Today we’d like to introduce you to Cody Ziglar.
Cody, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Not to get super draw out but I’m from a small rural town called Pine Hall, North Carolina & I spent A LOT of my free time either drawing, playing music, or doing something creative and my parents were always super supportive.
I’ve also love comedy as far back as I can remember and used to watch Mystery Science Theater, The Simpsons, Mr. Show, SNL, UCB, and a bunch of other cool shit I didn’t understand as a kid but always made me laugh. Eventually, I ended up studying Audio & Video at my undergrad and found my way to the Savannah College of Art & Design where I got an MFA in Film Production.
Toward my 2nd year I ended up landing a job at Adult Swim as a director’s assistant for Dave Willis & Chris “Casper” Kelly for the 2nd season of Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell where I learned a TON about what does & doesn’t work in comedy; trusting your gut, having a good collection of folks to bounce ideas off of, sharing sensibilities, and truly just being a weirdo.
After the Adult Swim gig wrapped, I finished my MFA and hopped out to LA where I landed a job working for UCB Comedy in their digital department managing their film equipment, running their podcast wing, & using their equipment & studio spaces to make videos on the side.
After a while, I kinda became known as one of only black directors/podcast producer working in the comedy space which is how I landed at Earwolf, where I currently produce.
Has it been a smooth road?
That’s a good question, I think overall I’ve been so incredibly lucky to be where I’m at career-wise considering how relatively short I’ve been in the game. I think on the outside some people would say it’s been “smooth” or “easier,” but the thought doesn’t take into account the hours dedicated to working on & honing the craft.
I very rarely had free weekends during my time at SCAD & I worked basically two-three jobs with six-day weeks my first three years in LA. So I put the time in, and I’m very happy to see that it’s starting to pay off.
I’d say the biggest struggle is what you would expect: time management and balancing not burning yourself out. I definitely think I pushed myself too hard the first few years and took on too many things on my plate when looking back I would have just said “Aye Zig, you can chill on some of that shit. You gonna get there when you get there”.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Earwolf story. Tell us more about the business.
I currently produce for Earwolf, which is a comedy podcasting network/production company. Right now my shows are Yo, Is This Racist?, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, Threedom, as well as a few shows that haven’t been announced yet.
I’m also a freelance comedy director. It’s no secret that the podcasting & comedy world are predominantly white spaces, so being a black person in that world who pretty vocally advocates for PoC/WoC inclusion I think has set me apart from a lot of the white cats working in the space.
During my time at UCB, I worked directly under one of the founders Matt Walsh, and he gave me almost total freedom in booking guests and was a big advocate for me doing what I could to get some diversity on the channel and the greater community scene in general.
I along with UCB Diversity Coordinator Anna Rajo, put together a diversity podcast pilot program where we selected three winning pitches and produced a pilot for them. It took a lot of time and was a bit stressful, but I was pretty proud of the folks I got to meet any of the projects we ended up getting mad.
When it comes to directing comedy, space is even whiter. I grew up watching all the same shows my white friends did but I also grew up watching The Wayans Bros, Martine, and In Living Color and Girlfriends and A Different World, so my well of influence was just deeper &* my voice was different than most of the white folks doing the same thing as me.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
To be honest, I’m still learning the ins & outs, but I think the biggest shift will be having the platform open up to non-English speaking audiences. I would love to see what kinda shit the Spanish speaking comedy community would put out. I think a bilingual character-based comedy show would explode.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thatdudezig.com
- Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/yayforzig - Twitter: https://twitter.com/
yayforzig
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