Ballard C. Boyd ‘04 on Making it as a Director

Ballard C. Boyd is a director and segment producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert but before he made it to late night television or won any Emmys, he was making ice cream in his hometown after graduating from Emerson. The path to what we want is rarely linear and he shares his journey with Georgette while giving us a glimpse into how he eventually made it in New York and what kept him going even during the so-called tough times. Recorded on April 4, 2023.

Transcript: Season 6, Episode 4

Ballard C. Boyd

---

Georgette Pierre:
What does it mean to make it big? Well, it depends on who you ask, and we did. Welcome to Making it Big in 30 Minutes, a podcast for, by, and about the Emerson community. You're about to meet an Emersonian who's making it, making a living, making a difference, and sometimes making it up as they go. I'm your host and alum, Georgette Pierre. If you like what you hear, subscribe and share with your friends, and meet me and other Emersonians over on Emerge, the only digital platform exclusive to the Emerson community. Go to emerge.emerson.edu for more.

Georgette Pierre:
Ballard C Boyd is a director and segment producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. We also ran into each other at the 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards in LA last year. Before Ballard made it to late night television or winning any Emmys, he was making ice cream in his hometown after graduating from Emerson. The path to what we want is rarely linear. Ballard got really candid about his journey that became Colbert. It was quantity versus quality in the beginning so he could hone his craft. He gave us a glimpse of how he eventually made it in New York, the creative projects that prepared him for the Colbert opportunity, and what kept him going even during the so-called tough times. Here is Ballard C Boyd on making it as a director. I have Ballard C Boyd. Ballard, it's so good to see you.

Ballard C. Boyd:
It's good to see you, too. Well, I was going to say we haven't seen each other in person. We're still technically not in person, but I can see your face. That works for me.

Georgette Pierre:
Yeah. Well, you know what's so funny? What inspired me to really go after you coming onto the podcast, Ballard and I literally ran into each other in the lobby at the Primetime Emmys in LA last September.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Which feels real slick. That feels real Hollywood. For two people who ... Are you still in New York?

Georgette Pierre:
I am.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. There you go. I'm in New York, too. You literally have a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge behind you. It's very on brand for where we're currently located. So it feels very Hollywood, since neither of us live there, to run into each other at the Emmys.

Georgette Pierre:
It was the fact of two Emersonians running into each other. You've won an Emmy, and then I won Emmy a couple of years ago. So it was meant to be, Ballard. It was meant to be. Great to see you, honey.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Same.

Georgette Pierre:
Attending the Emmys is one thing. Winning is another. In a lighthearted way, how would you describe your profession in one sentence

Ballard C. Boyd:
Oh, man. Can I just do that badly? The short version, I'll say there's my day job. Then there's what I would largely describe myself. I'm a segment director and producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but also, broader than that, just a director who likes telling stories of things that are both silly and then also really earnest.

Georgette Pierre:
You did it well, Ballard.

Ballard C. Boyd:
It was a compound sentence. There was an and in there.

Georgette Pierre:
What surprises you the most about the work you're doing now?

Ballard C. Boyd:
That somebody puts it on CBS? That's still ridiculous to me. It really is. As somebody who grew up watching Letterman, Letterman was really big in setting my comedy thermostat. When I think of late middle school, early high school, I started watching Letterman at the suggestion of my Uncle Jay, who we'd be at family events in Kentucky, and he and I were the only two people who stayed up late. He would stay up and watch Letterman, and I started watching it with him. That really set a lot of my comedy taste, and was exposed to a lot of different types of comedy that I didn't know in the world beforehand. To now be working in the same theater, when I direct something for Colbert and it tapes in front of an audience, I stand on the wings of that stage to watch it roll in front of an audience. It's still bonkers. The fact that somebody lets me make funny videos and then puts them on CBS is ridiculous all every time. We're in our eighth season now, and it's still ridiculous.

Georgette Pierre:
Oh, congratulations. You know what's so interesting? I used to stay up even in school watching Letterman. That was just a show you just stayed up for, right?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. Then I would switch over to Conan.

Georgette Pierre:
But you were still in the late night show ether, which is-

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. I work with some people that they're like, "I've loved late night. I've always loved late night. That's where I've always wanted to work." That's not saying I don't enjoy my job, but I also feel like in my career, I've always been directing in some capacity professionally, since Emerson. But I feel like I've had five different career versions of that. Well, we'll get to it, probably, but I directed commercials for a run of years. I worked in-house at Google directing spots for them. So now, to end up at Late Night, and this also being my first TV job, I was a freelance director for almost a decade.

Georgette Pierre:
I think that's how I met you. When we were doing Emerson Gold, I know it's now defunct, but I think you were freelancing at the time.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. I've been freelancing since I moved to New York. Basically, I got hired at Colbert in 2015, two months before he took over on CBS. He took over Letterman's slot. So I came in right at the genesis of that show, or right before, when we were trying to literally figure out what it was. In fact, that was my interview. I was like, "Hey, look, I don't know if they'll hire me, but at the very least, I get to ask, 'What's the new show going to be?'" I was so excited. Prior to that, that was 2015, and my last full-time job was 2007. So I was freelance for-

Georgette Pierre:
Oh, shit.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Or maybe 2006 if I do my math right. I think it probably was. I think it was 2006. So yeah, that's a long run of freelance.

Georgette Pierre:
Well, there's this whole how it started versus how it's going. That, I know, has been a big transformation for you. There are so many misnomers around people thinking they're not in the right city, or they don't have the right tools to get started. Please share briefly your how it started versus how it's going story so people can actually hear the journey of it, one, not being linear to get to where you got to.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Oh, goodness. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You're very right about that. Well, also, I'll say so many Emerson folks that I went school with and kids I talked to now, it's really like, "Well, I just got out of school," or "I'm doing the LA program beforehand. I just got out of school. I'm in LA, and I moved to New York." I did not move to either city. I'm originally from Tennessee. I wanted to direct movies. I was too scared to move to LA or New York. Didn't know what to do. Moved back home to Tennessee. Scooped ice cream for nine months. Then got a job at a nonprofit in Colorado and moved to Boulder and lived there for three years and worked at this nonprofit. I was interested in their work, so it was kind of like going to grad school, but getting a very low, low paycheck.

But I did comedy out there with another Emerson guy, we only knew each other a little bit at college and then connected in Boulder, named Dave Burdick. Then he and I and another guy named Elisha Yaffe from Emerson did a bunch of comedy out there in Colorado. Then Dave made the hop to New York in, I think, late 2007. That was the opening for me to come to New York in 2008 and move into the extra room in their apartment, which was literally prison size, like 8x10. I had a lofted bed because there was no other way to get in the room. I literally built the lofted bed when I first moved in and oriented it wrong. We couldn't turn the bed. We had to dismantle the bed and rebuild it because the room was too small to even rotate it.

I moved to New York and did any random job that I could to pay the bills while using all my free time to just direct sketch comedy with troops. I did data entry. I made yoga videos. I did catering. I worked for a scavenger hunt company. That was a pretty dope job. That was like traveling game show host. Not a hugely sustainable long term job, but really fun job. Great company. But then all my extra time was doing sketches. I got in with a comedy troupe at Pace University that was doing sketches in the early days of YouTube, doing weekly sketches, and basically started directing their sketches. They were writer performers. I did a whole lot of that with them. I think we did something like 30-40 videos in a year and a half every other week. That was really formative.

Then friends of friends started seeing some of those videos and being like, "Oh, can I throw you a little bit of money to help with your videos?" I was like, "Yes." Anything I could do to try to direct, which really meant I would shoot and edit your videos for free, and I could say I directed them. I did so much of that. Then it slowly transitioned into commercials. Basically, I like to say if I could make projects for people with short attention spans on the internet, that translated well to commercials. A lot of my career, early stuff we did with this comedy troupe, Better Than the Machine, that was the name of the troupe, a lot of that was we did so many parody things. Every week, it was a different project. It's like, "Oh, we're doing something musical. Oh, we're doing a parody of Saw. Oh, we're doing a who's on first parody?" Every sketch was different. I was trying different things.

A whole lot of that early skillset was figure out how to make things look like they cost more money than they do. As I slowly started to get budgets or people helping me, that's still been a big part of how I work. Now, working at Colbert, which is a union show, and we still have crews and budgets, but we're still working really, really fast. We don't have unlimited budgets. It's not like SNL where they have so much money to throw at these pre-tapes. We still have an upper limit and have to work really, really fast. So I'm still cheating a whole lot to make things look like we have a lot more time or resources than we do.

Georgette Pierre:
I mean, it sounds like from the experience that you've had, that probably those skill sets of dabbling in a little bit of everything may have helped along the way with the fast pace that you're working in. I mean, I think there's something that I read that you were talking about you had done a lot of quantity work. It was about the quantity in the beginning for you because you wanted to just get those skillsets under your belt. Can you share a little bit or give a little bit more insight about what that means, especially people that want to be directors coming into the field of things?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Well, that's been the thing that helped me out the most. I'm a big believer of if you want to direct and you're going to start competing against people who are top of their game, so many students when they start out, they're like, "Well, how do I get a job?" I think the approach is, "Yes, you need to get a job and pay your bills, but I think you should uncouple paying your job from working in your field." There's a whole lot of pressure for new students to be like, "Well, I went to film school, and if I don't start working in the industry, in a job making good money, with a company that people know, that's the biggest show out there, well, then I'm a total failure." I think the approach should really be, "Get good at your craft so that you can better take advantage of opportunities down the road."

When you're starting out, you might have really great taste, but you're still developing your skillset to translate that taste onto the screen, or at least from the point of view of directors. There's a really great audio essay from Ira Glass that if you search on Vimeo for, Ira Glass, The Gap, it's actually part of an interview that somebody animated on Vimeo. He talks about when you're really early, when you're early in your career, you have really good taste. You know what's good. But then you try to make stuff, and there's a gap between your craft, your ability to make something really good, and your taste. The hardest part of that starting out process is the fact that because you have good taste, you make stuff, and you know it's not good, yet you can't connect those things together. I'm a big believer that making a ton of stuff and iterating repeatedly, basically, really, make a thing, finish it, get feedback, glean what you can from that, and then repeat. The more times you can do that, the faster clip you can do that, you'll get better at your craft faster.

I'm a huge believer, and I'm so grateful for those early years in New York where I was doing a weekly video all the time with these comedy troops. It made me less precious about some of the choices I was making. You'd go shoot something, and you'd finish it and put it on the internet, and maybe it doesn't work. Also, I've made commercials that I was like, "Oh, I had a really great idea," and then I did not stick the landing. Often, those are probably really, really ... might even be more formative for me because I was like, "Oh, great. I need to really make sure that I don't have that happen again," and engineering my working method so that I have a little bit more creativity. But if we would make these early shorts and put them on the internet and they don't necessarily work, I think if I had only made a short film that year, the stakes for it to work are so high that you also sometimes start making more conservative choices, which is not conducive to great creativity.

What's so great about doing these weekly sketches is that we would make something, they might not always work, and instead of wallowing on it, it'd be like, "Well, we're shooting again on Saturday, so I guess I'll do this different next time." You just put it in the next project. I don't know. For me, it has been really, really useful to make a lot of stuff and know that some of it is not going to be great. That's not only okay. That is definitively part of the process. But you got to finish a thing. If you don't finish it, then you can't get feedback. Also, I don't think you can grow as an artist in a vacuum. You need some type of feedback. Audiences don't have to like your work. But I feel like if you're an artist and you're making something, you want to make somebody laugh, you want to make somebody scared, you want to make somebody feel tense, you want to know if what you're doing elicits the reaction that you want out of them.

Again, it could be discussed, in which case, people don't have to like your thing, but you succeeded in disgusting them, in which case, congratulations, you've achieved what you wanted to do. But I'm a big believer of make a thing, finish it, put it out there, get input, make another thing, especially early on. There is a tipping point, I think, in your career where after a certain point and you've got your craft to a certain level, then you can start switching over and being like, "Great. I'm going to be slightly more selective and aim heavy on quality." That's not to say that you need to completely tank things when you're on the quantity side of the project, but also, I think if you-

Georgette Pierre:
But there's something to be said about pumping out. Yeah, yeah.

Ballard C. Boyd:
If you make something and it's 85% good, that's pretty awesome. I think that's actually good enough to ship in a lot of circumstances.

Georgette Pierre:
Yeah, no. It's the precious piece. It's funny hearing about what you share with us, I guess Ira Glass is an example to think about because I know, for me, when it didn't come out well, I'm like, "Oh, I don't know if I'm going to make another one. Oh, I don't know if I want to do this anymore." But there is something to be said about there are going to be some things. The shit's not going to look good. It's okay. But the fact that you made the thing, let's start there. Then you continue to build upon that foundation. Have you ever had a job that made you question what you were doing? If so, what did you do about it?

Ballard C. Boyd:
I think everybody is going to go through that, not just a job, but even if you're with a job a long time, there's going to be ebbs and flows. There's times where I have gotten too focused on looking at other peers and sometimes being frustrated at the situation. I think one thing is I try to remind yourself, "You're running your own race. Everybody's process is different. Everybody's creative journey is different." I don't think it's helpful to necessarily look at your peers and where they are in their career and think, "Oh, if I haven't hit these markers by a certain point, I guess I'm a failure." I know, for me, I can get fixated sometimes if I'm not moving forward. If I feel like I'm stagnating, that's something sometimes that feels really spooky to me. But I don't know.

A good workaround from that, if you feel stuck, is figure out what is a personal thing that you can create? Because you always still have agency. Even if you're in a job and you're frustrated, you can do work on the side that is creatively fulfilling, I think. Also, actually, I'll speak something ... This is an Emerson person. I think she transferred into Emerson, but I knew her through Emerson people. Sara Benincasa, she wrote a book that I recommend to a lot of students. She wrote a really fun book of essays called "Real Artists Have Day Jobs." It's a collection of essays about the creative process. The title one talks about how there are so many people in creative fields and working in physics, or all sorts of people who still had day jobs for most of their career.

The only thing that really defines whether you're an artist is not whether you're being paid for it, but whether you're just doing the work. That's it. That same thing, I think about students. It's totally fine, and you should uncouple how you pay your bills to your creative work. As long as you're making progress on creative work in your career in a way that is fulfilling for you, that you get to opt into, then you're an artist, and you're making progress. I'd like to believe that.

Georgette Pierre:
I have to find that book because sometimes I've questioned ... If I felt like I was working or I had to work for a company, I felt like I was actually further away from what I needed to be doing. But to your point, bills, roof over my head, things had to get paid. I had to still sustain and support myself. There was, again, this idea that if you're not working in your field, you're not working.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. That's not true. As long as you're working on something, I think you're making forward progress.

Georgette Pierre:
Yeah.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. It's hard to think about that because, obviously, you want to make progress where you're working in your field, and it's paying you, and it's ideally paying you well. But as long as you're making forward progress, you're good. The only time I ever saw friends that I feel like would take a day job, and this counts as things that even if you're working on a film set, is if they took a job that in some way drained them too much or didn't leave them extra time to work on their craft. I even think about when I first started here in the city. I also PA'd or worked locations on movies. Anything to get on sets. Any random thing. So many random jobs.

I saw people. They're like, "Yeah, I want to make movies." They would be working on film sets, working in certain departments, but they would hop from show to show to show, to movie to movie to movie, working 20-hour days and never really taking weekends, and not making any progress on their craft. I feel like it's like, "Hey, it's great to do that gig and get all this on-set time and make all the connections." But I also think that if you want to direct or you want to write or you want to do something that's a slight departure from the on-set job that you have, you got to take a pause between a gig and go make a project.I think most people don't want to do that. To your point, I think-

It's scary. It's scary. There's a risk. If not financial, there's still a risk emotionally.

Georgette Pierre:
Is it.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Well, there's still a risk emotionally, too. I know for that, I've got some side things that I'm working on, and they're scary because they're personal.

Georgette Pierre:
Yes, yes, yes. It's the personal piece. You got to find time to do the work, but there is freedom in doing the work, for yourself, for the people that may be looking for this type of work that they don't see themselves in. I had to get to a place where I was willing to take a junior position, Ballard, because it offered me the flexibility to do the work-

Ballard C. Boyd:
That's a great choice.

Georgette Pierre:
... that I wanted to do.

Ballard C. Boyd:
I think that's a really good, strategic choice. I think that's really important. There are people who take a day job because it actually allows them extra time at the end of the day where they're not totally drained so they can do this thing. I think my friend Sara Benincasa, I believe she's written multiple novels, books of essays, multiple scripts, and sold them. She just wrote on the latest or upcoming season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I like how this podcast is just me shouting out Sara. But as I understand, I believe she still has a day job, either copy editing or something like that, because that's the bread and butter. Well, even in my career, I feel really lucky that I've mentioned I was freelance for a really long run. When I was doing commercials, that was fun because it gave me flexibility, but also very volatile. There were three years in a row before I got Colbert where I made all of my money in the back six months of the year. That's a long time where you're not working.

Now, luckily, I saved. I planned for it. After the second year, you're like, "Well, this happened last year, and it worked out okay. But also, this is what we planned for. That worked out okay." But there was a run. I don't remember what years. It might have been 2011 to 2012, I think. My time went to…I worked at Google in-house for a couple years. I had this really lovely scenario I worked out with them, where I was basically not full-time. I was on budget 50% of the time, but I had flexibility to do outside commercial gigs because I already had relationships with some agencies and stuff like that.

But what was so lovely is that the agency work would occasionally come and go. It would ebb and flow. There'd be big gaps. But that Google gig, that was my bread and butter that kept the lights on and that made sure I could always have food in my fridge. I'm so grateful for that scenario. I was like, "That was a really, really lucky gig that basically was great." Also, it was a lovely job because I was basically working for a production company doing commercials for Google brands. I was working, I was making spots, but they were all directly for other divisions of the company. But I'm so lucky for that arrangement because that was the thing that kept me afloat.

Georgette Pierre:
With all these realizations, these epiphanies that we're having, if you could go back in time to your Emerson self, what would you say?

Ballard C. Boyd:
I mean, I feel like the advice to every young person is just relax. It's going to be all right. I feel like I talk to a lot of students. I feel like that's my takeaway of here's my bias and stuff like this. Then I'll be like, "It's going to be okay. You got plenty of time." There's so much pressure. It's like, "It's got to happen. It's got to happen now. If it's not happening now, it's all going to fail." I am turning 41 in about a month and a half. Basically, I've been getting just about everything that I've wanted in my career, but it's been on a longer timescale. That's cool. Don't get me wrong. I'm still anxious about stuff because I think that's also my operating mode. There's still things I want to do that I'm still working towards. But it doesn't mean they're not going to happen. I think now, realizing, "Oh, things can happen on whatever timeframe they're going to happen." As long as you're still in the game, I feel like you're not a failure.

Georgette Pierre:
I like that. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about it's more delicious. It starts to get really delicious in your mid to late thirties, early forties. You really start taking off. But to your point, there is something to be said about, "No, you're still in the game, Georgette. You've still been going after the things that you want. You're still here. You're still making it in New York and wherever else you want to go next." Interesting things stick in our minds from school. Some useful, some not. Yet we can't seem to forget them. Is there anything you learned at Emerson that you didn't deem relevant or important at the time, but turned out to be later?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Well, here's what's interesting. The thing I think about a lot that I think was actually the biggest thing I learned at Emerson, that was not part of the curriculum, but I'm so grateful for it, was how to work with other people. It's hard. If you're wanting to make movies, unless I want to act and set up the camera for myself, I'm going to need other people. It's a collaborative medium. A lot of the big things, you need to work with other people. The ability to try to learn how to navigate differences of opinion and taste and sell people on an idea and get people excited and negotiate and handle notes and how to iterate on the best project, learning that process was hard. There were a lot of growing pains in Emerson. Basically, I don't think I did a great job at certain times.

I think about friends that I was collaboratives with on projects. I was like, "Oh, wow. That could have been done better. There was probably more animosity that happened." But in retrospect, I'm so grateful for that opportunity because I was like, "Oh, wow. That didn't work out. I don't want that ever to happen again." Learn that process. It's interesting to think about that. Again, not part of the curriculum, but being forced to work with people that you didn't necessarily get to build your team at Emerson. That was an interesting thing. Again, you're almost assigned with certain people. Unless you're going to always generate the project you work on creatively in your career later, you're probably going to be working with people that you don't always get to pick the teams.

Learning the ability to navigate that was something really, really valuable that I started practicing in Emerson and didn't do a great job, but have been, I'd like to think, better throughout my career, because so much of my job, especially when I was doing commercials for a long run, I've been a director for hire. So I'm always serving the needs of the client, as well as what I think is the best creative direction for the piece, and how to sell somebody on my idea, to be like, "Oh, great. You want this? I think we want the same thing." Trying to find how to thread the needle between those things has been a cool process. It's carried on through Colbert as well because I'm obviously making fun things and working with writers and working with my immediate boss. But I'm also trying to make sure that Stephen loves this thing and it's in his voice. That's been a fascinating part of the process of my career.

Georgette Pierre:
No matter what you do now, your experience at Emerson has influenced who you are today. Every institution leaves its fingerprint on us, whether we use it, acknowledge it, or not. What mark did Emerson leave on you?

Ballard C. Boyd:
It's interesting. Well, I'll say this. What's been interesting to me to realize after the fact is how Emerson feels like a safe space for a lot of misfits. It's been really interesting having been out of school for so long and working in the industry, in the biz. I say that in quotation marks because it's humongous, and there's so many different parts of it. I have my finger in just one small pool. But I keep running into more and more people that went to Emerson. It blows my mind the number of people who I keep discovering also went to Emerson. I was listening to a podcast earlier today and found out that a screenwriter ... I'm going to forget his name, and I feel terrible about it. I was listening to the Scriptnotes Podcast. They had an interview with the writer for "The Ref," a movie with Denis Leary. Emerson grad. It turns out the writer knew Denis Leary because he also went to Emerson with him. I was like, "What? Really? Still again?" There keep being more and more people.

It's really neat that the shared trait between all the people that I find that are working in the industry is just an excitement to make stuff. I keep running into people who went to Emerson in all different fields of the industry, who seem to be succeeding because they're just so excited to be working. They're driven, and they just want to make cool stuff in the world, and they seem to gravitate towards each other. Also, it was neat because my wife, I did not meet at Emerson. We met years later. She does not work in the industry. I want to say it was the 10-year reunion at Emerson, I decided, I was like, "Oh, you know what? I live in New York. It's not that far to get to Boston. I want to go." There's some people I knew who were going to be there.

My wife got to see some of the people I went to school with and some of the other people who were alums, above and below. We sat and watched a bunch of kids playing Quidditch in the Commons. It was so neat have my wife be there and be like, "Oh, it's all a bunch of weirdos." It's all people who felt uncomfortable or not necessarily normal, maybe not part of the standard American in-crowd. There's a lot of people who had a weird view of the world and a weird thing they wanted to do in the world. A lot of the monoculture doesn't really have a good model for them. Emerson's a place where you can just come, and everybody's welcome under that umbrella. If you're excited to try to create something in the world, it seems like a safe space to nurture that, both in the school itself and then within the alumni community afterwards.

Georgette Pierre:
It's funny when you said the School for Misfits because Emerson feels like Professor X's School.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Right.

Georgette Pierre:
Right?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Right.

Georgette Pierre:
I think it was called Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. That's what Emerson literally ... I feel that instantly. That's how I used to describe it. I was like, "Emerson's like Professor X's School in X-Men." That is what it feels like. You feel like you belong to something.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Yeah. Not necessarily that you were required to have superpowers or a weird delusion that you have superpowers. But if you didn't necessarily feel exactly at home where you were and you had a weirder approach that not everybody that was in your world understood, you can come and let it fly.

Georgette Pierre:
That was the superpower. That was their individual superpower. Their individualism was the superpower, which I absolutely love. Ballard, if you had to switch careers, what would you do now?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Oh, man. If I couldn't direct, let's hope ... I'm trying to only think of terrible reasons that might not be allowed for me. I'd probably try to write. In fact, I was going to say I've pursued directing because that has been the most satisfying part. Whatever itch I have to scratch, that has scratched the most of it. But the writing, again, I've been intimidated by people who are writers, but I have and continue to write. It is both the hardest thing and the most satisfying thing. I literally feel like finishing something that I'm proud of that came out of thin air is so difficult and so time-consuming. I can't think of anything that's more satisfying. I realize that part of the process is so hard and so scary and so uncomfortable, but also so fulfilling.

Georgette Pierre:
It is. I have my own personal podcast. When I finish or listen to the episode, I'm like, "Damn, you're good, Georgette," because sometimes I would get the imposter syndrome around my work.

Ballard C. Boyd:
God bless you for being able to actually listen to yourself and see your work and enjoy it. I know a lot of people that are just very anxiety ridden, either how they're wired or how they're brought up, that they're compelled to make stuff, and then they also can't watch it. Or if they do, they hate it. That is so rough. I go through waves. But I think a lot of people also go through this, where it's like, "Oh, my God. This is going to be the greatest thing ever. Oh, my God. This is the worst thing ever." Then, a little bit later, "Oh, this is pretty good." Then later, you're like, "All right." Then you get a little distance, and you're like, "It's okay. I could probably be a little bit better." It's that constant wave that you're writing.

Georgette Pierre:
That's fair. You would basically keep it linear, say, in your industry, which makes sense. I get that. I definitely get that.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Well, again, if I had to completely leave my industry, I think that I would have some compulsion to have to make it around storytelling, or the idea that, again, if I still had to get a day job and work in a bank, I would still be writing stuff on the side because I couldn't not do it. I was going to say, about a year and a half ago, I have a daughter. She's about two and a half. A year and a half ago, she was turning one, and I had paternity leave from Colbert that I didn't take. I had a few weeks. Basically, I was very grateful to have leave and be home with my wife. But we decided to save a little bit because we didn't know what the future's going to look like. Maybe we'll use a little bit for a trip, or we'll go stay with some family for a while.

Around the one-year mark, they were like, "Hey, if you don't take this time, it vanishes." I was like, "I'm going to take that time. That sounds great." I took some extra time, and it coincided with some scheduled hiatuses on Colbert. So it ended up being a run of a big chunk of weeks. I immediately knew. I was like, "Oh, if I get this much time off, I will get itchy and uncomfortable if I don't make something." So I literally immediately called friends and was like, "Hey, does anybody want to write a short with me? I'm looking for ideas to pitch them." I knew I had to fill that time with something creative. Otherwise, I will start to get uncomfortable. It feels like something's burning inside of me if I don't try to make something. Thank God for a gig like Colbert, where I'm making short things all the time.

I'm so grateful for that gig because of the idea that everything's different. The projects are all different. I also am really lucky that I work for a fairly political show. I'm politically active. Let me be very clear about that. But I'm not a politics junkie. I work with people who are politics junkies. They love it, and they want to get plugged into that. I appreciate that I'm plugged in. I need my personal brain to be slightly unplugged because I get too emotionally freaked out. But I'm grateful that within a very heavy political show, I often get to make things that are more purely silly than have to be topical. I'm very grateful that the first chunk of our show, our monologue before the first act of the show, is always hyper topical, because that's the most up-to-date part.

Then, after the first commercial break, our second act is usually much sillier. That's where a lot of stuff that I make lives. Yeah. I'm so grateful that I get to do a lot of parody stuff for the show, which is also really nice for a show that is also a heavily wordy monologue scripted show. Usually, the field department does a lot of unscripted correspondent type bits, which we still do on our show, but not as much as The Daily Show. I'm grateful that I get to do a lot of scripted stuff because that's still my favorite thing to do.

Georgette Pierre:
Yeah. I caught of a couple of those clips. I was like, "Oh, this is hilarious." I mean, I love it. Congrats to you. What's one thing you'd like to try next, and why haven't you tried it yet?

Ballard C. Boyd:
I would love to direct longer stories. I'd love to direct a feature. I'd love to direct episodic TV. I love my sketch job. I would be happy doing some version of sketch forever because I like the bite-sizedness of it. But I also am itchy just to tell longer stories. I've gotten to do a few sketches at Colbert that have been ... Again, because I do a lot of parody, I do a lot of commercial parodies or movie trailer parodies, which is really, really fun because you're ripping off the visual vocabulary of a particular style very, very quickly. I like that I could be a chameleon as a director. I like very quickly figuring out the look and then how to replicate it. But I've gotten to do a couple of pieces in the last year that have felt like short films start to finish, even if they're very, very short. They're still two and a half minutes. Those things that feel narrative have been just really, really satisfying. So I've got a couple of things that I'm hoping to do to scratch that itch for myself.

Georgette Pierre:
Okay. Anything you want to share coming up in the near future, or you want to add on to now?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Only because I'm just nervous. As I said to you right before we talked, it's always you and me are both a little risk averse. You're like, "Well, I'll talk." I feel like if I even made a movie, I'd be like, "Well, I'll really push it when I know it's getting released."

Georgette Pierre:
Yes. Fair enough. I won't push it. Fair enough.

Ballard C. Boyd:
That's just me being risk averse. I'll say this now on the podcast because I said to you beforehand. When I got hired at Colbert, I got hired and didn't start for two weeks. I only told people that were in my immediate circle. Literally, I'd be at a party and pull someone aside like, "So I think I might be working The Late Show." They'd be like, "That's so exciting!" I was like, "I know. No, no. But could fall apart. Just keep it quiet." Then I started, and I even waited a full week to make sure that I didn't get fired, just in case-

Georgette Pierre:
But it could fall apart.

Ballard C. Boyd:
... and then announced it.

Georgette Pierre:
Oh, my God.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Just in case. Just in case.

Georgette Pierre:
Just in case. Just in case. Well, lastly, Ballard, what does it mean for you-

Ballard C. Boyd:
Lastly? This went so fast.

Georgette Pierre:
Did it?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Well, I just like hanging out with you. This is really nice.

Georgette Pierre:
Yeah, I know.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Again, we haven't done this in a while. This is really fun.

Georgette Pierre:
It's been a minute. It's definitely been a minute, for sure. We got to still do something in person, by the way.

Ballard C. Boyd:
I'll see you in the next 10 years. No, I'm kidding. Okay. No, no, no. You're right. I know. It's been a little while, but yes, I would love to.

Georgette Pierre:
What does it mean for you to make it, and how will you know when you get there?

Ballard C. Boyd:
Oh, wow. Well, I'll say there is an element, and I've heard this from the Duplass brothers, talk about how you have this idea that there's a mountain, and if I get to that mountain, I'll be good. Then you get to the top of that mountain, and you're like, "Oh, there's another mountain? There's a bigger mountain?" There's always something. I feel like it's a continual progress. It's a continual process. There's been levels of making it in the past. I think when you're starting out your career, there's an idea of like, "Oh, someone's paying me any money to do what I'm doing. That's amazing." Then the idea that, like, "Oh, you're just paying your bills doing that thing, and I'm not having a side thing." Then there's actually making okay money. Then there's being able to scratch the creative itches that you really want to. I feel like there's always a process.

Man, what does it feel to make it? It's so interesting, too, because I feel like I've also listened to lots of interviews with screenwriters. They're like, "You got in. You got a movie." It's like, "Well, it's not like you're set for life. You got to get another one." It's a work in progress. But I feel like there's something to be said of, "If I have the freedom and the flexibility to make the type of work that I want to make and know that my immediate rent and my family's safe, and I'm relatively financial stable, I'm good." I don't need to be super rich. I don't need to be super famous. I don't want to be super famous. I know famous people. That's a burden. I want to be just famous enough that I have flexibility to do the work I want to do. That's it.

Georgette Pierre:
Amen to that. I received that, too. Ballard, thank you. It's always a pleasure.

Ballard C. Boyd:
Aw. Same. Same. You're so nice. Thank you for having me. I'm, again, very, very honored.

Georgette Pierre:
"Making it Big In 30 Minutes" is sponsored by the Emerson College Office of Alumni Engagement and supported by the alumni board of directors. Stay in touch with Emerson community. Join us over at Emerge, a digital platform where Emersonians go to connect. Go to emerge.emerson.edu for more.