Yeah that makes sense Declan.
Sitcom (Com)Mission Page 73
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I think once we've got a structure well and truly in place we can plan around it. Then actors would be able to know what their commitments might be and decide whether to take other work, go for auditions etc.
Or, a decent analogy would be, once we've built the gallows...
Why don't you do a Radio Sitcom version Declan? It would make it a lot easier re not having to act off script, working in limited spaces, sets, costumes etc etc.
I edited the recorded reading you guys did for me into a sort of radio pice and it did give me a LOT of food for thought. It worked pretty well with just cutting the stage directions being read out and some tweaks here and there.
Radio seems to be the way as much any other into getting a sitcom onto TV too. I don't think it would impact on how many people you get coming to the shows and there might be other ways to fund it outside of the ticket business too. You could certainly podcast the trials after to a professional level which you can't achieve as it is. And Bush Baby would get to hear them which is the more important thing!
there's no sound Marc, what do I have to click?
got it 
No, the sound keeps going off and ruining the lines 
Quote: Marc P @ April 20 2010, 4:05 PM BSTWhy don't you do a Radio Sitcom version Declan?
And so it goes full circle. In this thread we've had the suggestion of doing full length sitcoms, the audience not voting, sitcoms not competing, and now sitcoms in a radio style.
All the phases that the Sitcom Trials, and its predecessor Situations Vacant, went through before reaching the near-perfect form we achieved most recently.
Sits Vac, the show I ran from 95 to 99, showcased complete sitcoms on stage. We'd end the show with a full half hour episode, and before that we'd have three or four shorter sitcoms. This was in Bristol and London, the whole starting point being to subject my (and my friends') sitcom writing to the same audience scrutiny that my stand-up was getting.
The drawback was that not all sitcoms are that good, and asking an audience to sit through 15 minutes of a sitcom that they've got bored of after the first few minutes was bordering on cruelty. Hence the Sitcom Trials. The audience voted, so they had an active control over the show, and we kept it short and tight so they were never more than 10 minutes away from something they might prefer. To begin with these shows were fully staged, off-book, presentations.
Then we got our first sale (Yikes It's Jesper which became the BBC Radio pilot Come Together) and I saw, for the first time, how radio comedy was made. The actors met for the first time on the day of the recording, they had a day of rehearsing, then they performed with scripts in hands. Bingo.
So The Sitcom Trials, for most of its life, was performed radio style, with script in hand. This enabled us to turnover scripts quickly, to rewrite and amend material. It was a gift to our writing and development. I liked it. However a lot of people, especially the sort who make up audiences, didn't. Radio-style shows never had the professional feel of fully staged shows, which is why when Declan & Simon revived the show in 2008, they moved away from script-in-hand radio style and towards fully staged shows. James continued this for 2009.
(That said, one of the autumn 2009 entries, Future Proof by Elise Bramich, suffered rehearsal problems and ended up being performed script in hand. It won its heat, its semi, and did very well in the Grand Final. )
So everything that's been suggested in the last couple of pages has already been done in the Sitcom Trials, and everything has arguments for and against. As long as someone keeps running shows in one form or the other, we'll all be happy.
For all my tuppence worth I would suggest sticking to the rules you had to start off with even if they are flawed. Otherwise you start letting Liverpool into the Champions League when they haven't actually qualified or seeding the World Cup playoffs after you know who will be in them.
Make any changes next time.
Regarding the voting system, I would scrap the public one and leave it to the professional judges. They have the experience, expertise and their heads are (hopefully) clear of alcohol. (I'm pretty sure a lot of the 8PM paying audience will have been hitting the sherbert - surely their opinions are flawed and meaningless.)
How are the shows promoted? Are they advertised at all or is it just on this board? I was thinking Whatsonstage web or perhaps the Stage newspaper would attract the audiences
Quote: michael b @ April 20 2010, 10:01 PM BSTRegarding the voting system, I would scrap the public one and leave it to the professional judges. They have the experience, expertise and their heads are (hopefully) clear of alcohol. (I'm pretty sure a lot of the 8PM paying audience will have been hitting the sherbert - surely their opinions are flawed and meaningless.)
Before I reply, I guess I should declare an interest. My sitcom made it to the May 2009 Grand Final as the audience vote winner. I think we actually came 4th in the semi final in the eyes of the judges (although I haven't had that confirmed). We lost to a sitcom we had beaten in the first round, the other eliminated sitcom had beaten the other winner in a previous round(still with me?). We won the audience vote in all 3 rounds as I remember (not on mates votes as I'm not from London so had limited support). The judges in the final put us second and once again ahead of the one we beat in round 1 and lost to in the semi. I guess my point is that 'industry judges' are not a magic bullet and the audience vote can serve a useful function. Certainly over 3 rounds when it is harder to pack the audience every time.
There is no perfect system but I think the existing approach is a pretty good compromise. Then again, I would say that.
Hi Ponderer, is it not that the judges know what they are looking for and what is workable or perhaps cheaper to produce but not necessarily the funniest?
I know I'm bound to say this, but I promise that even before this competition I thought it was important to let the judges' decision be the one that counted.
I can't use this as an excuse at all, being as I live a twenty-minute Tube journey from the venue - but to do otherwise would be massively unfair to the people who don't live in London. (And of course people like me, who are a bit shy, strange or unpopular - I excel at all three).
And thanks Badge! (And Johnny). Was so much fun, really looking forward to the other heats.
Finally, to anyone thinking about it, I can't recommend going to the workshops/entering the Sitcom MIssion enough. It's easy to forget when bogged down in the impossibility of inventing a voting system that pleases everybody (Lib Dems have been trying for decades) what a life-changing experience this whole thing is and what a bloody excellent thing it is that Simon and Declan are doing. Give it a go!
I agree with Badge, stick with the pre-competition rules and if you need a different format, change it next time around.
Congratulation to Ennie on making the semi- finals!
Oh, I thought we were all talking next comp. It wouldn't be right to change the voting format at this stage, imo
Quote: michael b @ April 20 2010, 10:01 PM BSTRegarding the voting system, I would scrap the public one and leave it to the professional judges. They have the experience, expertise and their heads are (hopefully) clear of alcohol.
I'd hate the audience to lose their grip on the show. For me, it was the audience feeling that they could make their opinions known that kept their interest in the show. And, of course, until the spring 09 season there was no panel of judges at all (the panel was first suggested, if you're interested, by Steve Coogan when he and Henry Normal at Baby Cow were looking at getting the show onto BBC3. You'll have noticed that hasn't happened yet).
For the Sitcom Trials autumn 09 (James prod, as opposed to spring 09 Dec & Si) we had judges in both performances every night (in the early show and the late show) and both audiences votes were combined, so you got a very good representation of audience feeling and the judges saw the scripts performed in front of those paying full whack and the early show which was, we found, usually more receptive.
Because we had the cliffhanger ending (a regular Trials feature that Dec & Si dropped for their seasons & for the Mission), both audiences got the payoff of seeing their favourite's ending performed. And the late show get the bonus of finding out the result of the combined panellists votes.
James (Parker) introduced an extra detail, whereby the panellists ranked the sitcoms they'd seen in order of preference, whereas the audience just voted for one fave. This made it easier to discern their decisions, and to explain to disgruntled writers in detail quite who had come where and why. (I guess you could get every audience member to also fill out such a Single Transferrable Vote form, if you had an extra hour to count them all in!)
Of course James also made it clear that his adjudication was final, which would have shut up any last dissenters, not that I remember there being any.
All this discussion is putting me further and further off the idea of running the Trials this autumn (however perfect our system may be :^)
Kev F Sitcom Trials
Don't give up Kev, it's only a discussion.
If the shows were advertised for any member of the public to see, they wouldn't know about voting. Audiences don't normally vote.
I would be gutted if I was short listed only to find that another entrant had 20 mates there on the night and I had none [being from the north]
But you're running the show and it's up to you ultimately which system you prefer.
Democracy is......two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for their dinner