Proud moment
Director John Mark dissects a key scene from OUTtv’s latest comedy series, Off Shoot, and explains how he found the balance between thought-provoking and entertaining television.
Made by Producer Entertainment Group for streamer OUTtv, Off Shoot is the story of Jack (played by Jackson David), a Hollywood photographer, and his assistant Andy (Andio Manguray). Together, they balance art, capitalism, relationships and a gauntlet of problematic clients.
Here, director John Mark dissects the ending of episode two, Corporate Pride, where a conservative superstore giant hires Jack to photograph their pride campaign. On set, Jack struggles with creative autonomy and nightmare executives. The episode culminates in a tone-deaf anti-bullying PSA that defines the reality of queer creatives in mainstream economy.
Off Shoot is inspired by my most colourful experiences working in fashion and entertainment over the past 15 years. Navigating on-set power dynamics and weird clients are the norm in one of the most competitive and economically volatile industries in the world. Many of my personal experiences are threaded into how Jack balances art, commerce and his personal relationships. This scene epitomises that struggle for me.
At the end of episode two, titled Corporate Pride, Jack is offered a large sum of money by a wealthy superstore called Right Price to shoot an anti-bullying PSA that one-dimensionalises queer representation to the worst degree. Corporate Pride was the first episode I wrote when starting to wrap my head around what this show was. I had a weird experience working on a pride campaign for a major athletic brand a few months prior and, after watching the reps of this major corporation haphazardly negotiate capitalism and allyship in real time, I thought, ‘This would make great TV.’
Over the past decade, we’ve watched corporate culture grow to appreciate the LGBTQ community as a worthy ‘target market’ with its own economic superpower. This episode hilariously depicts a conservative superstore brand clunkily producing its first pride campaign in an effort to boost sales, and this PSA boils it down to a cardinal truth: capitalism is unafraid of commodifying marginalised groups for their own economic gain.
In terms of cinematography and production design, this scene is far from the most dynamic in the show, but for me, it exemplifies the origin of Off Shoot as well as the largest conundrum of my own creative career. How do I navigate my purpose to take space with queer narratives, while navigating the realities of making my work accessible and marketable? I do not have the nepotism or the tax bracket to make television for fun, but I also feel an insatiable need to derive purpose from my existence in an industry where so many people are fighting for a voice.
At the end of the day, television can endeavour to be thought-provoking, but it’s largely meant to entertain. The roots of this scene have deep meaning for me, but I also love how it gets everyone laughing in stitches. It’s funny! Many of us can relate to the cringe-worthy scripting of mass advertising. Many in my community can relate to the sanitising of queer culture for mass consumption. I love this scene because it holds space for laughs and healing in tandem.
When we filmed, I had scripted this scene, but I also allowed the actors to improvise a bit towards the end of their coverage. They each brought such a magic to the nuances of their delivery despite playing archetypes of a cold and corporate diversity casting. It’s a standout moment of the season.
tagged in: John Mark, Off Shoot, OUTtv, Producer Entertainment Group