Today we’d like to introduce you to Alek Wiltbank. He and his team share their story with us below:
Organization: Bumpy Soup Projects: Good Show ™ (web series) and Bumpy Soup Podcast.
Hi, we are Bumpy Soup! We’re a creative collective based out of St. George, Utah. We make Good Show™, a comedy streaming series, as well as the Bumpy Soup Podcast.
We’ve all been friends for a long time, some of us going as far back as preschool, and many of the members of the group met while attending high school together. However, what really brought us together was the local Saint George music scene at Jazzy Java’s about 8 years ago. We began playing live shows at Jazzy’s and eventually started bands together (Morning Sexy, Ex Era, Sleep Dealer, and Brickwalker). After Jazzy’s closed, we remained close by continuing to play music together, filming the Arborist Sessions, and hanging out regularly. One day, our friend Patrick had the idea for a comedy show based on exaggerated versions of some members of the friend group. He and Alek sat down to write a script based on the initial idea which later became Good Show™ Episode 1: Social Insecurity Number.
A few more scripts were written, but it wasn’t until nearly four years later that we finally decided to film the first episode. Social Insecurity Number would go on to being accepted to a few film festivals, winning Best Web Series at the Poor Life Choices Comedy Film Festival. After the success, we decided to try making more of the episodes to release online. Excitement for the project snowballed into creating our second episode of Good Show™, “Night of the Living Ted”, released on October 30th, 2022. Many scripts have been written since and we are scheduled to begin filming in them in 2023. Additionally, we’ve started recording the Bumpy Soup Podcast, a weekly podcast where we discuss our favorite TV shows and invite our audience into the kind of riff-filled conversations that spawn our creative endeavours.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The beauty and the pain in the ass of DIY creative projects is that you and your crew are essentially on your own – no “formal” training or institutional backing, and working off of an extremely scrappy budget. It takes a lot of time and energy to make things happen – even when there’s a group of excited and supportive collaborators on your team.
Luckily, Bumpy Soup is a very real community of friends. And coincidentally, very skilled friends. Our group has a shared history of making/performing music together and supporting each other in our own creative projects. Together, we have very few skillset gaps when it comes to producing a web series and a podcast. From videography to sound engineering, to visual arts, marketing, project management, writing, acting, editing, production, etc… every wonderful human in Bumpy Soup makes it better and makes it possible. In a way, the hardest part of doing it DIY – communication, working with different personalities and ideas – we’ve already been doing that together for almost a decade, so we know how to navigate creative collaboration pretty well already.
More money would be cool, though!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Bumpy Soup is a creative collective currently focused on our comedy series Good Show™ and the Bumpy Soup Podcast. We’re very proud to have won the Best Web Series award from the Poor Life Choices Comedy Film Festival for Good Show™ Episode One titled “Social Insecurity Number”. We also have just signed a deal with Indieflix to put both episodes of Good Show™ on their streaming service!
I think the main things that set us apart are our counter-cultural perspectives in a conservative state, the DIY nature of how we make things, and the genuine friendship that bonds the group.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Assuming we’ve had any sort of success, I think it comes down to determination and collaboration.
Filmmaking is already difficult, but without any sort of backing, it rides a lot on the passion of the people involved. We all work jobs and have to make the art that we love in our spare hours, so working with friends and loving the projects are crucial to actually creating anything at all.
Pricing:
- $5/month for a Patreon member (exclusive content, early access to episodes, Watch of the Week club, behind-the-scenes footage, and other perks)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youtube.
com/@BumpySoup/ - Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/bumpysoups/ - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/GoodShowTM - Twitter: https://twitter.com/
BumpySoup - Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/@BumpySoup/
Image Credits
Shane Stewart
