Chris Gabel’s online videos can be funny, weird or downright serious.
Sometimes they’re all three wrapped into one. For the past 60 days, he’s been channelling his creative spirit into short videos, introducing his friends to new characters each day.
“One of the main things that affected me in the pandemic is I have no performance outlet, or I used to have no performance outlet, so I decided to start making these character videos to feed that creative energy that was building up inside me,” says the Victoria improv actor.
The backstories can be long and complex, like a space fanatic breaking down the Space X launch, or concise, like radio DJ Barry Champlain’s drive time radio show. Each clip is designed to bring a smile to whoever is watching.
“You know I tried to make the content something other than pandemic or anything negative in the state of the world right now. Just so that people can kind of, can just escape from that for I don’t know, a couple of minutes,” Gabel said.
“So if I can give people a good escape from the world for a few minutes then uh that’s really my goal.”
Even with an abundance of characters to choose from, Gabel still can pick out his favourite. “[He] was sort of a like Savannah accent with a guy talking about a julep… any kind of slow southern drawl is just really fun to do,” Gabel adds.
Until the inspiration or props run, Gabel’s Facebook timeline will be littered with glimpses into another world.
Cole Sorenson
