by Robert Bouffard, Editor
A year ago, Bo Burnham wowed us by releasing Bo Burnham: Inside, a film that he created on his own over the course of 15 months. It will likely go down as one of the best, if not the best, pieces of media to address the collective anxiety of 2020. It had so much to say, and the ways it communicated all of its ideas were so uniquely Bo Burnham. It’s an important film, and hopefully, it will last long in the public consciousness.
Inside was so unique and insular, in fact, that I had little to no interest of ever seeing any behind-the-scenes footage or hearing any interviews from Burnham himself about the film. It’s so particular in the way it goes about communicating its ideas that seeing what went into it — to me — would almost feel like a disservice. Yet here we are a year later, and Burnham has gone ahead and released 63 minutes of outtakes on his YouTube channel. And being the man of integrity and sticking to my convictions that I am, I pressed play on the video no less than three minutes after it was published.
Since this isn’t really a movie or a special, I won’t give it the formal review. While the outtakes are edited quite similarly to Inside, they still ultimately feel like a compilation, as opposed to a meticulously crafted film with an emotional climax. So instead, I’ll just mention some of my observations.
Back when Inside first came out and everyone was tweeting about it, there were a fair amount of tweets saying something to the effect of, “Bo Burnham took advantage of quarantine and made a special with just himself and some video equipment. What’s your excuse?!” Seeing these outtakes swiftly dispelled the notions that such high-quality filmmaking is an anyone-can-do-it endeavor. If Inside itself didn’t have enough of it, the outtakes show plenty of B-roll of Burnham setting up his camera, props, equipment, and everything in between. And while his room may have been messy at times, it’s painfully obvious that each and every potential shot was meticulously planned out and visualized in his head before he even hit record. It’s just the process of bringing those shots to life that were so fascinating, impressive, and singular. It shows the process of a one-of-a-kind artist at work, and not just some silly songs that a random guy came up with.
It also chronicles the trial and error of filmmaking. For certain songs, such as “Problematic”, Burnham shows nine alternate and disparate angles to tackle the song, each quite different from what he ended up with. Alternately, for “Welcome to the Internet”, Burnham puts up 35 failed takes, just to show that, yeah, he put a lot of work into this. And on top of it all, like the way Inside itself is edited, we get even more examples of him sitting in the dark, staring at the computer to show the tedious process of editing a film — alone — and deciding which take might work best. This all makes it that much more impressive when you think about how well the visuals, audio, and ideas mix in the real film.
But perhaps what shows off his editing instincts the most is that he knew which skits and songs to cut. From “Feel Good”, to “Jeans”, to “The Podcast” (my personal favorite), “The Perfect Peanut Butter Sandwich”, “Joe Biden”, “The Chicken”, and “Five Years”, there’s a lot of good stuff that at face value, you might not want to leave on the cutting room floor. But apart from “The Dump”, in which Burnham conducts a zoom interview with eight different caricature versions of himself, each of what he cut out doesn’t quite feel like it belongs in Inside. There’s a certain feel and style to each of the skits and songs in Inside — they’re clearly about something, and it’s not too hard to figure out what, but it’s almost never outright said or directly political.
“The Chicken” (from the outtakes) is a great song about facing the difficulties of life, and it has the signature Burnham humor, but its meaning is right there on the surface. Whereas, “That Funny Feeling” (from the film) has you thinking about and feeling many different ideas and emotions, and the subtle contrasting and simple statements are quite effective. Similarly, it’s obvious why Burnham is saying congratulations to Jeff Bezos in “Bezos II” (film) if you’re aware of current events, but the visuals are just abstract enough and the lyrics are just vague enough to not be 100% a direct jab. On the other hand, asking, “How is the best case scenario Joe Biden?” (outtakes) is without a doubt a direct jab. That he was able to toe the line so perfectly in the film is even more impressive, knowing what was left on the cutting room floor. Even cutting out the voiceover (it’s left in during the outtakes) during what is essentially the same footage of him watching his old videos leaves it up to the viewer to distinguish the nuances of what he’s saying, thinking, and feeling.
Fascinatingly, the outtakes do even more than the film itself to make you confront the paradox of this whole undertaking. Burnham lets you know he’s in on the joke — both in the film and in the outtakes — but it’s up to the viewer to decide how much they’ll let him indulge in his antics “The Dump” has him asking why there are no women or people of color in this special. It’s another way of him asking if he’s really “a special kind of white guy”. I don’t think he knows, and I don’t know if there’s even a concrete answer to this. (Though F.D Signifier’s video essay on the topic is an excellent place to start if you’re attempting to answer this question.)
All in all, the outtakes to Inside are great to see, and they give a deeper insight and appreciation into what made the film so singularly impressive and important. It continues to put Bo Burnham’s creative abilities on full display. If he had to release some of what went on behind the scenes, this is exactly how it should have been done.
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