I first had the idea for Too Much Love in December, when I began seeing giant Valentine’s Day displays in nearly every pharmacy and supermarket in San Francisco.
At the same time, the Women in Comedy Festival announced the Rachel Bloom Comedy Challenge. The contest was to submit a short film using the first line of dialogue, “You can’t do that!” from Rachel Bloom’s CW show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And since there’s currently a wonderful resurgence of musicals (Pitch Perfect, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, La La Land, etc.), I decided to make this a musical number as well. The story is about one woman’s hilarious antics getting ready for the big day, and ultimately getting overwhelmed by the holiday.
Many remember the iconic original song I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady, where Eliza Doolittle falls in love with the idea of being in love. In Too Much Love, we take this romantic euphoria and turn it on its head in a parody music video. Our heroine marvels over her roses, candy hearts, and champagne, before getting overtaken by them all.
We had such a ball making this video. A highlight was recording our song at the legendary Hyde Street Studios, where musicians such as Joan Baez, Green Day, Earth, Wind & Fire, and many more have laid down tracks before.
I wrote this with the hilarious comedic actress Kaeli Quick in mind, because she had been a fabulous, self-combusting bride-to-be in my web series Cake Walk (which has been picked up for distribution by a new female-led comedy site).
On the crew side, I’d worked with Satsuki Murashige, our Director of Photography, on Cake Walk as well. He was such a great collaborator on this project, and he guided the visual style to make each scene really pop. Our fantastic production designer (who’s worked in the art department for such films as Blue Jasmine and Big Eyes) got us 36 roses, five pounds of candy hearts, eight bottles of champers, and completely transformed the space into a Valentine’s Day cocoon! We also found this beautiful vintage nightgown for our heroine in the bedroom, to call back to the original scene from My Fair Lady.
As a comedy writer and director, I tell stories about love in each of its stages. My goal is to create smart comedy starring utterly hilarious leading ladies – content by women for women!
Watch Too Much Love here!
