, with producer/A.D. Katherine Barrell and cinematographer Christine Buijs.

Though technically a short film, Roomies is actually 7 minutes of a feature film script Kent has been developing on-and-off since he was sixteen. A raucous comedy in the style of Superbad, the movie follows "three down on their luck friends [on] a wild twelve hour adventure when [they're] forced to gather a large sum of money to pay their crazed, drug dealing landlord." Sounded like fun to me! I got to play Brandon, the apparent moral compass of the group (as far as I can tell, from the first ten minutes of the movie). Kent and Insomniac Productions made the excerpt, along with two other shorts over the course of three days in order to put together a demo reel to apply for BravoFACT funding. I sincerely hope they get it, because their projects are all fantastic and they're a wonderfully talented bunch.

The shoot was an absolute blast and a ton of fun. This script was hysterical, and I got to work with Kent again, who is a totally rad dude and did a fantastic job directing this short. Directorial debut! I also got to work again with Melanie Leishman (of Stage Fright and Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, who I oddly enough in real life also went to high school with), who played Brandon's high school crush Jenny.

The excerpt takes place at a big party, which is always a crazy time ("Look like you're having fun! But don't talk!") but thankfully Kent and co. bought a prop keg that could turn into a real keg once we wrapped. Good times.

Kent Nolan, Katherine Barrell, and Jono Logan, the producers and the brains behind Insomniac.

 The short is totally hysterical, and can be viewed here on Vimeo, right now! Do it! And, if you like it, check out Insomniac's other shorts and their Indiegogo campaign, which is trying to raise ten percent of their budget to shoot a proof-of-concept pilot for their "Entourage meets Girls, but Canadian" comedy, Issues.

These guys are awesome, make sure to check them out. And me, in the short! In case you missed them, here are those links again!

"An Excerpt from Roomies" on Vimeo 

www.insomniacproductions.ca