The S[ha(w/u)/ea]ns

About the Series - Parker Schulz

In October 2022, I had a funny idea. Three guys named Shawn, Shaun, and Sean start a band and fight about how the band name is spelled. I sent the idea to a group chat I was in, and A-P was super excited and into the idea. So I made a logo and wrote out a general outline for the show. This was the first time someone else was actually genuinely interested in one of my dumb ideas. A-P said he would play Sean, and I said I would play Shawn.

After I wrote the scripts for all eight episodes, we eventually found our Shaun: Jackson Bulat. Not only would he act in the show, but he and the other half of his comedy band "Cheesy Kidney", Noah Friesen would make completely original music for the show.

I got more and more people involved, eventually turning this into the biggest project I had made to date. I am extremely grateful to every single person who helped me along the way to make this film. It started back in October 2022, and it is finally releasing to YouTube in June 2024. 

We had absolutely zero budget, and I ended up spending about $800 in the end, but it was well worth it. The project is extremely homemade. It is filmed using iPhones and the actors aren't actually actors (besides a few exceptions). I was talking to my manager at work about this project and how people should keep their expectations low for this show, and he told me a very good story that I will always remember:

My manager decided one day that he wanted to make his own knives. So he got all the supplies he needed to do it, and went to YouTube to learn how. He took hours and hours of learning and practicing, until he finally made the first knife. And it sucked. He wouldn't be able to use it for anything.

So he made another one. This one looked a little better, but still not great. After four or five knives, he finally made a knife that would work and he could probably sell for good money if he wanted to. Looking at his fifth knife, he would compare it to his first one and clearly see a difference in quality. But, my manager told me, there was no way in the world he could have made that good, fifth knife, if he didn't make that first crappy one. Or the second, third, and fourth. 

The first knife may be useless as a knife, but it was not a waste of his time and resources. He learned from his mistakes and applied it to his second knife. Every knife he made after that was only better than the last.

The S[ha(w/u)/ea]ns isn't perfect. In fact, it is far from it. You might watch this show and think, "dang, I thought this was gonna be a lot better". But in order to make something beautiful, you have to pour your heart into the crappiest knife you've ever seen. 

And that we did. Every single person who worked on this show graciously offered up their time and resources to help me make this amazing, stupid show. People who have never stood in front of a camera before acted their hearts out. People who have never stood behind a camera before patiently learned how to operate one. People offered up their homes and workspaces as locations for us to film. No one asked for anything in return, they just did it because they are fantastic people. Every single one of them. 

So I want to thank every single person who was a part of this journey, from the smallest to the biggest contributions, because I honestly could not have done it without any of you.

I love you and I thank you,

Parker