Skip to content

Whole World Web Show: A Whole New Comedy Stream

Share this Post:

The first Whole World Web Show comedy stream. Photo: Ian Rawn Photography

Music Matters Productions and Michael Smalley Back Improv Comedians with XR Visuals

Aaron Soriero’s exploration into creating an Extended Reality (XR) space in his Music Matters Productions (MMP) warehouse in Atlanta is yielding impressive results, even though it was built just a few months ago. Sister companies Directions AV and Big Picture aided in his quest to give his clients a space to livestream or record events. In the process of creating a demo reel as a marketing tool, he has established a weekly streaming series featuring the Whole World Improv Theatre (WWIT), which was founded in Atlanta in 1993. This netted an offer from Apple Music to develop six episodes of an XR show for their new streaming service.

The scene behind the scenes

Soriero reached out to old friend and former business partner, Michael Smalley, to assist him in his efforts. Smalley, an Atlanta native, had been Soriero’s original mentor and teacher about all things lighting and production during Music Matters’ initial transition from a school for young student musicians to a full service entertainment production company. Now partnered with Gabriel Fraboni at PHNTM Labs, Smalley lives in Las Vegas. With the Covid-19 shutdown of the industry, he had the time available and was equally enthusiastic in getting on board when Soriero called and ask him to direct the demo reel.

Smalley called upon an old connection with WWIT seeking an actor to perform in the demo reel. In the course of explaining what XR was to theater managing director Emily Reily Russell, he had an epiphany that a comedy improv show presented in XR would be “super cool,” the perfect vehicle to highlight the technology. “We’re gonna make a TV show for you,” he told Emily.

All XR scenes were built from scratch.

‡‡         A Convergence of Ideas

While giving the good news to Aaron that he had found an actor for the demo from an improv group, Soriero broke in midway with, “Are we going to do improv in XR? This is perfect! Improv is created on an empty stage; the production value we can add through XR really will be fantastic for the art form!”

“It was amazing how we both came to the idea separately but simultaneously,” agrees Smalley. “This is practically the antithesis of how improv is presented, but still follows its concept, and we would bring a totally unique look to how it is done.” Five scenes were created weekly in addition to a virtual theater loosely based on WWIT’s home space and marquee. Smalley acted as production designer and the liaison between the theater company’s creative directors to tailor the XR show closely to how their “normal show” would flow.

The nature of streaming obviates the natural give and take between a live theater audience and the performers on stage. Feedback and interaction is the essential element to live performances, especially in the improv comedy genre. Smalley, Soriero, and co-creator Chris Ruppel knew they wanted a way to add that ingredient to their production, but the big question was, how?

Smalley and Soriero logged mega hours.

“The path to our solution began with an app one of our audio guys found from MyApplause Events based out of Germany. They had something close to what we wanted to create,” says Smalley. “Sound beds of audience cheers, clapping and ambient noise, which were a lot more sophisticated than the old laugh tracks from TV sitcoms, and some emojis were part of their product. We wanted to push the application further and partnered with them.” Working from the template MyApplause provided, the team from MMP sent the audio and graphic files they created in house to the German company, who then crafted the software customized for the project’s needs.

“That was a big step forward,” recalls Soriero. “They were equally excited about the idea, and we all left that phone call super energized with the realization that now this can actually be a thing.” And a good thing, considering how Smalley had pitched the idea to the Improv group without knowing exactly how they would actually do it.

The host booth scene

Other challenges, however, were quick to follow. “Most people using XR are not doing it live. It is shot ‘as if,’” says Smalley. “There is a lot of post work involved after the shoot. Our format would be simultaneously shot and streamed live. We had to present not just one location but an additional five, which all had to transition smoothly through the computer.” In addition to that, short individual backstory vignette movies were layered into the stream to facilitate transitions from one improv act to another. “To get from our host stage to the individual scenes is not a clean thing in Unreal, and we didn’t have commercial breaks to allow for hard cutaways,” adds Smalley.

The series ran for five weeks, with five scenes in each episode, which needed five new backstories every week. These scenes and backstories were developed out of ideas the creative directors from Whole World brought Smalley and Ruppel each week. The two directed the series and created all video content, motion graphics and XR environments, while also programming all the lighting and media servers. Soriero handling all the camera tracking plus the computer and LED volume logistics. Soriero and Smalley would later discover that on a typical XR shoot, upwards of 50 people were involved on set. “We had five,” laughs Smalley.

‡‡         Learning On the Fly

“The overall challenge to us, and this is what I love about my work, is that when I decided I wanted to create an XR space, it was brand new to me,” explains Soriero. “We had no idea how to use Unreal and the process involved in coalescing it all. All of the other machinations of scheduling scripting, storyboarding, and producing a live TV streamed show were completely new territory, too. We had to teach ourselves everything.” A crash course of self-taught discovery of simply trying to do what they said they would do ensued.

They challenged themselves further by making the decision to add a new element every week. One in particular was the use of the Rokoko MoCap motion capture suit. An old standard of improv is where one actor creates a monologue of actions while another actor behind them tries to mimic those actions with their arms and hands. “We decided to make the main body a cartoon,” says Smalley. “It had its technical difficulties and glitches and challenges, but as Aaron said earlier, that is the fun of doing what we do and why we love it. In a span of three months, we went from zero functioning knowledge of Unreal to producing an hour-long television show every week with five Unreal scenes.”

Sixteen-hour days are the norm in live event productions, but at some point, those hours become more manageable as production nears completion and show time arrives. “I’m accustomed to that type of schedule, but for this project, the long days went on, day after day, for six weeks solid once we were up and running,” says Smalley. “In fact, the two months previous to taping, pulling all the elements together to figure out how to do this were equally long.”

Smalley had been back home for two weeks when this interview took place, “and I am still exhausted,” he says. “I’m absolutely amazed that Aaron ran a business on top of this intense deep dive we did.” Both are eagerly looking forward to the next run, however.

The principals involved, Smalley, Soriero and Ruppel, found the anomalies in producing a live televised event to be quite a learning curve. “It was an experiment, it was difficult, and at times super stressful — especially the time frame — but in a really fun atmosphere, because it was comedy. The project also gave us a purpose to learn which, considering the entropy that tended to set in during the dormancy of our industry during Covid-19, was really motivating. This show had to happen by 8 p.m. every week. Sometimes, at 7:50, though,” he laughs, it wasn’t happening. I gotta give Chip Powell and Emily Reily Russell huge kudos for helping us make this all happen.”

WWIT Whole World Web Show Credits

  • Executive Producers: Michael Smalley, Aaron Soriero, Chris Ruppel
  • WWIT Managing Director: Emily Reily Russell
  • WWIT Creative Director: Chip Powell
  • App Creators: MyApplause Events
  • Technical Director: Nauman Lalani
  • Direction Consultant: Shelby Carol Cude
  • DP: Monte Johnson
  • Camera Director: Nathan Reetz

For more information, visit www.musicmattersproductions.com and www.wholeworldwebshow.com