Group: The 404′s, Improv Comedy Group.
Website: www.the404s.com
Upcoming Events: Pending. The 404′s have just canceled their appearance at the Japanese Anime Festival (announcement made just after this interview). Keep checking the 404′s event section or Anime-Alberta for updates.
Auditions: The Auditions are being held in Calgary on February 27th, 2010. No improv experience is necessary, however you do need to be a resident of Calgary or able to attend future practices within Calgary to join the group. In the future, the 404′s may hold auditions in the Edmonton area.
Podcast: Interview with Mark Nguyen of the 404′s. Download here.
Transcript
Victor Vargas: So this is Mark Nguyen from the 404’s, and we’re going to have a nice discussion about the 404’s. their past, their future, and the various fortunes time has brought them.
Mark Nguyen: Yup, this is all ready to go. My daughter has been fed, she’s asleep now, so I’m ready to talk just about anything.
Vargas: Yeah, actually she’s 5 weeks old now, isn’t she?
Nguyen: No, she’s 11 weeks old, as of today.
Vargas: Wow, they grow fast now don’t they?
Nguyen: Yeah, they grow like 6 weeks in about the space of 15 seconds. It was incredible.
Vargas: Wow. So for starters, the 404’s have become a rather popular group among con goers, how did the whole thing start?
Nguyen: Well it’s obviously best to start at the beginning. I’ve always been a fan of improvisation and improvising. I started all the way back when I was about 5 years old. My very first hosting gig was actually hosting a stuffed animal contest in my own backyard. It was organized by my mom, but it was for the kids of the neighborhood. I just got up there on the picnic table. My first microphone was an ice cream scoop. And I just answered a bunch of questions that were, well asked a bunch of questions of each of the kids in the audience, there were about 6 or 8 of them. And we just had fun introducing our stuffed animals and everything. It was great. It was also my first paying gig, at 5 years old making a $1.25 off the kids in the neighborhood, it was awesome.
Anyways, I always love making stuff up and I loved improvisation. So going through Junior High and high school, I was always in the forefront of folks in my class and always improving in class and putting on little shows. And before long I carried that through my High School days into University. And then I kept going into University, I wasn’t doing improv I was doing sciences, but by that part I had joined the Banzai Anime Klub of Alberta. That’s the BAKA Klub for those folks who do not know the Edmonton group or do not go to the UofA. And that’s one of the shared history points we have there Victor, we’ve both been president of that club, haven’t we.
Vargas:Yes, yes we have.
Nguyen: Yeah, we were both presidents for a while there. Anyways, as it happened, back in the late 90’s, 98 or 99, well we were board during the BAKA club meetings because honestly some anime’s we had already seen or just weren’t in interest to us. So, I actually have always been a lifelong fan of the show “Who’s Line is it Anyways?”, end up getting together anyone whoever would join me, some friends and so on. And we’d just play some of the games that would be from the show, “Who’s Line is it Anyways?” and before you knew it, we were just doing it every week. Then one year, I think it was 2000, we had a break, they had the very first Cosplay at Animethon 7, and we played some improv games there and that was really cool. So the following year, or the same year, same year or the following year, we were also doing a separate anime panel called “Improv Anime Dubbing”. And we’d get a bunch of people together, and we’d take clips of anime, random clips of anime, remove the dialog from it. And then we’d improvise a quick scene to that clip. And it was always really popular.
And after that, it was 2003, that we did some improv panels at Animethon and Otafest by that point to, for a couple of years, that a group of us decided to band together and create a name for ourselves – the 404’s. And 2003 at Animethon was our very first show, an hour long I think it was. We played a lot of some classic games; we had a lot of good laughs. We didn’t have uniforms or the shirts back then, or even the little pins we had, but we had a really good time. Then we brought it over to Otafest and before we knew it, it was also at Anime North in Toronto. Because I had been going over there annually and then we had a caste in Alberta basically based there and another one based in Toronto. And before you knew it, oh boy, we were doing conventions all across the country there. Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, High School conventions started popping up in Alberta, Anime North, a couple of conventions around the great Toronto Area, ACQ in Ottawa, Otakuthon in Montreal, so it was a really interesting history, that really stretched 12 years.
Vargas: Yeah and I understand in those 12 years, eventually the 404’s have been divided in a Eastern group for Eastern Cons and a Western Group for Western Cons.
Nguyen: Well it wasn’t really divided per se, it’s just how it evolved. My first year of Anime North was 2001 and I was almost all alone there. I went to go see some very special and there was a black slot on the Friday Night, so I got together with some random Anime Fans and they got us a room there. We got a place in the schedule as just improv and we had a good time there. We did it again 2002, then 2004 we had developed some friends there too, so we got together and we were the 404’s there. And the west side kept developing, you know adding new members and the folks moved o. And at the end of the day and by oh boy, 2004, 2005, we had two full casts going two full casts going, and I think together, at the maximum of people we had in the group, it was 17-18 members.
Vargas: Ok, that’s quite an improv group you have going there. In that case, so about the show you guys do. How has the show evolved over time I believe…
Nguyen: Oh the show…
Vargas: I was just going to say I believe that you guys started as a regular improv group and then you started adding more and more bits to your show.
Nguyen: Yep. Well when we started we were very much a copy of the old “Who’s Line is it Anyways” show. And we’d have the host, who was most often me, and we’d 4 or 5 different improvisers and we’d play the same games that were from the show, “Who’s Line is it Anyways”. But before long, you know, we started doing research into the show itself, and improvisation, as we all started to become improvisers too. So we started adding games that weren’t from the show, but that were already being played by other improv teams from around the world really. So as, you know, we really started out as a bunch of anime fans who loved improv, but it wasn’t too long before we realized that it was much more actually to consider us a bunch of improvisers, a bunch of improv fans, that also liked anime.
So we became more serious and more skilled, we added more games to our repertoire, and sometimes had some strips of fun too, but most of all it was about making stuff up to make some good comedy. And I then we’ve been really successful with that point.
Vargas: Ok, what about the challenges of putting itself. Like what are the challenges of improvising in an anime con environment?
Nguyen: Well the first thing that you really need to realize is that improvisation and doing improv comedy isn’t really just getting into a room without any preparation, making some stuff up, and being hilarious. It does take some preparation and some understands what improvisation is. While improv doesn’t really mean in itself there are no rules, it may seem to indicate that, but really in improvisation there are a bunch of rules that you need to follow. And you also need to know how to improvise and rely on your teamates to make sure things are comfortable for you on stage, so that you can make jokes. And in turn you can make things comfortable for on stage for them so that they can make jokes too. And you can rely on each other to create some very good comedy.
And in the Anime con world, it’s been great to apply that sort of rules and stuff, and while it looks like we’re making this stuff, and we are making this stuff up, we are really applying a bunch of rules of improvisation to make it happen. In the Anime con world its been great too. Because we are all, at least initially, we’re all a bunch of anime fans, we were all able to make a bunch of comedy from the anime world. So you know, we could make jokes about Gundam, Sailormoon, or Pokemon which was at the time and for some real reason is really popular, we used to be able to make jokes about that all the time. But we were also able to apply, to do improvisation, in a bunch of different situations, right. It doesn’t have to be Gundames, it could be giant robots. It doesn’t have to be Sailormoon, it could be about magical girls. There’s tons of anime about giant robots and magical girls out there. So we were able to apply what we knew as anime fans into our improvisation to make sure all the stuff we came up with, each scene, each game, ended up being applicable to the maximum number of people in the audience.
Vargas: Well what a scientific outlook on the way it works.
Nguyen: Hey I have a masters degree in… something.
Vargas: Well what is your master’s degree in?
Nguyen: Actually, my master’s degree is in geography.
Vargas: Geography?
Nguyen: Yeah. I know where stuff is. For example, I’m sitting in my office at home and not to far away from me is my child and not too far away from her is my wife. So I think I’m covered.
Vargas: So geography, so what do you actually do with a degree in geography?
Nguyen: Wow, you ask the really tough there.
Vargas: Well I guess its drawing maps. But I have a degree in English and I guess I’m going to write at some point.
Nguyen: True enough. Well actually I have a master’s degree in geographical information systems. Which basically means I am a master degree expert in the computer software systems which are required to perform analysis on geographic information. So it’s not just about making maps, but analyzing the differences between where stuff is and being able to make decisions based on it. I have a job selling that software nowadays. It came in use for me.
Vargas: Fair enough. Back to the performance, so I have heard that the 404’s have gotten into a few dicey situations, like at Anime Evolution there was the whole incident with the chair…
Nguyen: Yeah the chair. That was a fun one. I can’t remember what year it was, 2004, 2005 but at AX, that’s the big California Convention or Los Angelis Convention. During their Cosplay event there was this break in the Cosplay for some reason and there were just some cosplayers on the stage, but from the previous sketch or something they had left a chair on the stage. And so during that Cosplay at AX the audience just started cheering “The Chair, The Chair, The Chair” and it just got, well not out of hand, it went viral shall we say. So that same summer after AX we were all at Anime Evolution, we were all at Anime Evolution in Vancouver and we all sat on chairs, we were all on stage, during the games themselves as we were trying to improvise, people just kept shouting suggestions whenever we asked for suggestions from the audience, and someone or somebody would start saying “The Chair” and everyone would laugh. Most of us in the cast had no idea what was going on, so we’d just incorporate the chair into one scene and the next game someone would shout “The Chair” so we’d end up doing the chair over and over again. And we got sick of it after a little while. So we tried to take it out of the show, but that made people more angry. So we ended up doing an awful lot of games and scenes featuring that darn chair.
Vargas: Ok, well that must have been a bit of a challenge. But I understand that in some of your skits, I understand it’s a moral choice, you’re not willing to go… there’s a line you guys have drawn in comedy. I believe you won’t discuss the Holocaust or other ghastly things?
Nguyen: Me personally, find absolutely nothing funny about the holocaust. I don’t think that making jokes about Nazi’s or Jews or Mass Murder whether happened, I’m not going to get into that either. I personally don’t believe that’s funny. And in an audience, especially with the anime crowd, because they are so relatively young, it’s tough to feel capable of making jokes that could offend anybody.
So with the 404’s anyways, we draw a line of rating or content, basically along the lines of movie ratings. So most of the shows we devue are rated PG or PG 13 tops. And we try to keep our content within those lines. We don’t joke about the Holocaust, we don’t joke about race. It’s just not cool to insult a few people in the audience for the benefit for the people that think that sort of stuff is funny. So as to me, we try to make a choice that a show, if it’s going to be family friendly, we are going to keep it relatable to that audience. I’m not talking about making it Disney like, but you know you draw a line at certain places. You don’t make jokes about certain things. That’s something all of us have to be aware of whenever we make comedy.
Vargas: Ok, but I understand you guys have an 18 and over show. What do you guys do in that sort of show?
Nguyen: Well that’s a very good guess to that one Victor. We have a sort of a 404’s after dark or 404’s late night show at some of the conventions we do. We haven’t been able to do it in Alberta yet, which is unfortunate. But at some of the other conventions such as Anime North, Anime Evolution, ACQ, and I think we did it at Otakuthon to the one time. We have an 18+ show. And that does not mean that we do racist jokes or we do stuff that would be considered really insulting or anything like that. We are able to not censor ourselves as much, because with the 18+ crowd we’ll be sure that the folks there will know that we won’t be as family friendly as usual. And sometimes, you know, it means we’ll going to get into some risky comedy. I’m not going to say what it is of course, you just have to show up to one of those shows. But you know, we can let our hair down and some of us can let our pants down. And other way it’s a really funny show and a nice change from the more general fare, shall we say, we have in our regular shows.
Vargas: Well moving away from the 404’s well to a different topic I guess. Now I understand you guys are starting auditions up.
Nguyen: Well that’s not a new topic at all, that’s all 404’s work. And we are doing auditions for the 2010, well we’ve done auditions before, but this is the first time we are doing it on the web like this. Now for the 404’s, as with any performers group, there is going to be turn over— folks come in, folks leave as the case may be, but you know what, the band goes on. And this year we have a couple of space s on the 404’s group that we are going to be filling. So this year we are going to be applying what we’ve been learning overall as improvisers, from each other or the industry and taking courses, taking improv courses, we are going to be a more general audition call or a casting call for people we don’t necessarily know in the past. We often cast new folks to the group based on whether or not we knew them. But this year we are definitely going to be trying to reach out to the more general fan base and get a few good improvisers from there. We’ve got a website set up for our auditions which are happening by the way on February 27th, that would be in Calgary. So for all of you guys listening or reading this podcast, please go to our website at www.the 404s.com. And check out the details. We are going to be holding some auditions on February 27th, that’s a Saturday, here in Calgary, and we hope to bring some new talent out that will be able to delve into the group and take the group into some great new directions or 2010 and the future.
Vargas: Now is this open to everyone in Alberta, or do you have to live in Calgary to take part in this?
Nguyen: Well this is open to anybody. But for now we are going to be concentrating on filling the gaps in our Calgary cast, from the folks that are available here. We’d like to practice, to rehearse a little bit more together, so we are going to be filling the holes, and this year anyways, we are going to be building new members in Calgary. So we will be able to hit the shows, not only here, but all over Alberta as a more unified group. So while we aren’t doing any auditions in Edmonton this time, we aren’t going to rule it out. But at least for this round, we are going to be holding auditions in Calgary, princibly folks who can make it to Calgary for rehearsals and the shows around it.
Vargas: What are you planning on looking for in those interviews?
Nguyen: Well it’s not an interview. It’s definitely an audition. We’re not going to be looking for, you know, like anybody who’s not… experience isn’t really necessarily. It does help if you are familiar with improv and know how to play the games and stuff like that. But we are mostly looking for people who are energetic, and witty, and dynamic, and who can definitely be funny while working in a group with other improvisers. And if you happen to be an anime fan, or by extension, a fan of any other geeky stuff like sci-fi, comics, movies, or stuff in general like that, that’s the sort of background we’re looking for in order to recruit these improvisers. So we are going to be looking for folks that can improvise, but you don’t need to be fully trained, you don’t need experience. But if you’re a geek or an anime fan or an anime geek or any other sort of genre fanatic, we are definitely looking for that too.
Vargas: What do you feel are the future of the 404’s? Are you guys going to keep doing anime cons, or are you going to expand into the Fringe and other events?
Nguyen: One of the things about improv is we can do almost anything given a little bit of time and a little bit of space. We have considered doing stuff before, but right now…
[Skype Cut Off]
[Call Resumed after a few minutes]
Nguyen: Uh what happened there?
Vargas: On your end it disconnected for some reason.
Nguyen: Oh really, from my end it looked the same to me too. How much did you get before…
Vargas: You were just talking about where the 404’s were going?
Nguyen: Want me to answer that again?
Vargas: No if you could just finish where you were going with it.
Nguyen: Ok, well I can’t remember. I don’t know where we dropped off. Well the future is open for us and the group in general. But like I said, it all depends what the group consensus is. I am happy to act as producer, general host, for the 404’s, and performer as well. But really, going forward with what everybody wants. We hope to have that line of communications open for all the cast members to be able to work together. To create some new comedy in different venues as well.
Vargas: Great, so anything else you’d like to say to the people of Anime Alberta?
Nguyen: Sure. Well guys, for those of you that remember me from when I used to run Anime-Alberta, hi everyone. And I’m glad to see that the website is still going and that everyone seems to be enjoying the podcasts and the interviews your making Victor.
In respect to the auditions, like I said if you are in the Calgary area and you’d like to try your hands at doing some improv and you happen to be a good fan of ours or happen to know how to do some good improv comedy yourself, please check us out and try and come to our auditions on February 27th. And definitely be on the lookout for us, because we are going to be at any number of conventions this year. And we are still firming up our spring schedule, but I definitely hope we will be out and about and you’ll see us before long and we’ll be entertaining the fans once again in the 2010 year.
Vargas: Well it’s been a pleasure talking to you Mark, and you can catch the 404’s at a number of events in this coming year.
Nguyen: And definitely look to Anime-Alberta to find out all the latest details. I still visit the website, so I’ll be posting the details on that. And look for our latest shows for anime stuff and otherwise at www.the404s.com
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Victor Vargas is the manager and editor of Anime-Alberta. He's the former chair of Animethon 16 & Animethon 15 as well as a former president of BAKA (The Banzai Anime Klub of Alberta)