Fall 2019
AT WORK WITH
By Becca Nadler
Solving puzzles is all in a day's work for associate director Jeremy Hardwick, who ensures that all of the graphics on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee are accurate during show tapings. "It becomes a little bit of a do-si-do when we're bouncing between screens in the same act," he says, "trying to make sure you're getting the right graphic in the right place coming from the right source."
Instead of using the customary over-the-shoulder graphic for a seated talk-show host, Full Frontal uses three separate screens to create one widescreen graphic that can act as a backdrop for Bee, an arrangement that posed problems during the show's initial planning. "I remember having so many different meetings about it," Hardwick recalls, noting that the fledgling show did not have the necessary technical setup or the budget to buy new equipment.
But Hardwick, whose credits include Desus & Mero and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, was able to figure out a solution. "We had, a couple weeks before, done something on Last Week Tonight where we needed to roll different tape machines at the same time, and I was like, 'Well, if we could do it there, why wouldn't that work here?' That was probably one of the best things I've done."