This is the last post I'm going to do about money - for now. And the reasons for that are simple: It's too painful, it doesn't get you anywhere and there's no sign of things changing. (And I've blogged on this twice before, the last of which contains an amusing and cathartic Youtube clip of Harlan Ellison here that I highly recommend.)
Let's just summarise the basic problem: scripts should be free. That's the common wisdom around in Radio, TV and Film that writers have to put up with. No matter how many 'script initiatives' that various TV channels run, the assumption is always that the initial script, the one that takes someone at least A MONTH to write, should be gratis, free and without cost. Except to the writer, of course. He'll still have to pay his rent, gas bill and all that.
I realise that these script initiatives are there to attract new talent. Even though there aren't even enough comedy slots for the existing and experienced talent according to the BBC's Head of Comedy last month. Even though this new talented writer will need a fair amount of help from old or existing talent. And the channels love the idea that somewhere out there, they'll find the next writer of Only Fools and Horses - even though the writer of Only Fools and Horses had already written sketches for The Two Ronnies, and 30 episodes of Citizen Smith.
The art of writing sitcom takes about 4-10 years to crack. Asking all-comers to do it seems about as sensible as asking someone to 'have a go at being a surgeon'. Actually, the cost of the damage (c.£1-2million) is about the same. Constantly, annually, quarterly, begging new writers to send in scripts seems to me a curious way of finding the next sitcom hit, especially when dozens of experienced writers can't even get a Comedy Lab onto Channel 4.
It's a free country. Channels and corporations are free to do whatever they like with the money at their disposal, of course. But the problem is that it is now normal to expect any writer, regardless of experience and to go without payment for at least a month, so that a script can be browsed, commented on and then, most likely, discarded - because it's cost them nothing.
When I was a real rookie, I was with a producer at an indie who mentioned that a channel was interested in a show he was developing. I was enthusiastic and said something that conveyed I was excited. He looked at me blankly and said 'Interest costs nothing.' I've never forgotten that moment.
But nothing seems to be changing. The channels and controllers seem hell-bent on assuming that some comedy genius can re-invent the sitcom from a standing start and has a month free to write a script. Or that some existing experienced comedy writer with a mortgage and two kids is going to risk repayments in order to write a script of an idea which will be thrown into a pile with 2500 other scripts.
Naturally, the experienced writer has some advantages, and can perhaps progress things further and quicker (except one sitcom idea I have in with the BBC is over two years old, and it hasn't even had a read-through yet). But even the experienced writer normally has to do weeks of work unpaid. I had a meeting with a theatre producer a while ago who said he was doing me a favour by not paying me - in case the script wasn't as hoped and he'd end up trying promote something he didn't 100% believe in. And, for a split second, like a schmuck, I believed him.
But this kind of talk gets us nowhere. Things are, senselessly, as they are. Apparently it is better to pay a development producer £56k+ (inc NI/Pension & benefits) a year to persuade 7 comedy writers to write scripts for free than it is to just pay 7 comedy writers £7-9k each to actually write 7 scripts between them.
This is why I'm not going to whine about this any more (although that felt good). I'm just going to write scripts. Dialogue, jokes and that. Characters. Write and write. That's what I do. I am good for little else. I shall stop blogging about money - and get back to the boring technicalities of comedy writing.
So, back to work, everyone.
Showing posts with label sit-com. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sit-com. Show all posts
Monday, 21 February 2011
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Get Some Attitude
M*A*S*H is a really important sitcom for me. It's not just that it's brilliant, well-written, and has lots of decent jokes. It's also not just that it's got the most original and interesting setting. For me, it's the fact that the show even exists. It's a sitcom, set in a medical unit during the Korean war. Let me repeat that. It's a sitcom - a comedy - set in Korea, during the war in which young men and women were wounded and killed. It's not set on a cushy base in the USA, like The Phil Silvers Show. It's not even set in an uninvaded England, like Dad's Army. Bombs go off. Bloodied men come in. Limbs are cut off. Snipers turn up. People die.
It's as unlikely as Life is Beautiful - a comedy drama about an Italian concentration camp. M*A*S*H and Life is Beautiful are, to some extent, about the same thing - coping with horror. For the comedy to work, and the characters to be real, the horror has to be real. And it is.
But what M*A*S*H means to me is that it demonstrates that anything is possible. Anything. There isn't one single place where you couldn't set a comedy. And for that comedy to stand at least a chance of success. We know this in our heart of hearts, but do we believe it? Maybe we veer towards safe places because they're easier to write. Plus difficult settings require hard work, research and reading - which sounds like the real graft that most of us writers are trying to get out of doing. That's why we're writers. So we don't have to read and do real work.
M*A*S*H is carefully written, based on real experiences (since the original movie is based on a non-fiction book), and has an ring of truth to it. When Hawkeye is making light of calamity, we know he's only doing that because if he doesn't, he won't be able to cope. Klinger wears a dress because he really wants to get out of that hell hole. Some people are up tight. Some people not tight enough. It feels right.
The TV series M*A*S*H did have one key advantage. A two-hour pilot. When the original movie, the idea of making it into a TV show was not even on the table, but having made the movie, and turned it into a TV series, they had plenty to go on. And plenty of mistakes to learn from. As I like to constantly point out on this blog, failure is good. Banality is the enemy.
I mention this because I saw the movie for the first time the other day. It was made in 1970, when the parallels with the war in Vietnam were very obvious. And the subversive tone of the film carries everything. The film has attitude. In my opinion, it doesn't have much else. I could barely make out what they were saying to each other, so I had to have the subtitles on; I couldn't follow the plot, until I realised that there wasn't one - it's just a series of incidents, which felt like for 4 episodes of a sitcom whammed together (so no wonder they turned into a sitcom); and I couldn't really distinguish between the three main characters.
But the film has some magic dust - and I think that dust is ground out of the solid attitude of the movie. It tackles the nature of all things military head on. It shows how people cope with the horror of war, and seeing its casualties. It shows the cost of those survival techniques. There were shades of Catch-22 in it. And all of it was successfully captures and turned into a highly successful, long running sitcom.
Thinking about it has inspired me to work harder to find better, harsher, more interesting settings for comedies; and having an attitude that carries the show along. A good setting and some guts will cover a multitude of sins.
Monday, 31 May 2010
A Very Bad Week in British Comedy
This week is a very bad week for the British sitcom. It's probably not the first week of its kind. And won't be the last of its kind either, sadly. But I think I'm right in saying that on terrestrial TV there is not one single new episode of British scripted comedy. None. I'm pretty sure there's not even a repeat. There are a few panel games (sorry, but they just don't make me want to throw my hat in the air). And some original American stuff (My Name is Earl on Channel 4) but nothing British, narrative and scripted. The sad fact is that the 'death of the British sitcom' is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hopefully, I'll explain how below.
In the 70s and 80s, there were plenty of sitcoms on TV. In fact, there often two or three a night across the three or four channels. Yes, even ITV made audience comedy - some of them brilliant, like Rising Damp and The New Statesman. Plenty of these sitcoms were forgotten, but that's not to say there were not worth making. Brushstrokes is a largely forgotten sitcom and not hailed as a 'classic' but it ran for five years between 1986 and 1991, and they made 40 episodes. I remember enjoying it immensely. It wasn't ground-breaking. Just funny - but that doesn't seem to be enough at the moment. And yet ultimately, that's all the vast majority of the audience really want. It seems obvious to point it out, but the people at home don't really care whether or not their favourite show is lauded by critics or wins awards. They want good characters, good situations and good jokes. That's why they still happily watch My Family.
There are some obvious benefits to having lots of sitcoms on TV, even though most sitcoms aren't, in fact, much good. Even if they're well-written, they might be miscast. Even if they're well-cast, they might be poorly directed. I remember a highly respected colleague recalling the readthrough of Chalk, a sitcom about a deputy head teacher. He said the scripts were some of the funniest he'd ever read and it seemed like a hit, right up until the point they started making it and something went wrong. Failure rate is high - in sitcom and all other fields. Most new products launched don't last. (I've just tried Starbucks' new 'Seattle Latte'. I give it six months). Most films make a loss. There's no cast-iron guarantees in any business. As William Goldman points out, 'nobody knows anything'.
So if a TV network wants a hit, it'll have to commission ten sitcoms, because at best, five will be dire, three passable, one okay and one brilliant. And it's further complicated by the fact that one of those ones that started dire could turn into something decent, and the one that's brilliant could be deeply flawed, or the writers will insist on only doing two series, because Fawlty Towers did that or some such pompous reason.
Here is the big problem. Sitcom is very expensive. Commissioning ten of them is scary for any commissioner. But the problem is that if you only commission five, you might commission the wrong five. These days, it feels like they're only commissioning two or three and just hoping. What this does it put massive pressure on the few sitcoms that get through the system and make it onto the screen. As a result, new comedies are mercilessly reviewed and critics seem to delight in showing how much funnier they are than the show, and how basic the mistakes are making, not realising that often the people making the shows are very experienced and made creative decisions for a reason. And that sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn't. The line between 'ground-breaking' and 'fundamentally-flawed' is very fine.
The best any new show can hope for is to be quietly ignored while they work out what's going on and how to make it work. The writers of Peep Show managed to do with Old Guys, which could well turn out to be a huge hit. Outnumbered was overlooked until Series 2 when it was decided that is was a heart-warming, genre-breaking smash hit.
The other problem with having fewer sitcoms is that the mistakes generate success. The BBC has spent the last ten years making numerous documentaries about how funny it used to be and how comedy was made in the 'good old days' - a system that has been replaced for no obvious creative reason. Dodgy, mythical nostalgia aside, if one watches this rash of documentaries, one will see how often decent actors were found even in poor or unsuccessful sitcoms, how writers, producers and directors learn from the process - and how a combination of a writer who is learning along with an actor who needs to be better cast can lead to a huge, popular hit.
Recently, I heard a documentary about Silicon Valley and how it keeps reinventing itself, building successful companies on the failures of others. It's often the same people, doing something similar but they've learned the hard way and now have a hit on their hands. It's the same with comedy. For it to succeed, it needs commitment, and understanding that failure is not just inevitable but often has some upsides - and is part of the process. To the outsider, the process will seem immensely wasteful. But given that the rewards of success are very high, it really isn't all that different to any other business.
And that is why this is a Very Bad Week for British Comedy. The less decent narrative comedy - and bad narrative comedy - there is, less there will be in the future. It does not bode well for us sitcom geeks.
In the 70s and 80s, there were plenty of sitcoms on TV. In fact, there often two or three a night across the three or four channels. Yes, even ITV made audience comedy - some of them brilliant, like Rising Damp and The New Statesman. Plenty of these sitcoms were forgotten, but that's not to say there were not worth making. Brushstrokes is a largely forgotten sitcom and not hailed as a 'classic' but it ran for five years between 1986 and 1991, and they made 40 episodes. I remember enjoying it immensely. It wasn't ground-breaking. Just funny - but that doesn't seem to be enough at the moment. And yet ultimately, that's all the vast majority of the audience really want. It seems obvious to point it out, but the people at home don't really care whether or not their favourite show is lauded by critics or wins awards. They want good characters, good situations and good jokes. That's why they still happily watch My Family.
There are some obvious benefits to having lots of sitcoms on TV, even though most sitcoms aren't, in fact, much good. Even if they're well-written, they might be miscast. Even if they're well-cast, they might be poorly directed. I remember a highly respected colleague recalling the readthrough of Chalk, a sitcom about a deputy head teacher. He said the scripts were some of the funniest he'd ever read and it seemed like a hit, right up until the point they started making it and something went wrong. Failure rate is high - in sitcom and all other fields. Most new products launched don't last. (I've just tried Starbucks' new 'Seattle Latte'. I give it six months). Most films make a loss. There's no cast-iron guarantees in any business. As William Goldman points out, 'nobody knows anything'.
So if a TV network wants a hit, it'll have to commission ten sitcoms, because at best, five will be dire, three passable, one okay and one brilliant. And it's further complicated by the fact that one of those ones that started dire could turn into something decent, and the one that's brilliant could be deeply flawed, or the writers will insist on only doing two series, because Fawlty Towers did that or some such pompous reason.
Here is the big problem. Sitcom is very expensive. Commissioning ten of them is scary for any commissioner. But the problem is that if you only commission five, you might commission the wrong five. These days, it feels like they're only commissioning two or three and just hoping. What this does it put massive pressure on the few sitcoms that get through the system and make it onto the screen. As a result, new comedies are mercilessly reviewed and critics seem to delight in showing how much funnier they are than the show, and how basic the mistakes are making, not realising that often the people making the shows are very experienced and made creative decisions for a reason. And that sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn't. The line between 'ground-breaking' and 'fundamentally-flawed' is very fine.
The best any new show can hope for is to be quietly ignored while they work out what's going on and how to make it work. The writers of Peep Show managed to do with Old Guys, which could well turn out to be a huge hit. Outnumbered was overlooked until Series 2 when it was decided that is was a heart-warming, genre-breaking smash hit.
The other problem with having fewer sitcoms is that the mistakes generate success. The BBC has spent the last ten years making numerous documentaries about how funny it used to be and how comedy was made in the 'good old days' - a system that has been replaced for no obvious creative reason. Dodgy, mythical nostalgia aside, if one watches this rash of documentaries, one will see how often decent actors were found even in poor or unsuccessful sitcoms, how writers, producers and directors learn from the process - and how a combination of a writer who is learning along with an actor who needs to be better cast can lead to a huge, popular hit.
Recently, I heard a documentary about Silicon Valley and how it keeps reinventing itself, building successful companies on the failures of others. It's often the same people, doing something similar but they've learned the hard way and now have a hit on their hands. It's the same with comedy. For it to succeed, it needs commitment, and understanding that failure is not just inevitable but often has some upsides - and is part of the process. To the outsider, the process will seem immensely wasteful. But given that the rewards of success are very high, it really isn't all that different to any other business.
And that is why this is a Very Bad Week for British Comedy. The less decent narrative comedy - and bad narrative comedy - there is, less there will be in the future. It does not bode well for us sitcom geeks.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
My Advice: Take Advice
The problem is with comedy - or one of the problems - is that everyone has an opinion. Because our great sitcoms are cherished so deeply, and our sitcom heroes are national icons, everyone feels that they can 'give notes'. This is a good and bad thing. Mainly bad.
When you're starting out, you get friends to read the scripts, because they're the people you know. But TV scripts are hard to read. It's not like reading a novel. Scripts are in an unfamiliar format and unless you do it regularly, it's hard to know what you're looking for. It's even harder to pinpoint why a script doesn't work. And let's face it - if it's your first script it probably doesn't work. (Most first draft of any script don't really work, no matter how experienced you are) Then, there's the business of honest feedback. Is a friend really going to give you that? And if they do, will they even be right?
Once you progress from the bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed stage and end up in the bleary-eyed-and-cynical stage, it can be easy to treat all notes and feedback as an imposition, or as stupid, ill-conceived or predictable. There are lots of stories by writers like Rob Long who extract great comedy from the notes on scripts they are given by network executives who've never actually made a show of their own, and always want the show to be bland or resemble their last hit show or whatever.
But one might be making a mistake if one treats this is as the norm. Just as it's a mistake to treat all advice as equally good, it's just as much a mistake to treat it all as equally bad. Once writers get a bit of success and begin to progress, they/we start to think they really know what's going on and how to write and that no-one can improve on their script but them.
It's worth remembering that the path to success is not pursuing one's own creative vision without listening to advice - but listening to the right advicel listening to advice that makes your work better. And we should take such advice from wherever it comes.
I was reminded of this the other day when I had a meeting with someone fairly important in comedy at a major broadcasting corporation. Before the meeting, I braced myself for some comment or note that would either indicate the executive wanted to turn the show into a different show (one that I really didn't want to write) or that he would make a comment that I would have to take on board that would make the show worse in some way. Or worse, he would betray the fact that he hadn't even read the script.
But my prejudice was ill-founded. The humble exec in question kept himself to making one very good overall point about my script, and explained why he thought what he thought. And I had to admit to myself - "Darn it, you're right". Of course I'd be an idiot to ignore his advice because he's important and I want the show to progress and I kind of have to do what he says. But in actual fact, I should do what he's says because he's correct, and if I do it, the show will be better and an improved version of the show I'd like to write.
It pays to listen to advice. It takes discernment and experience to sift out good advice from bad, but when you find a good piece of advice, don't be too stubborn to take it.
When you're starting out, you get friends to read the scripts, because they're the people you know. But TV scripts are hard to read. It's not like reading a novel. Scripts are in an unfamiliar format and unless you do it regularly, it's hard to know what you're looking for. It's even harder to pinpoint why a script doesn't work. And let's face it - if it's your first script it probably doesn't work. (Most first draft of any script don't really work, no matter how experienced you are) Then, there's the business of honest feedback. Is a friend really going to give you that? And if they do, will they even be right?
Once you progress from the bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed stage and end up in the bleary-eyed-and-cynical stage, it can be easy to treat all notes and feedback as an imposition, or as stupid, ill-conceived or predictable. There are lots of stories by writers like Rob Long who extract great comedy from the notes on scripts they are given by network executives who've never actually made a show of their own, and always want the show to be bland or resemble their last hit show or whatever.
But one might be making a mistake if one treats this is as the norm. Just as it's a mistake to treat all advice as equally good, it's just as much a mistake to treat it all as equally bad. Once writers get a bit of success and begin to progress, they/we start to think they really know what's going on and how to write and that no-one can improve on their script but them.
It's worth remembering that the path to success is not pursuing one's own creative vision without listening to advice - but listening to the right advicel listening to advice that makes your work better. And we should take such advice from wherever it comes.
I was reminded of this the other day when I had a meeting with someone fairly important in comedy at a major broadcasting corporation. Before the meeting, I braced myself for some comment or note that would either indicate the executive wanted to turn the show into a different show (one that I really didn't want to write) or that he would make a comment that I would have to take on board that would make the show worse in some way. Or worse, he would betray the fact that he hadn't even read the script.
But my prejudice was ill-founded. The humble exec in question kept himself to making one very good overall point about my script, and explained why he thought what he thought. And I had to admit to myself - "Darn it, you're right". Of course I'd be an idiot to ignore his advice because he's important and I want the show to progress and I kind of have to do what he says. But in actual fact, I should do what he's says because he's correct, and if I do it, the show will be better and an improved version of the show I'd like to write.
It pays to listen to advice. It takes discernment and experience to sift out good advice from bad, but when you find a good piece of advice, don't be too stubborn to take it.
Monday, 12 April 2010
The Wonder of Narration
I've been so short of things to watch on TV that a couple of things have happened. Firstly, I have rejoined Lovefilm, which is exciting. (We have another baby due next month, so I'll be chained to the sofa significantly more than at the moment.) Secondly, I rewatched some old DVDs including the joyous wonder that is Arrested Development. Just looking at pictures of the characters below is making me smile. The characterisation is so clear and crisp. Quite often, non-audience, single-camera shows pull their punches on their characters and nuance things a little too much. They're too, well, real. The characters below, however, are huge monsters who have really strong motivations and we know exactly they will react in any situation. That is so important when putting together a comedy show. And often those starting out think they can have characters who change their minds more often or aren't so extreme. Treatments and outlines include phrases like "Something Peter gets really angry for no reason, but other times he's really calm" or "Sally loves her boyfriend, but sometimes doesn't, and she doesn't really know why". I exaggerate, but take a look at the characters below and you'll see what characters need to be. Buster is dumb and frightened. Gob ludicrously overestimates his own abilities and is incredibly selfish. Tobias is living in a dreamworld. And Michael is a slave to being 'responsible'. Simple clear character points are essential. If you don't have them, you don't have a show.
Arrested Development is one of those problem shows that in some ways highlights the gap between those who have mainstream and non-mainstream sensibilities. The show was a critical hit, won plenty of awards and the esteem of everyone in the media. Media-types and writers forever gush about The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Arrested Development falls into that category. (By the by, Curb does nothing for me, really. It's masterful in it's plotting. Almost a masterclass. But I want a properly honed script. Gimme Seinfeld any day.)
But, as with The Larry Sanders Show, Arrested Development was never a ratings hit. Middle America just did not take the show to its bosom - and nor did the English (as if that would have made the difference). The show looked expensive and needed more viewers to pay for itself. You can't pay for a TV show with boxed-set sales (yet). And so, the show was cancelled halfway through it's third season. I believe the last four episodes were all dumped on one night. The show itself made references to it's own cancellation in some of the most skillful self-referential comedy I've ever seen. But nobody watched it. Most Americans, it turns out, would rather watch reruns of Friends, than a brand-shining new episode of Arrested Development.
It's hard to pin-point why this is the case. The show contains mostly unlikeable characters, which can alienate mainstream viewers. But then, Michael, George-Michael and Buster are very likeable. And Seinfeld's four main characters are all unlikeable and selfish. The Office has two key unlikeable characters. I'm sure everyone has a theory as to why Arrested Development 'failed' (in the ratings sense). I'd be very interested to hear the views of others on this one.
So why do I mention this? Firstly because it makes me feel good, just thinking about Arrested Development. But secondly, the show contains one thing that most out-and-out comedies do not - Narration. The narrator makes a huge difference to the show, and I view the narrator device with envy. Often, one of the hardest things to do in a sitcom is move the plot along, purely with people talking. In a novel, you can simply say what's happening. In a film like Austin Powers, you can have a character called Basil Exposition - who tells Austin what to do next. In sitcoms, characters have to say things like "I have to go and pick up my son from his football session", but you have to think of a characterful joke to glue to it. That can be very hard.
But Arrested Development has a narrator (and what a wonderful voice that Ron Howard has). He can say things like 'meanwhile' to emphasise that something is taking place at the same time as another scene - which may be significant. The narrator can say 'this would have been okay, but unfortunately...' and give you a heads up on something bad happening. The narrator can remind, mislead and even do jokes of his own. (There are plenty in the show)
The narrator means that 'the plot' is often as funny as the jokes or the characters, which doesn't happen all that often. In Seinfeld, this can happen, but usually the calamity in a sitcom means that the characters do or say funny things. But careful, skillful plot can be genuinely satisfying in its own right, almost apart from the characters. There are two notable British writers who are brilliant at this. The first is David Renwick whose One Foot in the Grave plots were very clever indeed, hiding crucial bits of information and revealing at just the right time to create wonderfully daft situations and moments. The other is Steve Moffat - who wrote some episodes of Coupling that were superbly plotted, as if a West-End play (a good one). There's is much to learn about plotting from these guys. Plot or story should be satisfying and service the characters. But sometimes it can exceed all expectations and be hilarious in its own right.
So here's the point and the warning. When you're plotting an episode of sitcom, one can be very ambitious in the amount of story that can be crammed in. But if you take Arrested Development's lead, you may come unstuck unless you have a narrator, or a clever device to enable you to cut through plot very quickly. Normally, I find I have too much plot and have to cut back. This can be painful if you've got funny dialogue that you've sweated over in order to get it across. And we return to the importance of proper planning. The best jokes often occur from thin air, when you're writing the script itself, but you need that bedrock of a strong outline. At least I do. (Carla Lane doesn't. And she did okay, didn't she?)
Arrested Development is one of those problem shows that in some ways highlights the gap between those who have mainstream and non-mainstream sensibilities. The show was a critical hit, won plenty of awards and the esteem of everyone in the media. Media-types and writers forever gush about The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Arrested Development falls into that category. (By the by, Curb does nothing for me, really. It's masterful in it's plotting. Almost a masterclass. But I want a properly honed script. Gimme Seinfeld any day.)
But, as with The Larry Sanders Show, Arrested Development was never a ratings hit. Middle America just did not take the show to its bosom - and nor did the English (as if that would have made the difference). The show looked expensive and needed more viewers to pay for itself. You can't pay for a TV show with boxed-set sales (yet). And so, the show was cancelled halfway through it's third season. I believe the last four episodes were all dumped on one night. The show itself made references to it's own cancellation in some of the most skillful self-referential comedy I've ever seen. But nobody watched it. Most Americans, it turns out, would rather watch reruns of Friends, than a brand-shining new episode of Arrested Development.
It's hard to pin-point why this is the case. The show contains mostly unlikeable characters, which can alienate mainstream viewers. But then, Michael, George-Michael and Buster are very likeable. And Seinfeld's four main characters are all unlikeable and selfish. The Office has two key unlikeable characters. I'm sure everyone has a theory as to why Arrested Development 'failed' (in the ratings sense). I'd be very interested to hear the views of others on this one.
So why do I mention this? Firstly because it makes me feel good, just thinking about Arrested Development. But secondly, the show contains one thing that most out-and-out comedies do not - Narration. The narrator makes a huge difference to the show, and I view the narrator device with envy. Often, one of the hardest things to do in a sitcom is move the plot along, purely with people talking. In a novel, you can simply say what's happening. In a film like Austin Powers, you can have a character called Basil Exposition - who tells Austin what to do next. In sitcoms, characters have to say things like "I have to go and pick up my son from his football session", but you have to think of a characterful joke to glue to it. That can be very hard.
But Arrested Development has a narrator (and what a wonderful voice that Ron Howard has). He can say things like 'meanwhile' to emphasise that something is taking place at the same time as another scene - which may be significant. The narrator can say 'this would have been okay, but unfortunately...' and give you a heads up on something bad happening. The narrator can remind, mislead and even do jokes of his own. (There are plenty in the show)
The narrator means that 'the plot' is often as funny as the jokes or the characters, which doesn't happen all that often. In Seinfeld, this can happen, but usually the calamity in a sitcom means that the characters do or say funny things. But careful, skillful plot can be genuinely satisfying in its own right, almost apart from the characters. There are two notable British writers who are brilliant at this. The first is David Renwick whose One Foot in the Grave plots were very clever indeed, hiding crucial bits of information and revealing at just the right time to create wonderfully daft situations and moments. The other is Steve Moffat - who wrote some episodes of Coupling that were superbly plotted, as if a West-End play (a good one). There's is much to learn about plotting from these guys. Plot or story should be satisfying and service the characters. But sometimes it can exceed all expectations and be hilarious in its own right.
So here's the point and the warning. When you're plotting an episode of sitcom, one can be very ambitious in the amount of story that can be crammed in. But if you take Arrested Development's lead, you may come unstuck unless you have a narrator, or a clever device to enable you to cut through plot very quickly. Normally, I find I have too much plot and have to cut back. This can be painful if you've got funny dialogue that you've sweated over in order to get it across. And we return to the importance of proper planning. The best jokes often occur from thin air, when you're writing the script itself, but you need that bedrock of a strong outline. At least I do. (Carla Lane doesn't. And she did okay, didn't she?)
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Not Liking Audience Comedy
Liam Mullan doesn't like studio audience comedy. He explains why over on Chortle here. He is, of course, perfectly entitled to his opinion - which is, I would argue, based on preference, not argument. I don't propose to take issue with everything he says, but one sentence strikes me as interesting and revealing. He says:
I previously wrote a piece for Chortle that after Seinfeld the three-wall/three-camera sitcom had been essentially perfected as an art form, at least in the American tradition...
There is no doubt that comedy is an art, and that situation comedy is an art form - albeit a bizarrely contrived one, but then it's not much more artificial than the theatre or an exhibition of sculpture. The contrivance is part of it. We all know that life isn't like that, and that most of us live in more realistic homes. But what interested me the most is that Mr Mullan seems to think that once someone's cracked it we all applaud, give up, go home and try something else. I'm relieved that painters didn't hang up their palette's when Van Gogh cranked out his set of Sunflowers. It's good that playwrights didn't stop scribbling once they'd seen Hamlet - and I'm glad that Shakespeare kept bashing on too, even though Timon of Athens isn't wonderful and King Lear has a very dodgy ending.
Comedy is an art - but no art is definitive, surely? Some is iconic, certainly. I agree that Seinfeld is almost perfect, and I cherish my boxed sets. But that encourages me to keep going with audience sitcom, not give up. When I flick on the TV first thing, and Frasier is on Channel 4, part of me has a pang of 'I'll never do anything that good' but the other part of me says 'Have you really tried?' Now I know Mr Mullan is not saying that there is no point in trying in so many words. He says:
That does not mean I believe it has been mastered in the UK or that it’s a genre no longer capable of offering high-quality entertainment.
But Mr Mullan seems to suggest the quest for the next studio sitcom hit will be a fruitless one (and the title of the piece, probably added by someone else, would suggest this genre has died anyway). And yet, the viewers at home are rather hoping that people like me - if not actually me specifically - will keep trying because audiences like studio sitcom. It's something that young comedians, some commissioners and a number of producers and critics find hard to accept. They like a highly condensed comedy format in which characters try and fail in an amusing way but things draw neatly to a conclusion after about 28 minutes. In fact, they like Everybody Loves Raymond (210 episodes) more than Arrested Development (53 Episodes) - which hardly seems fair, since Raymond is a fine family comedy show but Arrested Development is almost divinely inspired.
The reality is that millions of people like to watch funny people doing funny things in funny looking rooms whilst hearing a studio audience laughing like drains. And they get very cross when it's done badly because they care.
Mr Mullan dislikes this genre, as is his right, just as I dislike opera. We both wished this weren't so. Opera seems to be a wonderful thing if you're really into - people singing for hours with a vast live orchestra in massive costumes and ludicrous sets. Brilliant. What's not to like? But it just doesn't push my buttons. Shame. But to declare the genre died some years ago and that we didn't notice? Odd. Likewise, Father Ted is not the end. It's a high-water mark certainly, and sometimes the tide gets close and one day a wave will come along and be even higher. If I haven't written it, then I at least hope to be alive to see it and we can all laugh together. (Too schmaltzy? Maybe. What the heck. I like audience comedy.)
I previously wrote a piece for Chortle that after Seinfeld the three-wall/three-camera sitcom had been essentially perfected as an art form, at least in the American tradition...
There is no doubt that comedy is an art, and that situation comedy is an art form - albeit a bizarrely contrived one, but then it's not much more artificial than the theatre or an exhibition of sculpture. The contrivance is part of it. We all know that life isn't like that, and that most of us live in more realistic homes. But what interested me the most is that Mr Mullan seems to think that once someone's cracked it we all applaud, give up, go home and try something else. I'm relieved that painters didn't hang up their palette's when Van Gogh cranked out his set of Sunflowers. It's good that playwrights didn't stop scribbling once they'd seen Hamlet - and I'm glad that Shakespeare kept bashing on too, even though Timon of Athens isn't wonderful and King Lear has a very dodgy ending.
Comedy is an art - but no art is definitive, surely? Some is iconic, certainly. I agree that Seinfeld is almost perfect, and I cherish my boxed sets. But that encourages me to keep going with audience sitcom, not give up. When I flick on the TV first thing, and Frasier is on Channel 4, part of me has a pang of 'I'll never do anything that good' but the other part of me says 'Have you really tried?' Now I know Mr Mullan is not saying that there is no point in trying in so many words. He says:
That does not mean I believe it has been mastered in the UK or that it’s a genre no longer capable of offering high-quality entertainment.
But Mr Mullan seems to suggest the quest for the next studio sitcom hit will be a fruitless one (and the title of the piece, probably added by someone else, would suggest this genre has died anyway). And yet, the viewers at home are rather hoping that people like me - if not actually me specifically - will keep trying because audiences like studio sitcom. It's something that young comedians, some commissioners and a number of producers and critics find hard to accept. They like a highly condensed comedy format in which characters try and fail in an amusing way but things draw neatly to a conclusion after about 28 minutes. In fact, they like Everybody Loves Raymond (210 episodes) more than Arrested Development (53 Episodes) - which hardly seems fair, since Raymond is a fine family comedy show but Arrested Development is almost divinely inspired.
The reality is that millions of people like to watch funny people doing funny things in funny looking rooms whilst hearing a studio audience laughing like drains. And they get very cross when it's done badly because they care.
Mr Mullan dislikes this genre, as is his right, just as I dislike opera. We both wished this weren't so. Opera seems to be a wonderful thing if you're really into - people singing for hours with a vast live orchestra in massive costumes and ludicrous sets. Brilliant. What's not to like? But it just doesn't push my buttons. Shame. But to declare the genre died some years ago and that we didn't notice? Odd. Likewise, Father Ted is not the end. It's a high-water mark certainly, and sometimes the tide gets close and one day a wave will come along and be even higher. If I haven't written it, then I at least hope to be alive to see it and we can all laugh together. (Too schmaltzy? Maybe. What the heck. I like audience comedy.)
Saturday, 23 January 2010
The Persuasionists
Here’s the short version: I rather like it.
Here’s the longer version:
The problem with launching a new sitcom is that most viewers compare your Episode 1 against their favourite episode of their favourite sitcom. We all have our favourites - and we love those characters as if they were members of our own family. Frankly, I would like to hug 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon and tell her everything’s going to be okay. Or we’d like to smack the characters because they’re making the same mistake week after week. Seinfeld said their rules were No Hugging and No Learning - but pretty much every sitcom has that second part. Sitcom characters don’t learn. Mainwaring and Hancock are pompous, always. David Brent thinks he’s funny every week. And so on. And so usually we find ourselves chuckling before they’ve even done the joke. Sitcoms that are up and running have a crucial momentum that keeps us laughing.
And so getting a new sitcom off the ground is like launching a rocket. Once the thing is moving and orbiting the earth, you just need to nudge it the right direction. But getting the darn thing of the ground, that takes a lot of energy.
Why am I saying this? You may well be ahead of me. I’ll fess up and say that I didn’t really like episode 1 of The Persuasionists, and some of this is because of the reasons above. I just didn’t know the characters. There are other reasons, which I’ll mention in a moment. But I did like episode 2. I’ve watched some scenes several times over and laughed a lot. And I’m looking forward to seeing episode 3. Put it this way: I watched Episodes 1 and 2 on iPlayer. But for episode 3, I’ll try and make an appointment to view - or at least tape it on my PVR and watch it within 24 hours (high praise in my house).
Why did I like it? I liked it because it was a big silly sitcom with jokes in it. It sounds rather daft to say that, but I do worry, sometimes, that some people think jokes are beneath them or just too obviou, or that a show is all character and story, and the laughs are simply organic. In one sense, they are. But you need them all the same. It’s another reason why writing sitcoms is so hard. You need to create characters, relationships, a situation, a story that hangs together - and then write about a hundred jokes that make a roomful of 200-300 people laugh out loud. Oh and three million people at home, give or take. That’s why the money is quite good when you get it right.
The Persuasionists is, then, a knock-about comedy set in the world of advertising. Are the characters believable? In a sense, but they’re obviously larger than life. And they’re clearly meant to be that way. And as with most office sitcoms, and audience shows, you tend not to believe that any actual work goes on in the office in question - but nobody minds that. It’s a sitcom. The audience understand that real life isn’t that funny. And that an office of 25 people tends to have more than 5 people who actually talk to each other. Sitcom is a contrived format by its very nature. But it works.
Clearly, the recipe for this particular show didn’t work for some people. The reviews and comments were almost entirely negative. It’s all rather sad. Reviewers, bloggers, and tweeters single out comedy for the vilest of comments. In a way that shows they care about comedy. It also shows that people are prepared to hide behind the internet to say horrible things that they would never say in real life. But the relentless stream of twitters say “Worst show ever” and “I’ll never get that half hour back” is pretty depressing. Apart from anything else, most TV is dreadful. Even successful shows. But we digress from the matter in hand.
Here’s my main worry about the show - the mix of characters. There are five characters, all with fairly strong traits. And since the show is set in the world of advertising, most of the characters are, what tv execs call ‘unsympathetic’. They shout and rant and are generally mean to each other. The exception is the Adam Buxton character - who is the optimist and nice-guy. The other characters are more grotesque, which is fine, but it makes them less believable. And so every single line those characters say has to be really funny. If it isn’t, we’ll stop laughing and think to ourselves “I don’t buy this”. Occasionally, you need a character to say things like “Hey, we have to get this done in time, or else” or “I hope my mum doesn’t die” or something that they have to mean. We all know it’s made up, but if the we don’t even believe that the characters believe in anything, the whole thing falls apart into a deconstructed heap on the floor.
I’ve run into this phenomenon writing Hut 33, which is a sitcom for Radio 4 set in Bletchley Park in World War Two. One character is called Minka, played by Olivia Colman. Minka is a psychopath who believes that violence is the solution to all problems. And she’s very handy and has all manner of weapons secreted about her person. She’s a preposterous character, keeping weapons in places where they couldn’t possibly fit, but it works - as long as she’s not carrying lines of exposition or doing what the other characters do. The problem comes when you have a whole show of those big characters. They have to gag their way in and out of every situation, and if one joke misfires, it can fall apart. If two jokes misfire, it hurts.
In Episode 2 is because the jokes fired. They worked - especially the lunatic stuff Keaton said and did, and the wonderful scene in which the boss explained to the popstar why Australia wasn’t ordinary. It was great, and bits like that really carried the show. There were other lovely moments when the popstar looks at Adam Buxton from afar and he’s sniffing his hands. And then he says how boring he is saying “Even when I hear my own voice, I think ‘O God, not him again’.” Lovely. The question is whether episode 3 can pull off the same trick. I hope so. I do enjoy laughing.
Here’s the longer version:
The problem with launching a new sitcom is that most viewers compare your Episode 1 against their favourite episode of their favourite sitcom. We all have our favourites - and we love those characters as if they were members of our own family. Frankly, I would like to hug 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon and tell her everything’s going to be okay. Or we’d like to smack the characters because they’re making the same mistake week after week. Seinfeld said their rules were No Hugging and No Learning - but pretty much every sitcom has that second part. Sitcom characters don’t learn. Mainwaring and Hancock are pompous, always. David Brent thinks he’s funny every week. And so on. And so usually we find ourselves chuckling before they’ve even done the joke. Sitcoms that are up and running have a crucial momentum that keeps us laughing.
And so getting a new sitcom off the ground is like launching a rocket. Once the thing is moving and orbiting the earth, you just need to nudge it the right direction. But getting the darn thing of the ground, that takes a lot of energy.
Why am I saying this? You may well be ahead of me. I’ll fess up and say that I didn’t really like episode 1 of The Persuasionists, and some of this is because of the reasons above. I just didn’t know the characters. There are other reasons, which I’ll mention in a moment. But I did like episode 2. I’ve watched some scenes several times over and laughed a lot. And I’m looking forward to seeing episode 3. Put it this way: I watched Episodes 1 and 2 on iPlayer. But for episode 3, I’ll try and make an appointment to view - or at least tape it on my PVR and watch it within 24 hours (high praise in my house).
Why did I like it? I liked it because it was a big silly sitcom with jokes in it. It sounds rather daft to say that, but I do worry, sometimes, that some people think jokes are beneath them or just too obviou, or that a show is all character and story, and the laughs are simply organic. In one sense, they are. But you need them all the same. It’s another reason why writing sitcoms is so hard. You need to create characters, relationships, a situation, a story that hangs together - and then write about a hundred jokes that make a roomful of 200-300 people laugh out loud. Oh and three million people at home, give or take. That’s why the money is quite good when you get it right.The Persuasionists is, then, a knock-about comedy set in the world of advertising. Are the characters believable? In a sense, but they’re obviously larger than life. And they’re clearly meant to be that way. And as with most office sitcoms, and audience shows, you tend not to believe that any actual work goes on in the office in question - but nobody minds that. It’s a sitcom. The audience understand that real life isn’t that funny. And that an office of 25 people tends to have more than 5 people who actually talk to each other. Sitcom is a contrived format by its very nature. But it works.
Clearly, the recipe for this particular show didn’t work for some people. The reviews and comments were almost entirely negative. It’s all rather sad. Reviewers, bloggers, and tweeters single out comedy for the vilest of comments. In a way that shows they care about comedy. It also shows that people are prepared to hide behind the internet to say horrible things that they would never say in real life. But the relentless stream of twitters say “Worst show ever” and “I’ll never get that half hour back” is pretty depressing. Apart from anything else, most TV is dreadful. Even successful shows. But we digress from the matter in hand.
Here’s my main worry about the show - the mix of characters. There are five characters, all with fairly strong traits. And since the show is set in the world of advertising, most of the characters are, what tv execs call ‘unsympathetic’. They shout and rant and are generally mean to each other. The exception is the Adam Buxton character - who is the optimist and nice-guy. The other characters are more grotesque, which is fine, but it makes them less believable. And so every single line those characters say has to be really funny. If it isn’t, we’ll stop laughing and think to ourselves “I don’t buy this”. Occasionally, you need a character to say things like “Hey, we have to get this done in time, or else” or “I hope my mum doesn’t die” or something that they have to mean. We all know it’s made up, but if the we don’t even believe that the characters believe in anything, the whole thing falls apart into a deconstructed heap on the floor.
I’ve run into this phenomenon writing Hut 33, which is a sitcom for Radio 4 set in Bletchley Park in World War Two. One character is called Minka, played by Olivia Colman. Minka is a psychopath who believes that violence is the solution to all problems. And she’s very handy and has all manner of weapons secreted about her person. She’s a preposterous character, keeping weapons in places where they couldn’t possibly fit, but it works - as long as she’s not carrying lines of exposition or doing what the other characters do. The problem comes when you have a whole show of those big characters. They have to gag their way in and out of every situation, and if one joke misfires, it can fall apart. If two jokes misfire, it hurts.
In Episode 2 is because the jokes fired. They worked - especially the lunatic stuff Keaton said and did, and the wonderful scene in which the boss explained to the popstar why Australia wasn’t ordinary. It was great, and bits like that really carried the show. There were other lovely moments when the popstar looks at Adam Buxton from afar and he’s sniffing his hands. And then he says how boring he is saying “Even when I hear my own voice, I think ‘O God, not him again’.” Lovely. The question is whether episode 3 can pull off the same trick. I hope so. I do enjoy laughing.
What this Blog is for
This blog is about situation comedy - TV and Radio. It’s something the British take very seriously. Any new comedy, good or bad, is subject to intense scrutiny and criticism in the press and now on Twitter and various messageboards. The British are passionate about sitcom and demand the best, and therefore when anything falls slightly short, which sitcoms easily can, it is merciless clubbed to the ground and repeatedly kicked.
The Americans take their sitcom seriously too. This is partly because it’s a billion-dollar industry. Friends, alone, is billion-dollar industry. If you get it right, you’ll not just make millions but hundreds of millions of dollars. And then you can blow all that money on making movies.
Until recently, I’ve been posting comments about situation comedy in general on my Hut 33 blog - which is a blog about a sitcom that I write for BBC Radio 4. But it seems sensible to keep that blog focussed on that show, and reserve comments and thoughts about sitcom in general to a separate blog. So this is Sitcom Geek. Hello.
The Americans take their sitcom seriously too. This is partly because it’s a billion-dollar industry. Friends, alone, is billion-dollar industry. If you get it right, you’ll not just make millions but hundreds of millions of dollars. And then you can blow all that money on making movies.
Until recently, I’ve been posting comments about situation comedy in general on my Hut 33 blog - which is a blog about a sitcom that I write for BBC Radio 4. But it seems sensible to keep that blog focussed on that show, and reserve comments and thoughts about sitcom in general to a separate blog. So this is Sitcom Geek. Hello.
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