{"id":4845,"date":"2024-01-31T12:30:10","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.alumni.ncsu.edu\/?p=4617"},"modified":"2024-03-15T13:57:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T17:57:14","slug":"a-comedy-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/2024\/a-comedy-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comedy Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

As a longtime television director, David Paul Meyer \u201903 understands the value of capturing special moments. It\u2019s a big part of a talk he gives to student interns at The Daily Show<\/em>, a comedic take on the news that airs on Comedy Central, before they head back to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTelevision is about capturing moments,\u201d says Meyer, who is a supervising producer and director of the show. \u201cIf you think about any movie or tv show, you\u2019re thinking about some scene or some line of dialogue \u2014 a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer, who began working at The Daily Show<\/em> as a field producer in 2015, had his own moment recently. He won an Emmy in January when the show was honored as the best variety talk series. \u201cIt was just a thrill, truly exciting,\u201d Meyer says of the show\u2019s win. \u201cIt was a big surprise to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph by Matt Wilson\/Comedy Central’s The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was another special moment that launched Meyer on his journey to an Emmy \u2014 and it happened far away, in Johannesburg, South Africa. After earning a degree in computer science at NC State, Meyer worked as a software developer at SAS in Cary, N.C. But he had an interest in films and filmmaking that was stoked by an English teacher at his high school in Goldsboro, N.C., and an introductory film class at NC State. Meyer even tried his hand at some rudimentary filmmaking, producing a documentary on a trip he took to Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and filming comedy sketches he did with friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a bit of a whim, Meyer applied to film school at the University of Southern California. To his surprise, he was accepted. \u201cI called them to ask if they were sure,\u201d he says. Assured that he was in, Meyer moved to California to pursue a master\u2019s in film and television production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting Trevor Noah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For his master\u2019s thesis, Meyer wanted to make a documentary about people doing stand-up comedy somewhere in Africa. An acquaintance was familiar with a budding comedy scene in South Africa in the years after apartheid, so he booked a two-week trip to Johannesburg. It was there that he met a young stand-up comedian named Trevor Noah. \u201cAs soon as I saw him perform the first time, I thought \u2018This guy is special,\u2019\u201d Meyer recalls. \u201cHe took his status as an outsider and figured out a way to connect with everybody. He was super hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer returned to South Africa a year later to get more footage of interviews with Noah and of his performances. The result was a documentary, You Laugh But It\u2019s True<\/em>, that was released in 2011, and a budding partnership between Meyer and Noah. \u201cProfessionally, we hit it off right away,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cWe have similar sensibilities of what we find funny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Noah\u2019s comedy career took off, Meyer directed all of his television stand-up specials. And their creative collaboration turned into a friendship. \u201cFrom all the time we spend together, we just get each other,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cWe have a lot of the same interests. We both enjoy food, love going to the movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining The Daily Show<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So when Noah became host of the The Daily Show<\/em> in 2015, replacing Jon Stewart, he asked Meyer to join the show as a field producer. Meyer eventually moved up to become the show\u2019s director and supervising producer. When the show won the Emmy in January, Noah described Meyer as his \u201cpartner in crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph by Matt Wilson\/Comedy Central’s The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Noah left the show in 2022 (although the recent Emmy was for shows while he was still the host), but Meyer is still directing the show with a rotating cast of guest hosts. Meyer lives in suburban New Jersey with his wife, Jocelyn Conn, and four children, and would like to continue his work at The Daily Show<\/em> while also working on projects with Noah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I love about it is tackling the unknown every day, all these opportunities for creativity,\u201d he says of his work on the show. \u201cHow do we break this down for comedy? There are so many people at our show who are really smart and hilarious and have strong points of view. It\u2019s fun to work with people like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph courtesy of Comedy Central\u2019s The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meyer and his wife, who also won an Emmy this year, celebrated late into the night after the awards ceremony was over. With their Emmy awards in hand, they crashed a party hosted by Netflix before reconnecting with others from The Daily Show<\/em> to close down a bar in West Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer\u2019s Emmy award, along with two Conn has won, sits in the family room at their home in New Jersey. \u201cI can hold my head high now,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

As a longtime television director, David Paul Meyer \u201903 understands the value of capturing special moments. It\u2019s a big part of a talk he gives to student interns at The Daily Show<\/em>, a comedic take on the news that airs on Comedy Central, before they head back to school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTelevision is about capturing moments,\u201d says Meyer, who is a supervising producer and director of the show. \u201cIf you think about any movie or tv show, you\u2019re thinking about some scene or some line of dialogue \u2014 a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer, who began working at The Daily Show<\/em> as a field producer in 2015, had his own moment recently. He won an Emmy in January when the show was honored as the best variety talk series. \u201cIt was just a thrill, truly exciting,\u201d Meyer says of the show\u2019s win. \u201cIt was a big surprise to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph by Matt Wilson\/Comedy Central's The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There was another special moment that launched Meyer on his journey to an Emmy \u2014 and it happened far away, in Johannesburg, South Africa. After earning a degree in computer science at NC State, Meyer worked as a software developer at SAS in Cary, N.C. But he had an interest in films and filmmaking that was stoked by an English teacher at his high school in Goldsboro, N.C., and an introductory film class at NC State. Meyer even tried his hand at some rudimentary filmmaking, producing a documentary on a trip he took to Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and filming comedy sketches he did with friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a bit of a whim, Meyer applied to film school at the University of Southern California. To his surprise, he was accepted. \u201cI called them to ask if they were sure,\u201d he says. Assured that he was in, Meyer moved to California to pursue a master\u2019s in film and television production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meeting Trevor Noah<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For his master\u2019s thesis, Meyer wanted to make a documentary about people doing stand-up comedy somewhere in Africa. An acquaintance was familiar with a budding comedy scene in South Africa in the years after apartheid, so he booked a two-week trip to Johannesburg. It was there that he met a young stand-up comedian named Trevor Noah. \u201cAs soon as I saw him perform the first time, I thought \u2018This guy is special,\u2019\u201d Meyer recalls. \u201cHe took his status as an outsider and figured out a way to connect with everybody. He was super hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer returned to South Africa a year later to get more footage of interviews with Noah and of his performances. The result was a documentary, You Laugh But It\u2019s True<\/em>, that was released in 2011, and a budding partnership between Meyer and Noah. \u201cProfessionally, we hit it off right away,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cWe have similar sensibilities of what we find funny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Noah\u2019s comedy career took off, Meyer directed all of his television stand-up specials. And their creative collaboration turned into a friendship. \u201cFrom all the time we spend together, we just get each other,\u201d Meyer says. \u201cWe have a lot of the same interests. We both enjoy food, love going to the movies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining The Daily Show<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So when Noah became host of the The Daily Show<\/em> in 2015, replacing Jon Stewart, he asked Meyer to join the show as a field producer. Meyer eventually moved up to become the show\u2019s director and supervising producer. When the show won the Emmy in January, Noah described Meyer as his \u201cpartner in crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph by Matt Wilson\/Comedy Central's The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Noah left the show in 2022 (although the recent Emmy was for shows while he was still the host), but Meyer is still directing the show with a rotating cast of guest hosts. Meyer lives in suburban New Jersey with his wife, Jocelyn Conn, and four children, and would like to continue his work at The Daily Show<\/em> while also working on projects with Noah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I love about it is tackling the unknown every day, all these opportunities for creativity,\u201d he says of his work on the show. \u201cHow do we break this down for comedy? There are so many people at our show who are really smart and hilarious and have strong points of view. It\u2019s fun to work with people like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David
Photograph courtesy of Comedy Central\u2019s The Daily Show<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meyer and his wife, who also won an Emmy this year, celebrated late into the night after the awards ceremony was over. With their Emmy awards in hand, they crashed a party hosted by Netflix before reconnecting with others from The Daily Show<\/em> to close down a bar in West Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meyer\u2019s Emmy award, along with two Conn has won, sits in the family room at their home in New Jersey. \u201cI can hold my head high now,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Paul Meyer \u201903 takes home an Emmy thanks to longtime partnership with comedian Trevor Noah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":4624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"caption\":\"Photograph courtesy of David Paul Meyer\",\"displayCategoryID\":6,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"David Paul Meyer \u201903 takes home an Emmy thanks to longtime partnership with comedian Trevor Noah.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[272,280,319,339,407,1046,1146,1182,1292],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"displayCategory":{"term_id":6,"name":"Campus Lens","slug":"campus-lens","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4845"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5161,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4845\/revisions\/5161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4845"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}