Nigerian Spam Scam Scam Review - Reno, NV
A really great review from the Reno show. Not just because it’s a good review, but he also writes about a couple of the important ideas. (important in terms of the show… not in terms of the real world)
BY FORREST HARTMAN • FORREST @ RGJ.COM • JULY 31, 2008
Nearly everyone has received one: An e-mail from a supposed Nigerian, desperate for assistance from an American who will help retrieve millions of dollars from the Nigerian government. Usually, the e-mailer promises a huge sum to the kind soul who provides a few thousand dollars for bribes or other incidental expenses.
Most people recognize the scam and delete the message immediately, but there are those who respond. Dean Cameron, architect of “The Nigerian Spam Scam Scam” theatrical production, says the results can be disastrous. In some cases, Cameron noted during his Tuesday night Artown show, Nigerian scammers have kidnapped and killed Americans. So, he didn’t feel at all bad for striking up a long-running correspondence with a scammer and turning it into an extremely funny show.
In presentation, “Spam Scam Scam” is simple. Cameron and his costar, Victor Isaac, stand behind podiums. Each has a laptop, and they do the production reader’s theater style, illustrating points with graphics displayed on a large screen between them. Sometimes, Cameron even pauses to play recordings of actual phone conversations.This is theater for the electronic age, with computers and digital photos key to both the show’s presentation and concept. The technology does not, however, make things sterile or cold. Cameron’s personality is infectious, and his sharp sense of humor is everywhere.
“Spam Scam Scam” starts lecture-style, with Cameron talking in brief generalities about Nigerian scams. Then, just when it seems he will deliver a PowerPoint lecture, he slips on a red satin smoking jacket and takes on the affectations of a very different Dean Cameron. This version lives in Florida, is more than a little off balance and was able to pique his scammer’s interest with one simple line.
“Great! Do you have any toast?”What follows is snippets of Cameron’s correspondence with his Nigerian pal, carefully edited to keep things moving. Cameron reads his portion of the e-mail with a nasally voice and zest, and on the opposite end of the stage, Isaac handles the responses. While it’s likely that one man wrote all of the e-mails to Cameron, they supposedly came from multiple people, so Isaac creates distinct characters for each. And he is great.
Even better than the performances, is the material itself, all culled from the most unlikely conversations you can imagine. Cameron repeatedly prodded his would-be conman with purposeful typos and ridiculous misunderstandings, including references to the Western Onion wire service, a request to know which city he should visit in Amsterdam and the following jewel, written in response to a request to ship money via DHL.
“Who is DHL? Is that a hockey league. There is a minor league hockey team in Miami, but I don’t think they are Nigerian.”
Folks who want to read more of the correspondence, can do so at Cameron’s Web site — www.spamscamscam.com — but that’s not as much fun as watching Cameron and Isaac deliver the lines live.
If this show ever makes it back to Reno, theater lovers will do well to attend.
Pretty nifty, eh? I like the good reviews. Especially when they’ve actually been watching and listening!
Yay!!!
nigerian spam scam scam
The heroes at windwood theatricals, savings and loan, got us another booking for next Jan 24 y Jan 25 in beautiful Largo, Florida at the Largo Cultural Center. After adding it to the schedule at spamscamscam.com I realized that we will be doing this years’ entire season (except for next week in reno) in the space of three consecutive weekends.
We’ll also probably be doing the showcase the 3rd week of January. (Unless jewtopia fucks it all up again)
We’ll basically be on the road over four wees. Sort of like we’re on tour or some something. That’ll be pretty cool. Unless I have a job. Sucks to be Victor!!!
Writing a Screenplay
I think it’s no secret that I am seriously awed by the guy who does drunkenstepfather.com
It’s totally nsfw and if you just scan it, it looks like a very dirty celebrity blog and, yeah, that’s part of it, but every now and then the guy will write some prose that slays me.
I’ve written him a couple of very fruity fan-email and he wrote me back and now we have a bit of a pen-pal thing going on which invariably leaads to show-biz.
Looooon boring story turned into short boring story… I sent this to him:
HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY
Writing a screenplay is easy. Seriously.
1 your main character is a person who wants something. by the end of the script, the person has gotten something else he didn’t know he wanted.
2 write down 50 ideas for scenes on the tops separate sheets of paper.
3 put them in the order you think they should be in.
4 in the middle of each sheet, write the location of the scene, the time of day, etc… you know in script format:
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius.
5 Add some sort of description of where the person is or what the person is doing that illustrates what kind of person he or the main character is. so…
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius. There is a pyramid of diet coke cans and unopened mail on his desk. A dog sleeps next to a dog bowl next to a ripped open 50 pound bag of dog food. The phone rings.
6 Then, add the worst dialogue you can that shows what the conflict in the scene is. The conflict MUST advance your story or advance the character… we must learn something in this scene that we do not know. You may only write two lines of dialogue. later you will go back and fill this in and make it better. but first… you are limited to two lines. thusly:
INT. OFFICE - DAY
Dean is writing an email to a genius. There is a pyramid of diet coke cans and unopened mail on his desk. A dog sleeps next to a dog bowl next to a ripped open 50 pound bag of dog food. The phone rings.DEAN
(yelling over his shoulder)
GOD DAMNIT, WOULD YOU ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE?DOG
You are so lazy. why don’t you answer the phone. the drunken stepfather guy is from the f.b.i., anyway, you has-been!
Dean faints at the sound of his dog talking.
7 You do those sheets until you have all of your scenes written with two lines of dialogue or two lines of description and they can’t be good. you can’t make them good at this stage. so you may have a car chase:
EXT. FREEWAY - NIGHT - RAIN
A car hits an old lady who bursts into flames and melts spiderman’s balls.
The cops cut him off and the driver is scared of spiders because they throw spiders at him.
The idea is to take as much pressure off yourself being good as you can because that’s where everyone fails. they start a script and it sucks (they all do at the beginning of the process and most do at the end of the process, ass well) so they never finish them.
8 finish those 50 scenes… maybe add some… take the ones out that you don’t feel you need.
9 Then, go back and fill in each scene. fill in the dialogue. fill in the description. you’ll have at least 90 pages. you really only need 100. *try* to hit these landmarks:
pg 1-20 set the character on his journey
pg 21-50 throw a bunch of obstacles in his way
pg 51-70 he fights the obstacles but by page 70, it looks as if all is lost
pg 70-90 he figures out a totally new way to win and does. make sure that yu don’t have deus ex machina unless you’ve set it up that it would work. if it does, though, it’s not deus ex machina.
your first draft will suck like country music. you rewrite. make the main character interesting enough for your favorite actor want to pester his agent and the studio to do the movie. then each subsequent draft, focus on one character and make the character interesting enough that a star will want the part. keep rewriting until that’s true of every character… even MAN #1 and WAITRESS.
10 After you’ve made it interesting for the actors. make it interesting for the cinematographers. the wardrobe person. sound, etc.
The key is having enough people waving your script around saying I HAVE GOT TO BE A PART OF THIS MOVIE!!!!!! and then you get 30-90 million for your stupid fucking movie.
That’s how you write a fucking script, sir.
Next caller
Reno Art Town
Ringo Starr & Nigerian Spam Scam Scam
I’m talkin’ Ringo god damned Starr!!! Ognir Ratts, if you remember that show back a million years ago.
Plus, our official photo was taken with a camera phone.
It’s a great world, ain’t it?
Mister Snickers is a Commie!!!
Victor and I have a couple of spamscam shows coming up so I figured I’d try to make some extra cash like the pro’s do with MERCH MERCH MERCH!!!
This is the link to the actual shirt
wow
that napa show was great. holy crap.
i realized that thing penn jillette talks about is so true:
audiences in l.a., ny and to an extent, the fringe fest, are jaded and, much like myself, generally have seen more crap than good.
the audiences who come to see us, haven’t filtered the crap we have and aren’t jaded and instead of preparing oneself for crap, are prepared to have a great time.
playing l.a. is like swinging a lead bat. not that these audiences are “rubes” or anything by a longshot. they’re just not assholes like me.
it makes for great shows, that’s for sure.
i bet i could learn something if i thought about it for a second.
off to nyc.
back in a day or something.
sheesh.
Great
Geniuses walk among us:
http://klaus.cz/klaus2/asp/clanek.asp?id=80siXjsMcOx2
pure fame
http://intraweb.stockton.edu/pac/indexmain.asp
I TOLD THEM “SPAM SCAM THEN HUNDRED YEARS OF BROADWAY!!!”
backstage II
Electric Conicl
night 3
Final night in Tucson, AZ. One of up has their priorities straight. Who can sit still with all the ADD going around these days?