There will never be another television show like The Chair. It debuted in 2014 to mild reception and never got a second season. Its premise was fairly simple: pitting two directors against each other to see who can make the better film. But this "filmmaking experiment" somehow created a perfect storm of clashing egos and behind-the-scenes controversy. And the series has become even more relevant today for its ties to the wider controversy surrounding YouTuber Shane Dawson.
It's an interesting idea, to be sure. Both directors worked from the same base material, a generic indie screenplay. They had the same budget ($800,000) and the same filming schedule (20 days). All this to show the audience how different artists work under equal conditions. The obvious comparison is to HBO's much more popular series Project Greenlight, which The Chair's Chris Moore also produced. The biggest difference is that The Chair puts less focus on the technical aspects of the production. Instead, it creates drama through the clashing personalities of its stars — the contestants and their casts.
The two directors couldn't be more different from each other in terms of their approach to the source text. Shane Dawson, then known for his viral sketch comedy, opted to make a teen rom-com. A.M. Lukas (then Anna Martemucci), an NYU screenwriting graduate, tried to repurpose the script into an indie drama. Standing on opposite sides of the genre spectrum, neither seems to care much for the original writer's ideas.
Of course, that's how the show works; the script is malleable, so any director can refit it to suit their style. It keeps the writing from having any kind of "personal touch" outside what the directors give it themselves. The problem with that, of course, is that it holds both films back. They may be unique from each other, but they share a lack of quality writing. It's surely possible to craft a script that's open to the director's interpretation... while still being smart and creative. This was not it.
So the two films follow a group of former high school friends meeting up with each other over Thanksgiving break. Lukas's film is titled Hollidaysburg and Dawson's is titled Not Cool. The differences in genre and presentation are pretty clear at this point from the titles alone. The characters' names and roles differ between the two, but the main leads are Scott and Tori in both. Lukas cast a pre-Legion Rachel Keller as Tori in Hollidaysburg; BAFTA winner Cherami Leigh played Tori in Not Cool. Both actresses actually do fairly well, given the material. Meanwhile, actor Tobin Mitnick (who's gone viral on TikTok for his love of trees) played Scott in Hollidaysburg. But for Not Cool, Shane Dawson cast himself in the coveted lead role.
It's the first time Dawson's ego shows up in the series, but it's certainly not the last. While The Chair has largely disappeared from the internet, compilations of Dawson "acting up" on set are all over YouTube. His abrasive personality gets in the way of him making a good film far too many times. That's not to say Lukas didn't have her own problems, but she's much more patient and thoughtful with her crew. This is likely the producers' intent; just another way of dividing the two competitors. The series trailer, for instance, shows Dawson as the one with internet knowledge, and Lukas the one with industry knowledge. Anything to create a contrast, to add drama and suspense.
But going back to Dawson: many directors have had serious problems with poor behavior. This extends even to many of the greats, such as Hitchcock and Kubrick. Critics of Dawson's film should, of course, only judge it on its own merits.
And on that note, Not Cool isn't simply "not cool"; it's also one of the worst movies of all time. The YouTuber brand of humor which was popular in 2014 doesn't translate well to film at all. The comedy is on the same level as something Friedberg and Seltzer would make (that also goes for the poster). It's not being offensive because it wants to be funny, it's being offensive because it wants to be offensive. The characters aren't interesting, and for those who aren't massive Shane Dawson fans, his performance just comes off as annoying. It's currently one of the worst-rated movies on both Metacritic and IMDb.
Hollidaysburg isn't a great film, but it's at least competent. It handles almost every technical aspect better and more creatively than Dawson's film. Not all the performances are perfect, and the comedy doesn't always land, but it works as a low-key, independent drama. The downside is that there's not as much to say about it, simply because it isn't as extreme and controversial. But according to just about every critic out there, it's the better-made movie of the two.
Now comes the fatal flaw, perhaps the single reason The Chair's "experiment" ended in complete failure. The internet, not critics or a jury, made the decision of which film was better. When one of the contestants is an internet celebrity, it's easy to see how the results might be skewed. And that meant that Not Cool won the $250,000 prize. Producer Chris Moore claims this was because of the "mainstream" film prevailing over the more "arthouse" film. And to be fair, voters did have to prove that they had seen both films to qualify. But it still doesn't seem like a fair fight.
Lukas, a female filmmaker just trying to break into the industry, only got that single moment in the spotlight. But Dawson continued to find popularity on YouTube by making his own docu-series. Eventually, his past caught up with him, and the ensuing controversy led to YouTube demonetizing all of his channels. In that way, The Chair is ahead of its time, showing a side of Dawson that wasn't as documented then. But it ultimately enables even his most reprehensible actions, and that itself is not cool.