Meet The Adebanjos: The Production Journey

Andrew Osayemi and Debra Odutuyo (pictured) are the co-creators of 'Meet The Adebanjos', a new 8-part studio-based sitcom which is breaking the mould by broadcasting online rather than on TV. Here Andrew explains more about how the project was born...

It all started 29 years ago when my Dad and Debra's Dad met on the plane coming over to England for the first time. With their respective wives they settled in the UK (Peckham, South London) and Debra and I were born. Our fathers remain friends, which is how Debra and I got to know each other.

Fast forward to the summer of 2009 and Debra came to me to discuss an idea for a sitcom called Meet The Adebanjos. Until this point my career had been that of a city trader, but after returning from New York, where I had been working for 2 years, something in me had changed. I was no longer that passionate about my job and was very much interested in new challenges. So I would say it was a case of perfect timing and luck that Debra came to me at the particular point. She had been pitching her sitcom to the mainstream TV executives doing what all writers and producers do, but without any luck. She believed what would help would be to film the pilot and then go back and pitch the visual content to the likes of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc. The timing in my life was right and I agreed to put money into the pilot.

The pilot was filmed in a house with a great cast in February 2010. Debra then took the edited version and did the same rounds. This time she got further as the visual content did help but, once again, the door was politely shut in her face.

I had been closely watching this from my position as Executive Producer and, as I had just left my job, something in me took over and I said 'we could do this ourselves'. I analysed the concept of doing an independent production and from my background in finance ran the numbers to see if it could be viable. With the numbers and risk added up, and I told Debra I thought I could raise the investment to do a whole season ourselves. She looked at me in shock horror and said 'no, that is not the way the industry does things.' It was with that statement I was resolved to prove her and the industry wrong...

I went to the Edinburgh International TV Festival and saw everyone walking around strutting their stuff because they worked for a broadcaster and super indie but, under all of that, I saw the look of desperation that everyone is one step away from being decommissioned and so will do whatever it takes to stay in the inner circle. The funny thing was everyone seemed interested in my concept and they all asked the same question: 'has it been commissioned yet?'. When I said 'no' they all moved away quickly, like they didn't want to get my non-commissioned disease! It was a very insightful trip as it was my first foray into the professional production world.

We set about casting before the finance was raised. In July 2010 we got in the best actors from the best agencies. There was no casting director - just myself and Debra with supporters of the project who had a bit of industry experience. That was the process through a lot of the production: myself and Debra taking on many various roles in order to get it done. Marketer, cook, chauffeur, bookkeeper, payroll etc etc.

We really wanted to up the production values of the show from the pilot, which was average at best... so we by chance brought on board a social enterprise production company - Fresh Media Productions. They were a godsend and I can't now imagine doing the production without them. They are a production company of ex-BBC and Sky professionals who, after all having successful careers in production, set up the company as a social enterprise to educate young people about production and give people access who wouldn't normally be able to get into the industry. It is run by Jenny Stimpson and she really was sold on the vision of the production and agreed to work for a reduced rate if we could promise to give a few Lambeth Council teenagers work experience as runners during the filming.

We then went about planning the filming, building the set, etc. We first met in September 2010 and agreed to film in November 2010 - not giving us much time. With 8 episodes planned, we worked on the idea of having 2 weeks rehearsal and filming 2 episodes in a week, giving us a 6 week production schedule.

With the production and casting secure, there was the little matter of finance. With my background in the City I was able to gather a few small investment groups and individuals with decent disposable income. I pitched to them my unique business model. To go online in the western world - the UK and US - and go for the more conventional TV broadcast model in Africa and the Caribbean, where we would sell the episodes to TV channels.

I believe the major factor in successfully raising the money was that I was prepared to manage and run the company and the investment full time. My advice for anyone wanting to do something similar to this is that you can't do it part-time. A lot of people will have to make a lot of sacrifices and if you as the boss can't do it, your project will not have the momentum to succeed. We budgeted £175,000 to complete the production and managed to cover that, but it was always a race against time.

In the mix of all this was the little matter of scripts. We had over 8 scripts written but they did not give us the focus and contrast between the African parents and British kids that people thought was funny. People did not laugh at all in the read-throughs. It was 4 weeks to go till rehearsals and we had to make a key decision: go with the completed scripts that were not that funny or start from scratch and race against time to get it done. As always we chose the hard route and, for the good of the project, decided to start from scratch. This resulted in Debra (who had no experience in writing) taking charge as head writer and we followed a pattern of writing a script in a day. It followed the pattern of: write a scene breakdown a day before; give it to a Script Editor to make sure the twists and turns were punchy enough, and then the next day gather together with writers, comedy consultants and a script editor to write a 30 page script.

I know this sounds crazy and like there was a lot of chaos in the process but myself and Debra were strangely calm. We had the target of the start of rehearsal to get everything ready, and somehow we managed to do it.

The filming and production was another kettle of fish. We had a key actress leave for a better job before we started filming, boilers broke down, tempers flared, people got sick, filming sessions over ran... all the usual really! Ha ha! But the crew and cast were great and got on with things regardless of what was thrown at them. The co-production team were able to take care of building the set, running the production crew and schedule. It all came together just before Christmas when we were able to finish the final episode.

In the New Year, armed with a high quality broadcast product, we went around again looking for a deal. It's funny how we had our minds set on the online strategy, but were persuaded back onto the old-fashioned route of looking for TV deals once people saw the product. We went to all the usual suspects, but while everyone was really impressed with the product they were not happy we had done everything independently of them, as they normally like control and involvement. This process distracted us from our core plan and we spent a few months running around like headless chickens trying to prepare for meetings and pitches. The funny thing is we went to a TV buyers' trade fair in Africa and the reaction was totally different. Everyone loved the product and that gave us a lot of confidence.

May 2011 was when the penny finally dropped for myself and Debra; it felt good when we finally said 'sod all of these meetings and let-downs from the mainstream'. They were never going to take this up, and we could have ended up running around endlessly chasing non-existent opportunities. So we went back to Plan A and decided to release the sitcom online to an audience we knew was out there. And so the first episode is now available. We will show 3 episodes in total for free and then release the rest on DVD. This way if the fans like it they can buy the DVD and this will fund Season 2 (fingers crossed). I think our Season 2 will be 10 times better than the first because we now have the blueprint. We know all the mistakes we made and we will aim to fix them! It's a total gamble, but one I am prepared to take. And now I don't want a TV deal in the UK. I say to hell with that. And it feels good to be free from all the sucking up and b.s. one has to suffer through to get a foot in the door.

So, in conclusion, I think naivety, guts and determination got us to this stage. At times we wanted to give up, and at times we thought the burden was too much... but the ultimate goal was to get our product out there and we were not going to let anyone (mainstream or otherwise) get in our way.

One key lesson learnt is to plan, plan and plan. This independent movement can work but you have to plan for everything. Get your scripts and development done way before you start planning for filming. We were very lucky that we made it through but I think with better planning we would have had it much easier!

To find out more about the sitcom and to see the end result visit www.meettheadebanjos.com

Below is a behind-the-scenes video: