Director's Cuts - Residence S01E01

Welcome on and all to the first of hopefully many special posts here at this blog!!!!

I have recovered and posted an old project of my friend Kory's, a show called Residence. Now back when I was at Acadia my friends and I would occasionaly make some videos and post them on Direct Connect (The Acadia network for file sharing...it was a simpler time before YouTube). Our first crack at it, Repeat Offenders, was a sketch comedy type show, that none of us were really happy with (I may get around to posting that on here some day). Kory decided that he had watched enough episodes of the BBC Version of The Office that he wanted to make a show just like it. Relying less on gags and easy punch lines and more on akward moments and subtlety.

So the basic plot is rather simple. Randall Sarvage (played by Kory) is a first year University Student and decides that he will make a video diary for his girlfriend so that she can experience his first year with him. Of course, Randall meets some very odd people along the way including his obnoxious neighbour Simon (played by Greg Smith), who borrows his camera, the very strange Drake (played by Alex Jayner), who always talks poetically, and his RA Tyrone, played by yours truly.

The fitting part about my role is that I was Kory's RA during his first year. Now, I'll be honest, I was not a fan of the Tyrone character. I felt that he was too one dimensional and not really all that funny. But I'll leave that up to you. Originally I was scheduled to be a character named Billy Niederman, while McNutt was going to be Tyrone. However, things changed and Billy was axed and I was set as Tyrone.

There is one scene that really sticks out to me, and that is the first meeting between Randall and Simon. Now I knew from Repeat Offenders and our on-line radio show (which is a whole other epic for me to right about there...) that Kory could play the "Straight Man" to an excellent degree, but Greg blew me away in this scene. He massively exceeded my expectations. Another great part about this scene is that I hung out with Kory and Greg enough during their First Year tto know that they really were not acting all that much.

But I have rambled enough, here is a quick blurg of commentary from the star himself, Kory Wade.


So if you are reading this post on the most exciting blog site in the world then you either just watched episode one of residence, or are about to. To put it simply the show is very loosely based on my life. However it quickly became much more than that as my friends who worked on it made there characters so much better than I envisioned. Seeing as all the dialogue was improvised and most people had no idea what the scenes were about until it was time to film it I think it amazing how great everyone did, Especially since most of us aren’t actors.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the show so I’m happy to watch it again. I think its fitting that the shows are being posted on Glen’s blog because he was there the day the show was thought up, in a Pizza Delight in Digby.

I have a lot of favorite moments in episode one; I love the scene where I meet Glen’s character Tyrone. I think both Glen and Jayner who plays Drake are awesome in this scene. It feels awkward and that’s exactly what we wanted. Glen you are very funny in this scene despite your feelings otherwise. My favorite scene in the whole show however is my first scene with Greg who plays Simon. Greg helped in the writing of this episode and originally the show was scripted. However when we went to film the scene where Simon and Randal meet we realized our written dialogue sucked. After five or six awful takes we threw away the script and from then on out the whole show was improvised. I’m sure Greg would say his scene with Becca (who plays Jennie) was his favorite for obvious reasons. Well if my very lame comments haven’t stopped you from watching the show than I hope you enjoy it.

And without further ado, I present you with the first episode of Residence, written by Kory Wade, Greg Smith and Matt Graham.

Part 1




Part 2



Part 3




Well that is it for Episode 1. I hope that you enjoyed watching this as much as I did. I'm not sure when, but I will get the other ones up and running in the very near future.

Until next time,

G