Filmed In Front of a Live Audience

Before my work­ing week­end, Pam and I were lucky enough to be able attend an event that was, at least as the come­di­an Simon Rakoff and ‘Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies’ described, the first time some­thing like this had hap­pened in 10 years in the Van­cou­ver area: the film­ing of a Sit­com pilot in front of a live stu­dio audience.

Because of an email from the CBC that I answered (I don’t know how I end­ed up get­ting it; prob­a­bly from hav­ing signed up at the CBC web site at some point), at about 5:15 on Fri­day, Pam and I found our­selves shiv­er­ing in line at twi­light in front of what looked like a non­de­script busi­ness office, at the cor­ner of First Avenue and Gilmore Avenue in Burn­a­by. We had both just come from work near­by, so we were for­tu­nate that it was easy to get to. The con­ces­sion truck was feed­ing chili to the actors and crew (and it smelled good), but soon we were ush­ered in to a messy col­lec­tion of sets, cam­eras, and bleach­ers inside. After a few min­utes, Mr. Rakoff hand­ed out tick­ets for a bunch of draw­ings for door prizes that would go on as the evening’s film­ing pro­gressed, and explained our duties for the evening. “Peo­ple watch­ing TV aren’t too smart, he said, “so we want you to help out, and laugh so you can show them where the jokes are. Your laugh­ter is an impor­tant part of the process of bring­ing this show to life.” OK. Bring on the jokes. But first, the setup.

The name of the show was ‘All the Com­forts’. That much we knew already. Here’s the gist of the sit­com that we were to see, cre­at­ed for us the first time that evening:

The Bunion fam­i­ly is head­ed by Mac and Bren­da, who, in their retire­ment years, are hop­ing to take off with their new motor home to cel­e­brate their gold­en years alone togeth­er. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, their plans are thwart­ed by their daugh­ter Susie, a ditzy 20-some­thing who has nev­er left the nest, and the recent return of their always opti­mistic and timid but né’er do well son, his pret­ty but abra­sive wife and their 2 kids (2 typ­i­cal pre­co­cious and cute sit­com chil­dren). Mac is a grouchy rub­ber-faced Jack­ie Glea­son type who just wants to be left alone to enjoy his massager/recliner, his sand­wich, TV and bot­tle of Snap­ple in peace. Soli­tude and space is to not be found. Through a series of phys­i­cal gags, jokes involv­ing aging and child-rear­ing, the cranky old guy even­tu­al­ly apol­o­gizes for yelling at his grand-kids and may even admit that there are advan­tages to hav­ing them around (one of them dis­cov­ers and turns on the ‘auto adjust’ but­ton on his hi-tech chair, end­ing his 4‑year quest to find ‘the per­fect set­ting’). While they aren’t a per­fect hap­py fam­i­ly, they may just make it, although Mac will still be thrilled the day that all of his kids final­ly do leave, and he and his wife can hit the road together.

Before I get into any crit­i­cal appre­ci­a­tion, it was just kind of fun to see how you shoot a sit­com. This was a four cam­era show, with direc­tor call­ing cuts and cam­era angles, 3 dif­fer­ent sets (includ­ing the motor home), and a large crew, includ­ing a stage direc­tor, cam­era­men, sound man, grips, key grip, clap­per, a bunch of writ­ers doing rewrites of jokes down to the last moment, and bunch of oth­er peo­ple (who I could­n’t tell what they did). This was as close as we’ve got­ten to the film­ing of a real TV show, and it was a great edu­ca­tion about how this is done these days.

As for ‘All the Com­forts’, it sounds like pret­ty typ­i­cal sit­com fare, does­n’t it? On this evening, what the writ­ing of the pilot lacked, the actors made up for in pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ener­gy. They made the mate­r­i­al far fun­nier than it deserved to be, but will it be enough for this pilot to catch on? That’s hard to say. The theme of the return of kids liv­ing with their par­ents far into their 30’s is some­thing that many of us are uncom­fort­able with, to be sure. It used to be a stig­ma, but is becom­ing so wide­spread that it is clear­ly going to have to be re-eval­u­at­ed. Dis­com­fort often leads to humour, so this might have a chance. On the oth­er hand, if it just becomes anoth­er col­lec­tion of sit­com gags…

• Mac attempts to return a stolen xxx before dis­cov­ery of the theft … Hilar­i­ty ensues.
• Susie is giv­en the posi­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty she can’t han­dle … Hilar­i­ty ensues.
• Bren­da, tries to change her phys­i­cal appear­ance through an xxx … Hilar­i­ty ensues.

I hope that they reach for plots and char­ac­ter devel­op­ment that’s bet­ter than these stock sit­u­a­tions. Pam and I have both become real fans of Cor­ner Gas, a CBC Sit­com that con­sis­tent­ly pro­vides a big laugh at least once in an episode. I sus­pect that it’s the writ­ing staff, although that sit­com also has very good act­ing. So far, ‘All the Com­forts’ is no Cor­ner Gas, but per­haps it could be. I’m hop­ing it does, because to have been in the audi­ence at the pilot could be a bit of his­to­ry, if it is a hit.