An Interview with Syd, Mike, and Carl from ‘Syd & Mike’

Photo Courtesy of Jenni Walkowiak.

The indie comedy duo Syd & Mike recently took SeriesFest 8 by storm by winning the Late Night Audience Choice Award for their pilot, and we here at Nerds That Geek had the chance to talk to this pair of talented comedians and their collaborator Carl Conway after their glorious win to discuss all things Syd & Mike.
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John Betancourt: First, thank you so much for your time today. I really loved the pilot. It was so much fun.

Mike: Which sketch was your favorite?
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John: The nature one. That is… that is definitely me.

Mike: Which one is you, the one that does want to go hiking? Or the one that doesn’t want to go?

John: The one that doesn’t want to go. To me, roughing it is staying at a Motel Six. And on that note, let’s get started! Carl let’s talk about how you got involved with the show.

Carl: Well, so the creation of Syd & Mike goes back before I was involved, and they can give you a little bit of history on how they met but as far as this iteration, the big origin story point for me is we were in the pandemic, you know, I think pandemic 2.0. It was spring of 2021 and we got on the Clubhouse app because you couldn't go out of our houses, and it was still kind of cold. And Clubhouse is where you get to have audio chats with random people, we were going into these somewhat nightmarish filmmaking and television, networking rooms and talking to people who were claiming to be experts on how to get a deal. How to make it in the business. And Syd… actually she put herself on stage. Which is the place where you go in in Clubhouse to actually talk and ask some questions. And we found ourselves kind of getting blown off by these people who it turns out we're just sort of like wanting to gain their followers on Clubhouse.

But Steve Pink who directed Hot Tub Time Machine and he wrote High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank reached out to us on the side and said, “You know, I think those people kind of didn't really listen to you, but I looked at your stuff. I think it's great.” And we had a zoom call with him, and we were like talking about what we wanted to do next. And his advice was to take stock of what we had done already. And that was a really great piece of advice. Like we went in and looked at all of our work. We had been doing a lot of stoner comedy and cannabis bits. And he gave us some advice too, you know, like that we could broaden our horizons, you know, on comedy that we could just do comedy and not stoner comedy. And so, in the process of looking at what we had done, we noticed that we had made a lot of sketch comedy, and we feel, we all felt really comfortable in the sketch world, and we love short, fast, and funny. And so, we decided let's spend some time writing sketches and that's sort of the beginning of what this particular project is.

John: Now Syd and Mike, what brought you together to start doing comedy in the first place?

Mike: Well, we met in an acting class in 2010. And we got paired up together for a scene and we realized that we definitely had like a bit of chemistry right off the bat. And one night, I was at home, and I was stoned and actually watching TV, and I was watching The Biggest Loser and I would chuckle to myself. I said, “I could be on the show. I could win this show.” And at the time I was thin. I was like 160 pounds or something. And I was like, “but I'd have to get really fat for this to win.” And that that made me really laugh. So, I called Syd up immediately. And I told her I was like, “What if we did like a mockumentary where we were trying to get on to The Biggest Loser and we're training as if, the same way they trained to lose weight. We're doing the opposite. Try and gain weight so we can audition for the show”, and we had a really good laugh about that. The next day she comes over and we wrote nine pages in a sitting, and we basically shot what we what we wrote in that session, minus some tweaks here and there. And we shot it within like a month, you know, totally naive to how difficult what we're setting out to do and we were really pleased with the final product. It came out really well.

You know, it's still pretty decent for especially for a first thing. Anyway, you know, we kind of went our separate ways a little bit and worked with other peoples. Syd moved to LA. We worked with other people. And we quickly realized that it was much harder--it's really hard to write with people. And then, you know, we realized maybe what we had was special. Flash forward a few years, she moves back to New York and we write another concept called Syrah. What is Syrah?? It's the Metro PCS version of Siri. Like the, you know, the no frills Siri. She's a little bit aggressive and stuff and we wrote that one, it came out fantastic, that started getting us into film festivals. And then we joined up with this filmmaking collective and that's where we actually met Carl. And it was a collective of creators that were making videos and challenging ourselves in genre to make short films that we would all then have a big screening. We did like 10 of these things and they were incredible, really talented people, a lot of people who are still in the business in the industry working today. So soon I made two more, I think two more films for that which then, coincidentally started getting into festivals. And then somebody at a festival was like “what are you guys doing with this series?”  and we're like, “what series?” and they're like “this Syd & Mike” and we're like, “Oh, it's not a series. It’s short films.” And then we're like, “Wait a second, maybe this can be a series.” So, then we you know, we started we started making videos. We wrote a web series. And we… this is a long version of this story. Sorry. And in order to crowdfund, we were going to crowdfund for this web series, and in order to do that, we wanted to make some videos to start an Instagram page.

So, we wrote like these 10 videos, and then three of them I believe we shot with Carl and one of those three was Lavender Air Freshener, and that video would go on to do… it went… it did 13 million views on our Facebook. You know what, that was the first one that broke out, so it started off, you know, normal. It was like 5000 views and then it was like 10,000 views and it was going and going, and Syd said to me, “you know I think this one's gonna go viral.” Yeah, and anyway, so you know, sorry for such a long story. Long story short, I guess you can't say that after you told them. But we had a bunch of viral success which was really tantalizing to us. And so, we convinced ourselves that we could take that web series and turn it into a full-length series. And, so we retooled that, and we kept making internet videos. We did like 50 of those. Anyway, that's, that's where we met and then and then we brought Carl on. It was so it was so great working with Carl. He's such a like a crucial part of the team that like we brought him on, you know, full time and we’re three-way partners now since 2017. I believe.

Syd: You used the word “tantalizing”, Mike. I’m still recovering. -laughter-

Carl: You also said, “three-way partners”. Which means different things in different circles. -laughter from everyone-

Mike: You know… off the record… we do three ways. -more laughter from everyone-

John: Oh no. It’s all on the record now.

Mike: It’s out there now, guys!

John: So, what motivated you all to take these sketches and put them into a pilot?

Syd: So, after Clubhouses, Carl was mentioning last spring about a year ago. We started getting together and the three of us would come in and submit 10 sketch ideas a week. Start picking some to write out and then we had a bunch to choose from. This particular five that we chose, you know, we make our own stuff. So it was, who was available, the resources we had, when we could shoot them and shooting the sketches was a little bit easier than… you know can shoot one at a time and then put them together, and we have gone through different iterations of like, “are we just going to put the five together? Will there be a narrative aspect to it?”

You know, we discussed lots of different things to do. And at the end, this ended up being more of a proof of concept. So, here's five sketches of all these friends and where we have so many more written and, you know, honestly hundreds of ideas going… and we like to keep it fresh. So, kind of what's relevant, what can stay relevant, and also open to you know, more narrative aspects to be mixed in with this. And we just, yeah, went forth and thought, “Alright, let's, let's try to see where these can play.” It was like, “Okay, well, maybe some film festivals won't play these all together.” They can just choose one and maybe play one of them instead of the whole pilot, and then SeriesFest was just a great opportunity. We got really lucky that they ended up choosing to play all five sketches as a pilot, and I think it's a great representation of us. Does that make sense?

John: It makes total sense. What I liked about it too, was that it was such a diverse set of sketches.

Syd: Everybody has a favorite. I love that Mike asked what your favorite was. And I think that's been so cool that there hasn't been one of them that people gravitate towards. Really every single person has a different one that they love. And to me it just shows that you know we can reach different people and, and that we're not just doing like one thing, right? That we can go all over the place.

John: Now you mentioned keeping it fresh and relevant, and that’s something that I noticed too… was that this pilot has a lot of commentary and satire. What influenced that?

Mike: We’re always challenging ourselves to come up with new ideas. Especially I mean, Carl is really exceptional at challenging us to throw out old ideas and keep on like making new stuff and so when you're forced to make new stuff, the way Carl forces us to. -laughter- You know, you stay pretty relevant because like you're getting an idea, you know, out in the world of something that happens, you know, currently and then you're commenting on that or building jokes around that kind of stuff. So, I think by design, it stays pretty fresh, and I really like that he challenges us to do it that way because it feels… relevant.

John: What did it mean to all of you, to watch this with an audience… and see their reaction, live?

Carl: So yeah, the ability to watch this pilot with an audience is amazing, because like we've been saying, everybody has a different favorite. And also, it's five sketches in 15 minutes, so they come at you fast and it's tight. You know, like we pride ourselves in having really tight you know, economical edits of our comedy and doing it in a super polished way. That allows for like… nobody has time to question what we're doing; you just have to come along for the ride. And that that's been the goal, and then to finally sit with an audience and watch it with an audience who clearly enjoyed it. I think, you know, I think you might have been we might have already told you or Matthew might have already told you, that we've won the Audience Award for our blocks.

John: That’s incredible. Congratulations.

Carl: Oh, it was yeah, we're award-winning sketch writers you know, so yeah, that’s nothing to kick rocks at. -laughter- But yeah, it was amazing. I guess that's the best part is like just watching it. Because we knew how tight and fast and how much comedy we were trying to pack into each one. I think we all knew that it was gonna be really fun to watch it with an audience and it really was.
Mike: I mean, yeah, SeriesFest was one of the festivals at the top of our list. And to get in there was really exciting for us. And humbling, and you know, an incredible… an incredible experience. It's a real amazing community of creatives and filmmakers and, and series writers there and our peers put up amazing work and so to get that audience award was really special because we really did respect everybody that was in the block with us. And as comedy creators, they're all like forces to be reckoned with, on their own. And so, to really be recognized by the audience… is something that is really special to us. Like we did this for the people. So, yeah… it was really special. It meant a lot to us.

Syd: That covers it really well. Yeah, really special. It was just a really special experience.

Mike: Wait, should I say it? You want my catch phrase?

Carl: Yeah!

Mike: Yeah, it's like, watching it with an audience? We realized. We know. That our shit, hits. -laughter from everyone-

John: Oh man. That’s a great tagline. “Syd & Mike. This shit hits.”

Syd: Oh! I'm gonna add one thing that I think was mentioned, like after our screening, at a little party… there's something to be said for mine and Mike's really long friendship and how close we are and Carl really, since he started working with us. He recognized that and is then able to speak that language and the three of us are really close friends, and I think that that shows through our work.

John: You’re absolutely right. There’s a really, fun friend vibe to it, I’m sure that helps the audience get into it.

Mike: Oh yeah. We’re besties, IRL. -laughter-

John: Best friends for life? The Biffles? I love that. So, last question. What’s next for the show?

Syd: We're gonna get picked up, obviously! -laughter- Make big money. Someone else can speak to that. We have some other festivals coming up. And the hope is to get you know, relationships with the industry and build our team and build our resources and continue to make the show.

Mike: We're really looking for strategic collaborators, in a production company. We've got our sights set on some production companies that have like a long history of producing incredible sketch shows. And so, we're really hoping to be able to work with one of those. And, you know, we want to work with people that can challenge us to elevate our material even further.

Carl: We want to build our audience, too. We want to find opportunities to make more stuff. It's just that you know… like they said we have a lot of stuff written, we've got a lot of ideas and we know that because of how much this let's say, this shit hits, our other shit will hit as well. -laughter- So, we're very excited to Keep building an audience on top of like building our momentum as creators and as people in the industry.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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