Our short “Night Session” premiered at Indy Shorts International Film Festival in Indianapolis and won the Comedy Audience Choice Award!

What an INCREDIBLE festival, and it meant so much to have our world premiere there with such a warm, welcoming audience and programmed with such AMAZING films. A real honor. (And the audience laughed at the right places! Always a relief to confirm that your jokes work with strangers!)

We had such a ball meeting all the filmmakers and the wonderful staff. What a great festival. Would come back to Indianapolis for it in a heartbeat! If you’ve got a short film, you should not miss submitting to Indy Shorts and to their partner fest the Heartland International Film Festival. THANK YOU,  Heartland Film and Greg Sorvig for making it so special!

Also “Night Session” has a few more screenings coming up in the next two weeks, including kicking off the Mystic Film Festival as part of the Opening Night block of comedy shorts on Thursday 9/19; and the short’s NYC premiere at the SOHO International Film Festival on Saturday 9/21. Plus, a few more festivals later this Fall that we’re not able to announce just yet, but we’re excited to soon!

I’m excited to announce my new short film “Night Session”, starring Richard Kind, will be having its world premiere at the Indy Shorts International Film Festival in Indianapolis, IN this July!

When a burglar unexpectedly runs into a homeowner during a theft, the robbery morphs into a makeshift therapy session, with the burglar helping the homeowner process his impending divorce – all while the homeowner helps rob his own apartment.

This film is the first narrative short I’ve directed for myself in several years, and I can’t be more proud of how it turned out. When David Bizzaro & I wrote the story, we had Richard Kind in mind for the homeowner character from the beginning, and I’m still beyond blown away that he read it and agreed to do it. (And, no surprise, he’s incredible in it.) 

I love directing sketches at Colbert, but I’ve also felt a pull to direct longer stories, so even just getting a taste of it with this short, was so incredibly fulfilling and had me wanting to do it again immediately. The cast and crew on this was really phenomenal, and production was just a smooth and creatively satisfying thing to be a part of. I think everyone’s wonderful in it, and I can’t wait for it to be seen by a wider audience.

There are a few more possible festivals this Fall where we might have a chance to screen, then we’re planning to release the short wide online. Come on back in a few months for updates!

Starring Richard Kind, Joe Miles, Christiana Lopez, and David Ebert
Directed by Ballard C. Boyd
Produced by Clara Peterson & Ballard C. Boyd
Co-Producer – David Bizzaro
Screenplay by Ballard C. Boyd
Story by David Bizzaro & Ballard C. Boyd
Associate Producers – Rahul H. Parikh & Keenan Johnson
Unit Production Manager – Rahul H. Parikh
Assistant Director – Clara Peterson
Production Designer – Maggie Mahlock
Costume Designer – Blair Freeman
Makeup Artist – Becca Low
Music by Matt Mahaffey
Gaffer – Duell Davis
Key Grip – George Haley
Assistant Camera – Ronnie Gilmore
Sound Recordists – Yves Armond & Chris Cadawas
Production Assistants – Falon Veccia & Jose Armando 
Cinematography & Editing by Ballard C. Boyd

I directed this bit for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert‘s Super Bowl show for a fake Samsung TV designed specifically for taking emotional anger – off the very real news trend of dude breaking their flat screens when mad at sports.

It’s always a ball making stuff with this team, but there’s a special pleasure in making multiple fake TVs just to smash them, drive over them with a car, and then hurl them off a building into a dumpster.

Our scenic and props teams are AMAZING. Major applause to our graphics team for some powerhouse 3D tracking and rotoscoping for all the screens. And kudos to all of our actors for just WAILING on these suckers all out. The perfect emotional release.

And it’s totally an honor to have this sketch be part of our Super Bowl show. It’s still wild and amazing to make silly bits, then several million people see it on CBS. BONKERS.

Written by Pratima Mani. Produced by Emily Potthast. Scenic design by Riley Mellon, Brendan Hurley, and Kate Duffy. Costumes by Antonia Xereas. VFX by Andro Buneta & Ryan Mauskopf. Lighting design by Hillary Knox. DP’d and edited by me.

I directed this fake commercial for a “manly” conservative coffee brand for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert off the increasingly real trend of far-right, upstart coffee companies marketing to anti-“woke” drinkers. (Sketch starts at 7:38.)

Big props to Steve Waltien & Michael Cruz Kayne for both writing and starring in this, and making their performances spot-on INCREDIBLY stupid. Plus, major kudos to scenic designer Brendan Hurley for designing a pitch perfect aggro-dude podcast set out of a corner of our conference room in only a few hours. The touches of authenticity are incredible!

Produced by Emily Potthast, costumes by Antonia Xereas, and directed/DP’d/.edited by me.

With the Hollywood actors strike lasting until November, TV networks were left scrambling to figure out how fill their Fall schedule with shows. And their answer was inevitably: Reality TV.

But with that many new shows needed, there’s probably more than you’ve even heard of. And not all of them are the best of ideas.

Luckily, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is here to help by bringing an entire SLATE of new reality shows…to your TV this season.

Grateful to everyone at The Late Show for letting me make yet another round-up of “fake programs with way too many jokes to follow”. They’re always so much fun to make and this one was no different. Just with more shirtless guys.

Written by Gabe Gronli (and more)! Produced by Emily Potthast. Scenic design by Riley Mellon. Costumes by Antonia Xereas. Graphics by Andro Buneta & Ryan Mauskopf. And tons more thanks to the huge deep bench of awesome crew. Shot & edited by me.

(And if you’re interested in watching my previous The Late Show parodies for Christmas, Hannukah, and Fall movies you can do so here.)

Modern technology is intrusive and overwhelming. That’s why Gen Z has been embracing retro technology as what’s cool now. Tech from a simpler time – like flip phones and early digital cameras. So if retro tech is what’s cool, it’s only a matter of time before tech companies embrace the trend and start marketing REALLY retro tech. Like 18th Century Flag-Based Communication.

Enjoy this very dumb, fake ad for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that goes REAL off the rails in the last 30 seconds.

Written by Pratima Mani, produced by Emily Potthast, and scenic design by Riley Mellon.

I forgot to share this back in March (so this is definitely a very belated share) but for St. Patrick’s Day, Irish national treasure Liam Neeson was kind enough to stop by The Late Show to share a very important message about Irish culture: Quit saying our names all wrong!

Learn how to say them right (and even wronger) in this incredibly important PSA that’s definitely NOT an excuse for us to have Liam Neeson say a bunch of joke names in his very serious tone. Written by Caroline Lazar and produced by Emily Potthast.

The Hallmark Channel is known for making an absolute gob of Holiday movies every year, but, if you didn’t already know, it turns out there’s actually a season between Halloween and Christmas! (I know, it’s a shock to me too). Well, they’re finally taking a advantage of it with a new slate of ‘Fall’-themed Hallmark movies just released this year.

But we at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aren’t going to be left out in the cold (and out of subsequent profit), so we’ve introduced our OWN slate of Autumnal movie soon-to-be classics.

Written by Eliana Kwartler & Kate Sidley. Produced by Emily Potthast. And massive thank yous to all of our production teams who helped put this complilation of too many jokes together.

(And if you’re interested in watching my previous Hallmark holiday parodies for The Late Show, you can do so here.)

The Late Show has a new writer, but he’s taking a little longer than expected to finish tonight’s monologue.

Enjoy this cold open sketch, I directed & shot, featuring Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin (who was just a delight and I had a great time listening to him tell stories for most of a half hour). Written by Aaron Cohen & Gabe Gronli, and produced by Emily Potthast.

I had the supreme pleasure recently of getting to direct American Treasure James Taylor a short musical comedy piece with Stephen Colbert for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, centering on Taylor’s classic song “You’ve Got A Friend”….but with lyrics more suited to an acquaintance from work.

Not surprisingly, he was an absolute gem and, as our live audience discovered, it’s pretty much just a total joy to watch James Taylor do about anything. Thanks to everyone involved for this super charming little slice of niceness.

It’s Hispanic & Latino Heritage Month! And even with all the strides that have been made for diversity across TV & film media in the past several years, Hispanic representation still leaves much to be desired.

Luckily, Late Show writer Felipe Torres Medina has a dirt-simple plan to fix that. Single-handedly, if needed.

Thanks to everyone who helped on this very silly bit, with a special shout-out to our fabulous costume & wardrobe team. Y’all are great! Written and starring Felipe Torres Medina. Produced by Emily Potthast. Directed, photographed, & edited by me.

More and more TV shows are highlighting the dramatic lives of egotistical tech founders, like The Dropout, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, and WeCrashed about the founders of WeWork. It’s a hot trend. Enough so that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert thought we’d get in on the action with a trailer for the latest upcoming limited series, about an app you definitely know…

Written by Pratima Mani & Carley Moseley. Produced by Emily Potthast. Directed, shot, and edited by me. And big thanks to everyone who worked on this very silly faux series trailer. I’m still blown away that we were able to pull off something at this scale in a day and a half, and I’m pretty sure we hit a new PR for number of camera setups in a day. It was super fun.

If you’ve heard of UNTUCKit brand shirts (a 100% real company), you might’ve thought the idea of men’s dress shirts that are “designed to look good untucked” is also just, you know…any shirt. You’d be wrong (apparently) because it’s a hugely successful company with very serious advertisements featuring a very serious founder.

However, if you’re looking for a shirt that can be tucked in, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has a brand new sponsor that can help, and probably make you more confident than you ever should be.

Written by Gabe Gronli & Aaron Cohen. Produced by Emily Potthast. Groundbreaking costumes by Antonia Xereas. Featuring Abdul Howard, Mike Holt, and the incredibly prominent, very white thighs of Gabe Gronli. (You’re a champ and a good sport.)

Bonus thanks to the people of New York who didn’t care one single bit about anything we were shooting. You know that this is just general par for the course living in The Big Apple and good for you.

I’m both proud of (and sad that we needed to make) this piece of satire that I directed for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, related to the Conservative arm of the Supreme Court’s decision to repeal Roe v. Wade.

A ruling that, thanks to a mess of anti-abortion laws, has now left millions of women wondering what rights they actually have where they are. Luckily (I guess) The Late Show has a new advertiser with a product just for this eventuality.

Written by Kate Sidley, produced by Emily Potthas, and featuring the wonderful Pratima Mani, Carley Moseley, Caroline Lazar, and Gabe Gronli.