The Verdict Is In…“Judged by Paxton” is Awesome

Go behind the scenes of a web series created behind the scenes of another popular show.

Every Wednesday at 7pm Kyle Orozovich, Roman Urbanski, and Steve King make the Internet a whole lot better with new episodes of their web series “Judged by Paxton”. I chatted with the team behind “Paxton” to see what it takes to keep their hilarious web series in business, and how it came to be.

Simply put, “Judged by Paxton” is about 3 guys who work together and try to make it through their day without getting judged by a picture of 80’s-era Bill Paxton on the wall. The series mirrors reality in a way, as it is shot and produced at Kyle, Roman, and Steve’s actual office, “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”. They all met at NBC doing cue cards for Jimmy and “Saturday Night Live”, and after rescuing the Paxton picture from being thrown away by Fallon’s prop master – it was used on the show in a bit with Bill Paxton himself – “Judged by Paxton” was born.

Once they had the perfect prop, they hung it on the wall of the cue card department, and according to Steve immediately started making jokes about how Bill looked like he was constantly judging them. Roman explained that this played into a larger goal adding, “Aside from working our hardest to get the actual (Fallon) shows ready, we try to make each other laugh as often as possible. This Paxton idea started as a way to make something in less than an hour with an iPhone. And oddly enough it ended up being more freeing than limiting.”

paxton

As for the techy kind of stuff, it turns out a few key apps helped get the job done. “Paxton” started as a series of daily Instavideos, which didn’t quite achieve what Kyle wanted to get done. The game-changer came in the form of the app “Spark”, which according to him, let’s you shoot for 45 seconds but also allows you to edit your footage and add music. Kyle explained, “When we did it on Instagram, we had to shoot sequentially and a lot of the times it would crash and we would lose everything and have to start all over again. So Spark gave us some freedom. Then before we knew it, 45 seconds wasn’t long enough either.” Things evolved from there and new episodes, in addition to blooper reels and other fun stuff are posted right on “Judged by Paxton’s” Youtube channel.

But what you won’t see on the channel is the inside scoop I got from the guys on the what it’s like creating a web series behind the scenes of the Tonight Show. They have a ton of good stories, but a lot revolve around what happens when people catch them shooting. Steve said that, “They’ll see Kyle standing in top of the desk with a camera while roman and I are wrestling and be like… ‘Ooookaaayyy…’ And then they usually just turn around and forget what they came for.” Roman added, “We’re always caught off guard and they’ll say, ‘You guys look like I just caught you doing something naughty.’”

As far as the Paxton crew knows, the true star of their web series, Bill Paxton, hasn’t heard about their project, but if that did happen, the results would be almost as funny as their episodes. Kyle would tell him, “we’re big fans and please don’t sue us…” While Steve is hoping for him to see it and get it kick out of it. But as the word on the series spreads, Roman should start carrying around an extra pair of pants, because if he met Bill he would ask him to be in an episode, pee himself, and walk away crying.

Season 3 of Paxton continues next Wednesday at its normal time, but as far as Season 4, the guys are keeping mum. That said, Kyle DID give away this spoiler, “We’re basically just asking for a Cease & desist now.” You can catch up on “Judged by Paxton” on Youtube, and be sure to stay there for new episodes going live Wednesday’s at 7pm. Below are the episodes that Kyle, Roman, and Steve picked as their favorites to get you excited, plus my own personal favorite for good measure.

BACK

“Back was very fun. We got to make a TV show theme song and montage, including the ‘Notice there’s a camera in front of you and smile’ shot.” – Roman

“Recreating an opening montage similar to the ones from the 80s sitcoms I grew up on was really fun. It really brought me back.” -Steve