Alumni Spotlight -Tim (Wilkerson) Wilkime
2009 Radio-TV Mass Communication and Media Arts
Tim Wilkime, the director of the popular comedy TV series “Adam Ruins Everything,” learned he wanted to pursue a career in film when he was in high school. Back then, his last name was still Wilkerson, MySpace was popular, and the age of internet entertainment was just getting started.
“I was never really a book smart student but I always excelled at the video projects in class. A lot of that was because I turned my class projects into mini-action movies or SNL-parodies and made them look slick with music and graphics. I’m sure they were never as informative as the other projects but they were definitely more entertaining,” Wilkime said.
When an end of season documentary he made about the varsity basketball he played on received positive response, it gave him the confidence to pursue filmmaking as a career path.
When the time came for college, Wilkime, a Chicago native, looked to SIU as an affordable state school with a TV and film program that “checked off all of the boxes.” Once accepted, he moved to Carbondale and began his studies by working, among other things, alt.news 26:46, the student-run television program from the College of Mass Communication & Media Arts that airs on the university’s PBS member station, WSIU.
“I was heavily involved with alt.news during all four year at SIU. I learned a tremendous amount because I got a lot of hands on experience. Even in my first semester I was able to produce a segment that ended up in their Emmy submission episode that season,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime said like many Cinema and Photography students, most of what he did for fun revolved around that program.
“I was either helping to make the show or hanging out with the people I was made it with. It was kind of like an unofficial fraternity. We’d have parties, go to movies and even travel together. I was lucky enough to go on road trips to New York City, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Nashville and St. Louis; all to make documentaries for the show,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime also met his wife, Madelyn, on an alt.news shoot while they were both acting in a sketch for the April Fools episode that was a spoof of Power Rangers called Super Techno Awesome Cosmic Cops Yeah!
“I seriously owe alt.news my first newborn. We were both pretty shy and didn’t say anything to each other. Then two years later alt.news was going to Los Angeles for the Student Emmys, as we were nominated, and Madelyn came out to cover us for her photo journalism class. On that trip we hung out and got to know each other. Shortly after that trip, we started dating and have been together ever since,” Wilkime said.
While at SIU, Wilkime and his friend, Scott Blair, began making comedy sketches to alt.news., but found some of the content they produced really wasn’t PBS appropriate, so we started a website called Magic Hugs, and began posting their videos to websites like YouTube, FunnyorDie and CollegeHumor.
As those sites became legitimate places to be found as young filmmakers, Wilkerson and Blair moved out to Los Angeles with ready-made connections with a handful of companies because of the work they were making outside of class at SIU.
“We worked together in LA for a few years, but after I left Magic Hugs in 2012, I stepped away from writing to just focus on directing,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime currently directs for Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV) and The Late Late Show with James Corden (CBS). He was a former staff director for College Humor, and directed several episodes of If Google Was a Guy, which won a Webby People’s Choice Award. He has also worked for well-known brands like Disney, AT&T, Atlantic Records, State Farm, Cvent, MapQuest and Call of Duty.
“A typical day for me can vary. If I’m on my job, I’m either prepping from an office, on location scouts, on set shooting or in an editing bay for post-production. When I’m not on a job, I’m writing my own projects or pitching on other people’s projects,” Wilkime said.
Recently Wilkime wrote, produced and directed a “Milton,” a comedy short that is racking up awards, most recently receiving the 2019 Vimeo Staff Pick Award at this year’s SXSW South by Southwest conference/festival.
Wilkime said he thinks a good filmmaker is someone who is confident in their vision and relentlessly pursues that vision while still being able to collaborate with others.
“I think You develop your vision over time by creating things and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Being relentless to pursue your vision comes down your patience to sticking it out. Filmmaking can be pretty unstable at times so you have to be the type of person in it for the long haul. But you really can’t succeed without working well with others,” Wilkime said.
At the moment, Wilkime continues to direct, and is writing a feature film while trying to get a grant to make his next short film, and continues to be influenced by good comedy wherever he finds it.
“Being John Malkovich is a big influence on the projects I’m currently interested in making. It’s such an insanely wacky concept but done in a grounded way. It’s so damn funny but it’s never chasing a laugh. I also love how it’s a relatable story about identity and wanting to be/with someone else and then the ending adds this whole new layer about people wanting to be immortal. The first time I saw that movie I didn’t like but now I can’t get enough of it, Wilkime said.
Wilkerson said he was also influenced by Jan Thompson from SIU Carbondale’s Radio, Television and Digital Media Department.
“Jan was a big part of the success of alt.news, the talent that came out of that program and my development as a filmmaker. She was constantly challenging me to push boundaries, be different and to aim to tell stories at the highest quality,” Wilkime said.
Wilkime lives in Los Angeles with his wife Madelyn, who also changes her last name from Kime, and their fur babies, Piggy and Pudge. They combined last manes because they liked how it represented them as equal partners joining to make a new family.
Alumni Spotlight celebrates our Saluki Alumni, their successes, and their memories of their time at SIU Carbondale. If you’d like to be the focus of this weekly feature, or nominate someone to be featured, please email us at alumni@siu.edu.
