Fan of the week – Julian Schiller
When you ask a reporter or an interviewer what it is they love about doing their job, I think one of the top five responses you would hear is “I love the people I get to meet”. I can certainly vouch for this already after only my second ever interview. Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Julian Schiller; most commonly known to us all as Jules – one half of the B-league as seen on Foxsports Sunday football show “Shootout”. Jules co-hosts the segment inserted somewhere around the first commercial break with Sam McMillan (Sam Mac). The B-league has become somewhat of a cult hit in its first season, having thousands of viewers weekly and equally the same amount of social media interaction on both Twitter and Facebook. I hope this interview provides an insight into not only the comedy, but the history and the philosophies of Jules Schiller. Please enjoy reading this as much as I did through the process of making it.
In a few small sentences, could you please give our readers a small insight into the Jules Schiller story to date?
Oh I was hoping we could spend a few hours on this. It is huge. It is a huge two hour movie, my life story. But my quick story is… I grew up in Melbourne, my love of football came because my dad worked in London for 5 years. I studied law and then got into community radio. I then moved onto radio and since then have worked for almost every radio network from Triple J, Triple M, Nova and the ABC. I just developed a love for comedy and sport. I have lived in Melbourne, Adelaide and now here in Sydney. I guess that’s the short story.
Were you always drawn to comedy or is there a serious side of Jules Schiller?
I have always been drawn to comedy. I don’t like to take things too serious and through my radio career I have been involved in comedy. I developed a character called Guido Hatzis with Tony Moclair, which he voiced. I just always loved doing comedy. Radio is just a great medium for comedy because you can just create and produce different stuff each day, unlike TV which takes a long time to get an idea out. I have always liked radio, but I do like serious stuff. I did a bit of work for The Project a few years ago, and covered the Christchurch earthquake and the floods up in Queensland. I also went on the Sea Shepherd to report on whaling. So I do serious journalism and I do enjoy it, but comedy is what I have worked in mostly.
How did you come to meet Sam and how did the spot on Shootout come about?
It’s funny because I was living in Adelaide and I used to do the NOVA breakfast show with Fitzy, who now does Fitzy and Wippa here in Sydney. Sam was working on radio in Adelaide and I used to go to a lot of Adelaide United games and he was the ground presenter there. I pretty much went to drink and watch the football. I didn’t really know Sam then but I knew of him and liked his work on The Project. He moved to Sydney a couple of months before me and when I moved to Sydney we met up. I knew he loved football and I said we should do some comedy about football because nobody’s doing it. Sam knew Murray Shaw – the head of football at Foxsports football – so we just wrote down an idea. We didn’t ask for too much; we just asked for a segment. We went to Murray and he said they were looking to some comedy and the time was right. It was basically right time, right place. ~ We both moved to Sydney, Murray was looking to do some comedy and we approached him and that’s how things work in media, the planets aligned and that segment was the B-League on Shootout.
Are you able to reveal any treats for the upcoming season?
Yes I can! We are shooting at the moment, currently with a few of the teams. Look for a bit more Marcos Flores doing some stuff you wouldn’t expect. There is going to be a dog involved, and an elderly Scottish man who hates modern football. The juggle offs are back as we have decided to keep those, but we had to take them to another level. So that’s all the hints and treats I’ll give you for the upcoming season.
Has there been any funny outtakes, that you like and are still left on the cutting room floor, that you are able to share with us?
Quite a few actually because we have only 5 minutes, we have to cut out quite a lot. One that I really liked that never made it on air was “Andy Harper presenting his top 500 walls of the A-league”, where he was comparing walls to famous walls like Hadrian’s Wall in England or the Great Wall of china. We had one for the Asian Champions League and it was absolutely ridiculous but it didn’t quite work so we dropped it. We also did another piece on Ian Fyfe who plays for Adelaide United. We did the whole thing on his beard – this was a big piece on his beard – but then he shaved it off so we couldn’t put it to air. You would be surprised that a lot of the juggle offs we just didn’t quite work as well as others so we dropped many of those. So yes, more pieces than you would expect didn’t make it off the cutting room floor.
We all wish Mel Mclaughlin the best in her new role at Channel 10. How is everyone at Foxports dealing with the departure of Mel?
Well, we are all kind of in the fetal positions in the corner. I was in the disabled toilet naked and crying in the fetal position. Crying for ages, for a couple of days in fact. Obviously Mel is so popular at Foxsports and everyone loves her. Nobody could even get angry at her for leaving. I guess everyone in the media has to keep moving in a sense. You always have to keep doing different things and Channel 10 have given her some great things to do. She has some great stuff coming up. We all love Mel and will miss her, whilst wishing her the best.
Who do you follow in world football and is there an A-League club that you support?
Living in London for 5 years as a kid, I went for Liverpool because there was only one Aussie playing in division one: Craig Johnston. That’s why I chose Liverpool. My dad is a big sports fan, so we were able to watch them a few times and I just love them now. I watched them when they played in Melbourne at the MCG a few months ago and what an awesome experience! In regards to the A-League it’s interesting because I am a Melbourne guy who moved to Adelaide and now I’m living in Sydney. Initially when the A-league started I had just moved to Adelaide and was doing the breakfast show. I thought to myself I don’t support any of their AFL teams, so I needed a connection to Adelaide. I just immediately went along to the launch of Adelaide United and met a whole heap of people there. I got to meet and know all the players. I went to their games and supported them quite a bit. Adelaide United took me to Japan and Osaka for their ACL final. I also like Melbourne Victory, being a Melbourne boy and all (except when they beat Adelaide 6-0 in the final). Now living in Sydney, I have a great love for the Western Sydney Wanderers because of their first year. The thing about working on the B-League is that I have met a lot of the players and I have developed a different relationship than just a supporter, so the players I really like I just hope they do well. It sounds really bad when I say I don’t strongly support a team anymore. I actually watch the games now looking for funny stuff, so if something funny happens for me, that’s when I cheer.
Earlier this year, Robin Van Persie had the experience of meeting the B-league. I hear he has not stopped talking about this and he rates it very high. What sort of affect do you think this has had on RVP?
Well obviously he is a huge fan of ours via the internet. He was very disappointed that Kris Griffiths-Jones didn’t officiate the game and that was a huge blow to him on a personal level. He wanted to do a juggle off with us, but honestly we didn’t have the time to try and fit him into that schedule. On all accounts for Robin it was a big deal and I think you’ll see throughout the season that when he scores for Manchester United he’s going to shape his hands into a little “B” and run up to the camera, as a kind of little nod to us here at The B-league, so look out for that. Obviously being a huge thing for him, there were a lot of selfies and from his point of view blogging and following us on twitter. That’s just basically pa for the course. To be honest Robin has to understand that our time is valuable and we cannot spend excess amount of time with every fan that wants to be with us. We said to him we will send him a signed B-league shirt later on in the year, but that was pretty much it. He has been advised by our management that he can join the fan club and the mailing list but we can’t treat him any different to all the other B-league fans.
How do you spend your time away from Shootout and the B-league?
This is the hardest question to answer. I love reading books and I love watching film. I like a current affairs. I’d like to say that I am a sporting person, however I am not. I am the least qualified at Foxsports in the sporting arena. So the main things I do away from the B-league are writing columns for newspapers, reading a current affairs, and watching movies and TV. in my spare time I’ll watch Breaking Bad, The Newsroom and Dexter. Dramas on television and film; I absolutely love them.
In the vein of “Mash, Sienfeld, and Friends” all great shows must come to an end. What plans do you have planned or would like to do, post your B-League career?
That’s also a really interesting question because in the media you are just glad to get another episode. Just glad your security card lets you into the building each day. Post the B-League I would always like to be involved in football because I love it and have loved it for so long. My vision and aim would be to do talk radio. I would like to be able to write and talk football in a more serious way later on in my career. Obviously I enjoy having fun and I will always have a sense of humour. I think it will be great to bring football more into the mainstream and talk about it like Aussies do AFL. I think in ten years we will possibly be able to do that, which is really exciting for football in Australia.
Last of all, if there is a young aspiring Jules Schiller in the making out there, who on a Sunday waits for that first break in Shootout and say’s “one day ill be on that couch, I will be in Jules Schillers shoes”, what is your parting advice?
The advice I would pass on is that a lot of people say they want to be in the media, and they might write in or try and meet someone who might have some influence; that will only get you so far. What you have to do is like what you are doing now. You have to produce your own content. The great thing now is we have youtube, we have the internet, we have everything. As an example, during the off season Sam and I did a few youtube clips for free, just because we like making them. Nobody’s making us. Nobody’s paying us. That’s what you have to do. You just have to get a camera, film, write, produce whatever is in your head. Anyone can publish now on the internet. In the 90’s you couldn’t do that. So I say just keep creating content. It’s probably going to be pretty ordinary when you start, but then people say the B-League is ordinary now. You are going to improve and the more you do it, the more you will improve. Improve your editing and improve your ideas and keep building up your show reels and your articles. Keep sending it to people who make decisions and eventually if you get good enough, you will get noticed. But it’s a lot of work and it’s doing it for free. Persistence and improvement is the key, and finally do it for enjoyment. That’s really important. If you do it because you expect to be at a certain place at a certain time it probably will not happen. Be ambitious, but really enjoy what you do, take pride in it and eventually people will notice.
Thanks for doing this interview today, it has been a lot of fun and very informative. Do you have any parting words to the B-League fans out there?
Yeah, just continue to watch the B-League. Follow the B-League on Twitter (@thebleague) or search on Facebook “The B-League”. We love doing it and we do it for enjoyment. To add to the season ahead there will be a couple of double episodes and a Christmas special. I think shootout will be a little different this year as well, as they are always looking to do something different with the show. I think that Shootout and the B-League this year will be a little better than last year (not that last year was bad). I wouldn’t want to get on Bozza’s bad side by having that taken the wrong way, though again I’m really excited about this year. It’s going to be a good year for the A-League and for everyone involved.
We’d like to thank Jules for doing this interview and wish him the best of luck with the B-League this coming season.
You can follow the author of this article on Twitter @DougieJam
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