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Meet Christina Archer and Kate Mullaney of Sketchland

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Archer and Kate Mullaney.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Christina and Kate. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
When we started what came to be Sketchland, we were just two friends in an acting class with a shared sense of humor and a let’s-fucking-do-it mentality. When we filmed our first sketch, JumboPon, we got together with a couple of other women from our acting class (shoutout to Jehna & Emily!) and we got together and filmed over a weekend. When we saw how good it was and realized how much we loved making it, we decided to take the leap into the unknown and develop Sketchland. That was in January of 2019, and over the next year, we experimented with all kinds of sketch comedy (that were feasible for us). We met at least once a week and dedicated so much of our time to creating content aimed at making people laugh and having fun while doing it. The more time we dedicated to Sketchland, the more we felt it grow, and the better the response became to our content. I feel like our followers really respond to and see the effort that goes into each sketch, and I love that we have that connection with them.

Our journey with Sketchland has taken a huge amount of dedication, commitment, and understanding. When you start with something so small and you have virtually no following, it truly comes down to hard work. Granted, when you create a sketch comedy show, a lot of that work is really fun, but it still requires a huge amount of dedication. When we watched our first video and talked about it, we decided to throw pretty much everything we had at it, and to commit to each other and our future together (yes, we are essentially married). We started with very, very few resources, and no experience in the ridiculous combination of writing, producing, AND acting in our own content. So, we learned on the job, and now we have found ourselves at a place where we are happy with not only what we are producing, but also how we are producing it. We went from being able to shoot one sketch in two days to being able to shoot six sketches in two days, purely because we have learned through experience what does and does not work for us.

At Sketchland, putting in the work is always number one for us, and we want to continue to do this on a larger scale. We’re currently trying to up our production value and create content more consistently that reaches a wider audience. We’re trying to get our sketches out there and spread the good word that is comedy, comedy, comedy, baby! ‘Cause we all need something to laugh at in what will heretofore be known as These Trying Times.

I am so proud, and I know Kate is as well, of how far we have come both as a team and as individuals. I, for one, never thought I would really be in comedy like I am now, and I think we are both proud of and fulfilled by what we are creating together. It is a really beautiful thing to find someone you trust and to create something with them that you both wholeheartedly believe in and are inspired by.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The short answer to this is: lol, no. However, I suppose I could flesh it out a little further. Audio has truly been the bane of our existence! When I tell you we have struggled with audio, it doesn’t even begin to cover the issues we have had with trying to produce quality-sounding content, and this is coming from someone who produces a podcast (hey, To All The Rom Coms We’ve Loved Before @romcomsweveloved)! Our first year of production felt like nothing but a bumpy ride. It’s all well and good when you walk on set and only are responsible for knowing your lines and hitting your mark, but to also have to light yourself, frame yourself, and mic yourself (or fashion a very poor boom pole with an audio jack that only worked half the time), it’s a whole other story. We came into this really wanting to produce content that was quality in more than just the writing and performing, but that is much harder than it looks.

We started with no budget, very little equipment, and completely opposite work schedules, so it was very difficult to get the ball rolling and keep it rolling. We had to get very creative very quickly and decide what was worth spending our money on. We chose to invest in a giant pink background and a lot of pink wine, both of which have served us well.

Besides our lack in personnel, finances, and equipment, we have really struggled with our social media game. We both have backgrounds in writing and video editing, and I have some experience with the social media of a business, but for a long time, we found ourselves with lots of content that we just never put out. It was not the best system for growing your following, and we still struggle with it, but we have still found such great support in our community for what we do. Even though we have had issues with pretty much every aspect of production, apart from writing and acting, it has been a huge learning experience, and for that, we are both so grateful, and we feel more prepared for what is to come.

Sketchland – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are Sketchland, your new favorite sketch comedy show. We write, perform, and produce comedic sketches on Instagram and youtube. In a world of TikTok length comedy, we create well-produced, television-style content that stands out within a social media setting.

We are a very young show with a very small team, and we are so proud of how much we have done with so little in our first year. In this day and age, it can sometimes feel like everyone is an “idea man” and like nobody follows through with projects they thought of or started, so we are incredibly proud of how we have stuck to it and made this show a reality. For us, the show has gone on because one of us picked up the slack for the other. We work together so well, and we pride ourselves on how we can be understanding and helpful for our counterpart when shit metaphorically hits the fan. It is so easy to give up and stop doing something just because it gets hard or inconvenient, and we are so proud of how we have pursued our passion project, even when it felt like it was going nowhere.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
We truly have to thank our acting teacher, Matt Skollar, for so many reasons. Matt gave us the space and time to work on scenes we had written, and gave us the opportunity to see that our sketches were funny and worthwhile in our class. He encouraged the entire Sketchland operation, and he even starred in our sketch Work It! We would probably not have come together without him. We love you, Matt!

We also have to shoutout a few of the actors we have worked with along the way, of course! Jillianne Rose has given us so much of her time and joyful energy, not to mention her acting skills. Personally, I love it when she plays my replacement in The Real Ladies of Sketchland 2. She has written with us, filmed with us, and supported us from the start. Jehna Michelle and Emily Hall, are the two fabulous women we filmed JumboPon with (and another unnamed sketch that got deleted). You started Sketchland with us and we will never forget it. Without you two, JumboPon would not exist and that would be a damn tragedy! You are both skilled and versatile, and we will always love working with you.

Obviously, a huge thanks goes out to our friends, family, and followers and everyone who has liked, commented and spread the Sketchland word. We love you and are literally just two suckers filming sketches for ourselves without you.

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