Nerdland Q&A: We catch up with Chris Prynoski about his first directorial effort

Fame makes a man take things over-Fame lets him loose, hard to swallow.

It’s not every day you get a phone call from someone as important to some of cinema’s most groundbreaking films, but that’s exactly what happened when Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, Fight Club, 8MM) called Titmouse founder Chris Prynoski to direct and produce an animated film entitled Nerdland. Having been a fan of Prynoski’s work on Beavis and Butthead and Metalocalypse, and Prynoski being a fan of dark comedy, the pairing now seems like a no-brainer, says Prynoski, “We got along great, but the thing that really appealed to me was Andrew’s nihilistic sensibilities and I had never directed a full-length feature which I thought was appealing to me.”

Set in the dingy shadows of Los Angeles, Nerdland stars Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd as two guys (John and Elliot respectively) who will do anything to be famous for the sake of being famous, “which I think is so right for today. Our society places so much emphasis on the famous. I mean, a guy who was once a reality TV star just became elected President.” Not to give too much away, but 90% of the movie revolves around the aforementioned characters John and Elliot for their quest for fame which means two REALLY good voices had to be cast. Patton and Paul fit this bill and it makes for a better film that doesn’t feel exhausting or bores you to tears because of someone’s nasally one-toned voice. To get guys on top of their game, you have to make connections and network with people at important social events, “I met Paul Rudd at an Adult Swim party and he showed me this trick with my phone to make it look like I was looking at butts, I’ll have to show you sometime,” smirks Prynoski as he tells me how he was able to convince the Ant-Man star to do his film, “David Wain (Superjail) put in a good word for me with Paul, and I’ve been working with Patton Oswalt for 10 years on various projects and he was the first to come onboard.”

Fortunately for Chris, casting the voices was nowhere near the hard part. The hard part was figuring out how to do a film on a slim budget and still meet deadlines. Unlike say a Pixar or Dreamworks where studios have the budgets to go back and take out entire sections of film that aren’t working, Chris and his Titmouse team did NOT have this luxury and instead attacked the project like a medium they were already retrofitted for, “We kinda set it up like a four-part animated Adult Swim TV mini-series. In the interest of saving time and money, the character designs and backgrounds were very forgiving so that we can proceed at an accelerated speed and still be on budget”. So why not just turn Nerdland into a TV series? Titmouse is known for some excellent TV productions like Metalocalypse, China IL, and already have primed for 2017 Netflix’s Big Mouth and Adult Swim’s next chapter of Venture Bros., it probably would’ve been a tad more profitable if they went about it the TV show route, right?

Not quite, “While there were elements of Nerdland that definitely would be able to work as a TV series, there was definitely an ending.” In other words, these characters’ desperation for fame is met with severe consequences that needed to be felt and at the end of the day, a much bigger cause is to be had here. The revitalization of R-rated animated comedy in film.

A medium that has long only seen the likes of TV show adaptations (albeit very good ones like South Park, The Simpsons, and others), Nerdland is continuing the growth of R-rated animated films that Chris hopes will establish a viable market, “Anomalisa was a beautiful art film that was nominated for an Academy Award, Sausage Party was a really silly film that made big at the box office, and Nerdland is probably closer to the latter in terms of tone, but I hope we can all help break down this door.”

 

The future looks bright for the R-rated animated film medium, Titmouse is already working on a second feature-length and studios like Augenblick (Golan the Insatiable) are jumping in with efforts of their own. Who knows? Maybe one day Chris Prynoski will be super-famous and we can vote him in as President of the United States.

Nerdland hits theaters today, read our review of the film here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity