Who Are We?
The Mike&Chloe Show
Our Story
4 minute read
The Mike&Chloe Show was launched by two filmmakers in 2024 with the goal of creating a new kind of media experience: cinematic improv.
The meeting of the minds
We met in 2009 at Boston University while studying film. We hit it off when we were paired together on a presentation. After our first creative dispute — debating the inherent humor in a single-wrapped slice of American cheese — we knew we wanted to keep writing and performing together.
Our first business
After graduating in 2012, we started our own independent film production company, Red Earth Cinema. We spent years writing, acting, improvising, and producing a feature film, Cellophane gods.
As we worked, improvisation became a central tool in our creative process. Improv has the unique ability to pull you out of your head and spark your creativity. It helped us maneuver around creative blocks and was just plain fun. We fell in love with improv for improv's sake.
Enter the mentor
We had the good fortune to meet J Chachula, a teacher with decades of acting and improvising experience. His emphasis on acting fundamentals and building scenes moment by moment inspired us. So, in 2015, we started our own improv team, Mike&Chloe, with J as our coach. We performed live shows for years and honed our intimate style.
An unexpected idea
The world of streaming entertainment was exploding. And yet, we knew from our time on the live stage that something was being lost in the endless hours of content and isolated viewing. Audiences craved connection, and they weren’t getting it.
As filmmakers, we saw an opportunity.
Live improv creates an in-the-moment connection between artist and audience unlike any other medium. What if there were a way to translate that experience into cinema?
The big risk
But then, the pandemic hit.
The world shut down. People withdrew into their homes. And live shows were over.
This created a unique moment for us. With no other distractions, we built a custom studio in our apartment and resolved to capture that in-the-moment feeling on film.
Creating cinematic improv
Over the next three years, we developed film and performance techniques. We experimented. We went down dead ends. But finally, we found the secret. The element that transforms recorded improv into a living, breathing, felt cinematic experience in the here and now.
That element is the frame. Specifically, the edges of the frame and what they hide from the audience. It is a boundary that releases the audience’s imagination on a subconscious level. It creates a psychic space, a blank canvas which your mind cannot help but paint.
This dreamy void is the place where our imaginations as improvisers and your imaginations as the audience come together. Our characters, actions, and settings suggest things to populate that space. Then, without realizing it, you take those creative fragments and breathe life into that space. The effect is an experience that is somehow both unique and shared. It’s beautiful.
A new kind of magic
For the first time, the recording of improv is as important as the performing of it.
We call this alchemical combination of cinema and improv “cinéprov.” (Cinema + Improv).
We can’t wait for you to see it.
