Our Story
The Story begins a long, long time ago in a radio on-air booth far, far away.
Nah, it started like this:
107 Static Air is a fictional radio station that takes place in the series “Dummkopf Radio”. A group of misfits running an indie radio station with unpredictable results. Each character has their own particular quirk that when mixed with the others it ensures tragedy, comedy, but mostly hilarity.
Being at the bottom of the ratings means there is no other place to go but up. Dyck Mitchell the Station manager will make those numbers rise, one highball at a time.
The concept was created by indie filmmakers Carter Hadlow and Taren Padua in the spring of 2015. They soon got their friends Leonard Esquega and Collin Gaudry involved. Immediately both of them desperately wanted to play the characters of Tony and Alex. This worked out well because their personalities aren’t that far off from their own screen personas. When the team realised they needed help since none of them had ever worked in radio, an actor from previous work recommended a man named Kevin Kowal who worked in in the broadcast industry for twelve years. Kevin’s job was to set up
radio stations and satellite networks. He would integrate every department so while he was at a station he would touch up on every job position. After going to hundreds of radio stations across the United States and Canada he collected a vast repertoire of stories that would translate perfectly into the series. In creating the show we wanted to make sure we kept true to the terminology and the actual responsibilities of each roll in a radio station. Our main goal was that if anyone who is or has worked in radio ever watched this they would know how true this is. Kevin provides this for our team.
Taren & Carter
Leonard & Collin
Over the past few months the writing began for a “Proof of Concept” and filming took place in locations such as Red River College for the radio booth scenes and at ACI Manitoba for the office scenes.
The reason why we believe this concept would work is that the initial idea of being a mockumentary works well with a very modern style of comedy. We are following the style of shows such as “The Office” and the comedy of “Trailer Park Boys”, “30 Rock”, and “Parks and Recreation”. Audiences have proven in the past to love the ‘no laugh track’ and character-based humour as opposed to action based humour. This show embodies that style.
The concept of being in a radio station has worked in the past with shows like “WKRP in Cincinnati”, “News Radio”, and “Frasier”. All of these shows were hit shows during their run, and it is about time for the next radio station based sitcom to hit the air.
The target audience of this show is varied. With a team of writers in their 20s and Kevin Kowal in his mid-40s, the styles will mesh to include something for the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y crowds, as well as Millennials to enjoy.
Leonard & Collin
Kevin
In 2018, fellow filmmaker Nick Rees jumped on board as Co-Producer to help get Dummkopf up on its feet. Nick is the owner of LP Productions.
Nick