Trivia / Not Cool

• Box Office Bomb: In its limited theatrical release, Not Cool only made about $30,000, almost all of which was from Shane Dawson's fans hoping to see him at the meet-and-greets afterwards, on a total budget of $600,000. That said, this still overwhelms his competitor Anna Martemucci's film Hollidaysburg, which only made $1,000.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Zachary Quinto was a producer on the film and had his name taken off it after seeing the finished piece.
  • Even though Shane was extremely defensive of this movie after it came out, it clearly became this for him in later years — it's wall-to-wall the kind of humor he famously apologized for in 2020.
• Creator Killer: Dawson hoped that this movie would be his foot in the door of the movie business. Although he did get a boost in visibility that led to stuff like publishing his memoir I Hate Myselfie and starring in the big-budget movie Internet Famous, this movie pretty much destroyed any hopes of him finding mainstream Hollywood support as a filmmaker.
• Dawson Casting: No pun intended; both Shane Dawson and Cherami Leigh were twenty-six playing teenagers.
• Directed by Cast Member: Shane Dawson directs the film and plays Scott.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Shane Dawson had his famous floppy hair cut to a buzzcut for the film. He wore a wig in his videos afterwards so that the haircut would be kept secret.
  • People who watched The Chair also know that Jorie Kosel, who plays Heather, is a natural brunette who dyed her hair a garish bleached blonde for this role.
• Franchise Killer: Plans for Season 2 for The Chair were pretty much scuttled by the fact that what attention Season 1 got was completely Overshadowed by Controversy due to the fact that this movie won.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Dawson fiercely defended this movie after it came out, both on the show The Chair and online afterwards. So did producer Corey Moosa (breaking hard with the opinion of his fellow producers Zachary Quinto and Neal Dodson), as did original screenwriter Dan Schoffer, who greatly preferred Dawson's take on his script over Martemucci's.
• No Budget: $600,000 is an immense amount of money compared to a typical YouTube budget (as Zachary Quinto loudly complains about when pulling his name off the film in disgust) but really isn't that much money for a traditional Hollywood film, especially after Shane writes expensive special effects and Steadicam tracking shots into the script. The dissonance between Shane feeling flush with cash and how expensive everything ends up being plays a huge role in the Troubled Production as shown on The Chair.
• Production Posse:
  • Shane's partner and effective co-director on this movie was his longtime producer and podcast co-host Lauren Schnipper, and he ended up fighting to not only play the lead role in the movie himself but to cast both his friend and fellow YouTuber Drew Monson and his girlfriend Lisa Schwartz in supporting roles, both of which were controversial decisions among the higher-ups at the studio.
  • Surprisingly, Cherami Leigh became part of Shane Dawson's YouTube posse as a result of being cast in this movie.
• Real-Life Relative: Marissa is played by Shane's real-life fiancée at the time Lisa Schwartz.
• Star-Derailing Role: This is the last live-action feature film Cherami Leigh ever appeared in.
• Troubled Production: The latter half of The Chair ends up being less about the creative competition between Dawson and Martemucci and more about how Dawson's movie becomes a spiraling train wreck.
• What Could Have Been: The original script by Dan Schoffer was made available on the Starz website for viewers of The Chair (2014) to compare with the finished films.