Scotty Got An (Aussie) ‘Office Job’, Officially Makes Us Jealous

Scotty Iseri started his one-man web series with modest goals—create something funny that would cause a few people to take notice. Scotty Got an Office Job, the low-fi production which debuted last January, consisting of just Iseri and his web cam set in an office cubicle, did in fact get some not-to-shabby attention from the likes of laughingsquid, Tubefilter and even the New York Times. While press clippings do wonders for family dinners, they still don’t exactly pay the bills. With the second season winding down, the cubicle comedy was still without any sponsors on board or major distribution deals.

But when a call came from literally the other side of the world, longtime freelancer and writer Iseri had an offer too good to pass up. Australian PR firm Klick Communications

had been following Scotty’s office antics and offered to sponsor a third season of the series—to be shot entirely in Klick’s Sydney-based offices. The one year-old firm has an impressive stable of clients like Havaianas, Southern Comfort and Australian Traveller Magazine.

Iseri packed up in late October for an all-expense-paid five week relocation to Sydney, staying in Fraser Suites Sydney (one of Klick’s clients). The plan was to shoot between 12 to 15 episodes, though by the end 18 episodes were in the can. Rather than release episodes weekly as he had before, much of the shooting was done in advance allowing for a more measured rollout over several months.

“We really enjoyed seeing the new episodes each week and once joked about working in an office with him and it went from there,” said Klick Director Kim McKay who initially found out about Iseri’s series on Twitter. “We also thought he might need a job as things didn’t appear to be going so well where he was.” (Scotty was “fired” at the end of Season 2.)

“As a creator, I realized how lucky I was to work with a forward thinking company,” added Iseri. “Fortune favors the bold, and the bold things are succeeding. It’s really cheap to fail on the internet—the consequences are less than if you made a commercial for broadcast.”

The series picked up a healthy dose of local press in Australia, with Iseri himself asked to speak at Social Media Club Sydney next to rapper-turned-Twitter-star MC Hammer.

“For us, it was about partnering with a talented creator (Scotty) and really trusting him,” said McKay. “We had always been entertained by him so we know that if we put too many parameters around the series it wouldn’t be fun for him and the end result just wouldn’t be as funny. We played gags on him but it was his decision what made the series. A web series is a fun and cost effective way to build brand awareness for almost anything—just create stories that you would like to see, not the stories you think you need to tell.”

And what about office pranks and goofing off, did they increase during Scotty’s time at Klick? “They sure did,” said McKay. “While Scotty was trying to play it straight early on our team had a lot of fun turning the tables on him, the poor guy!”

McKay and her team at Klick even made a For Your Consideration video for the Streamy Awards, giving an inside glimpse of just how lucky Iseri really was…