Tadhg Hickey is a comedian; actor; writer; director; musician; painter and decorator; and according to his Facebook page he is also Michelle Smith de Bruin’s ex. He has created TV shows, acted in multiple films, written and delivered comedy gigs and appeared in loads of ads.
Tadhg didn’t waste any time during the pandemic and continued to work online throughout it and more recently his video content has exploded on social media.
In this interview, Judie Russell chats with Tadhg about his process of coming up with and creating videos as a comedian, how he handles negative comments, and one of the biggest lessons he has learned about creating videos over the past number of years.
1. The Video Creation Process as a Comedian
Tadhg Hickey focuses on creating two different types of videos; Geopolitical stories and character driven videos.
For his geopolitical videos, the goal is to create content that can turn complex ideas into funny sketches that are also entertaining and educational. This starts out with at least two to three days of research; focusing on reading information rather than watching YouTube videos or mainstream news. From there, he would typically spend one day writing a script and then one day filming and editing.
This process changes for his character driven videos where he is focusing on what the character is doing in a particular scenario. These are normally easier to write as there is little research involved.
No matter the video that Tadhg creates, he finds it very important to make sure that he can argue why every line in the script is there, even if it means putting in more work and more time.
“I just want to create strong work”
2. Dealing with Negative Comments
How does Tadhg deal with negative comments, especially when it comes to creating content that deals with political topics?
Tadhg is very aware of the content that he creates and which makes him aware of what is coming next. Despite this it can be draining to deal with negative comments.
“I’m a human being at the end of the day”
What he has found is - “if you’re explaining you’re losing.” If he puts out content that he knows he’s put the work into and done the research, if the viewer likes it that's great however if they don’t that's also fine.
3. The Biggest Lesson as a Comedian Creating Videos
“Do what you think is funny”
The number one lesson that Tadhg has learnt over the past number of years is to focus on creating the content that you want to create. While it is good to understand what your audience might like, it’s so much more important to find the thing that you are strong at but also passionate about or identify the most with.
“Why would you ever stray from the exact thing that you want to do?”
Find out more:
Follow Tadhg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TadhgHickey
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