Eric Appel (born August 13, 1980) is an American filmmaker working in television, film, and commercials.
Originally from
Endicott, New York
Endicott is a village in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 13,392 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is named after Henry B. Endicott, a founding member of the En ...
, Appel attended the
Art Institute of Pittsburgh
The Art Institute of Pittsburgh was a private college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Shortly before closing in 2019, it was purchased by Dream Center Education Holdings (in turn a division of The Dream Center, a Christian non-profit 501(c)(3) org ...
, majoring in computer animation. Describing his childhood interests, Appel said, "I was always playing around with video cameras, but I was also the kid that drew cartoons. It’s weird. I was so obsessed with movies and television, but nobody ever told me that I should go to film school...
en I decided to go to school for animation, it felt like a no-brainer. However, when I actually went away to college, I realized that I had made a mistake (and also that I wasn’t that great at drawing). I actually spent more time working on videos with my roommate, who was majoring in video production, than I did working on my own projects."
While in college, Appel also began performing
improv comedy
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...
, after his girlfriend brought him to a "show at the University of Pittsburgh called '
Friday Nite Improvs
Friday Nite Improvs, or Friday Night Improvs (FNI), was a long-running weekly improvisational comedy show staged on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show functioned as an improv ...
,' where anyone from the audience could volunteer to go up on stage and perform these improv games." After moving to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Appel started taking classes at the
Upright Citizens Brigade Theater
The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (shorter UCB Theatre) is an American improvisational theatre company and training center founded by the Upright Citizens Brigade troupe members Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh.
Prior to ...
, "and it wasn’t long before I was basically living at the theatre. I became very involved very quickly.
wastaking improv classes, interning, running the lights for shows and really helping out in any way that I could so I could just be around comedy as much as possible."
While still in New York, Appel got a job writing for ''
The Andy Milonakis Show
''The Andy Milonakis Show'' is an American sketch comedy television show starring Andy Milonakis, which aired on MTV2, the first season having aired on MTV. The program premiered on June 26, 2005 and ended with its three-season run when it wa ...
'', then moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
for that show's third season when its production was relocated to California. He subsequently wrote for ''
Crank Yankers
''Crank Yankers'' is an American adult puppet television show produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Daniel Kellison. It features actual crank calls made by show regulars and celebrity guests, while re-enacted onscreen by puppets for a visu ...
'' and ''
Human Giant
''Human Giant'' is a sketch comedy show, starring writer/performers Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel, and Paul Scheer, and directed primarily by Jason Woliner. The show ran for two seasons on MTV. In interviews, the group has mentioned that they were o ...
'', then went to work for the comedy website
Funny or Die
Funny or Die is a comedy video website and film/television production company owned by Henry R. Muñoz III that was founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Mark Kvamme, and Chris Henchy in 2007. The website contained exclusive material from a reg ...
. "Funny or Die was such a young company when they hired me...there were about eight of us all sitting around a large dining room table on laptops. Every day a few people would disappear to go shoot some shit and then the next day they would be sitting next to you editing it. Then it would go up on the site and it would either get a million hits or nobody would watch it and it would disappear and then it was on to the next thing. Everyone there worked at their own pace and you were encouraged to just go pick up a camera and make something...I used this as an opportunity to start directing my own sketches and quickly found out that not only do I like directing more than writing, but also that I’m better at it."
Appel would go on to extensively direct series television, with credits including ''
Eagleheart'', ''
NTSF:SD:SUV'', ''
The Office
''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries.
The original series of ...
,'' ''
New Girl
''New Girl'' is an American television sitcom created by Elizabeth Meriwether and produced by 20th Television for Fox that originally aired from September 20, 2011, to May 15, 2018. The series revolves around a kooky teacher, Jessica Day ( Zoo ...
'', ''
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
''Brooklyn Nine-Nine'' is an American police procedural comedy television series that aired on Fox, and later on NBC. The show aired from September 17, 2013, to September 16, 2021, for a total of eight seasons and 153 episodes. Created by Dan G ...
'', ''
Son of Zorn
A son is a male reproduction, offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and s ...
,'' and ''
Die Hart
Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life.
Die may also refer to:
Games
* Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers
Manufacturing
* Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
''.
In 2022, Appel made his feature directorial debut with ''
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story'', based on a Funny or Die short that he directed twelve years earlier.
The film won a
Critics Choice Award
The Critics' Choice Movie Awards (formerly known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award) is an awards show presented annually by the American-Canadian Critics Choice Association (CCA) to honor the finest in cinematic achievement. Writt ...
for Best Made for Television Movie.
References
External links
*
1980 births
21st-century American comedians
21st-century American screenwriters
21st-century American male writers
American male comedians
American film editors
American television directors
American television writers
American male television writers
Comedians from New York (state)
Comedy film directors
Film directors from New York (state)
Film producers from New York (state)
Living people
People from Endicott, New York
Screenwriters from New York (state)
Upright Citizens Brigade Theater performers
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