Sitcom Trials Autumn '09 Page 21

Quote: Tom G @ September 3 2009, 2:04 PM BST

But we all work better with a deadline looming!

I'm sure they would be dissapointed in the sitcom trials offices if nothing came through at 23:59pm!

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The Sitcom Trials offices! I love the picture you've conjured up in your imagination of what we must look like. A vast open plan floor, peopled by bright young things at laptops, called Tarquin and Jocasta (cos that's the sort of name you'd give to a laptop), with a glass-sided Writers Room with its own water-cooler, and a lady with a tea trolley like Mrs Mop (again, the sort of name you'd give to a tea tro- that joke's done, you say?). And James has an office at the end, oak-panelled, with a drinks cabinet, like Donald Draper in Mad Men, then I swan in like Old Mr Grace from Are You Being Served to say "You're all doing very well."

Actually that is exactly what it's like in The Sitcom Trials Offices. If anything, it's bigger and more impressive than that. And don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Also we all live in one big flat, like The Monkees.

Deadline Sunday, stop reading this and keep writing.

Kev F
Obergruppenfuhrer
The Sitcom Trials

Having just watched some of last years entrie's, I was a little suprised as they seemed to come across as more like one off sketch's in a comedy club rather than a part of what might be six episodes.
Have sent mine in today, who knows?

On another note, did anyone else offer inducements in order to get selected for performance.....that's a no then oops!

Hello. How many sitcoms are you going to be featuring? And when do you think you'll be annoucing the winners?

does anyone know when the finalists/those scripts chosen will be announced?

Quote: Adam Blaize @ September 3 2009, 11:41 PM BST

does anyone know when the finalists/those scripts chosen will be announced?

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Probably not until Monday at the earliest.

Mr Parker, I can't see much info about props. Had a look at the televised shows online and the most I saw was a table and chairs. Do you allow more props to be used, not major stuff but I'm thinking about a couple of doors that open, a couple of partition screens and a bed. Will a script be rejected if it lists these props? thank you.

There is one door at either side of the stage. One is the same door the audience use to walk in, the other is on the opposite side and I assume it's to where the cast get changed/behind the bar. I've seen the stage split into two for two 'sets' but that's as much as you'll get; they tend to split that via lighting rather than by partition (I might be wrong though). I very much doubt you'll get a bed -- write that scene in the kitchen or something instead.

Dan

Okay, thanks for that. So we're talking bare minimalistic here then. No I can't have Mr W sleep in the kitchen I'm afraid because he just wouldn't do that. I shall ask them to provide some pajamas and a duvet instead, this should be enough to visualise the setting. Do any of the acts you've seen there look like mini sitcoms Dan, or do they mostly look like sketches, as someone else stated the other day? The ones they have online are very hard to tell apart and quite honestly do not represent a sitcom to me, but just look like review sketches. That's fine in its own way and some of them are funny and well written, but I'm worried about how you can set up a cliffhanger scene with such static, bare and generalistic sets. Have you seen people do it because I'm struggling to see how you can pull this off in a bare one act set, and given the almost stand up routines they show online.

The videos online are from a couple of years ago (as far as I know, unless bootlegs of last season have gone up), so I wouldn't necessarily use them as a benchmark.

By their nature, some of the scripts end up more sketch-like than others (because of the limited time constraint), but when we're looking at scripts one of the things that they are judged is whether they have the potential to be part of a series and whether the characters and situations "have legs".

With regard to setting, people have been sending in scripts where the characters are in a multitude of unusual and impossible situations, but which are perfectly able to be staged with a limited amount of audience imagination. We've also had scripts that are still impossible to stage, even if they were set in the downstairs room of the Leicester Square Theatre.

In slightly intrigued by the idea that a cliffhanger requires the use of complex staging? A cliffhanger moment can occur quite easily through dialogue, with the action continuing immediately after; or could move the action to a different, but easily realised new, location.

Hey Alfred

I'm sure you could get your character to change into pj's and come into the kitchen for a 'pre-going to bed' mug of cocoa and do the dialogue in there instead (don't forget to give the main character time to change, so he'll need to leave the previous scene earlier than other characters) I think Jane P did something along these lines in her entry, if I recall correctly.

I've only seen some of last season's entries where the set up was not using the cliffhanger endings so I can't comment on that working; they merely showed four or five 'full' 15-minute sitcoms (I suspect all entries had a cliffhanger at the end of the penultimate scene, cos that's how sitcoms work, I just wasn't aware of it in the structure of the competition). All nine entries I saw over the two visits were sitcoms in my eyes (regardless of how good I thought they were) -- they certainly weren't sketches. One I recall was just one long scene (despite the advice 'Don't write a one-act play!'), but even that was sitcom.

It basically needs to be all character and dialogue-based, really so entirely physical/slapstick entries are not really going to work due to the space limitations.

For a bed, I suppose they could just throw a couple of pillows on the floor and get under a duvet. However, I wouldn't recommend it, as no-one beyond the front row will see anything. In fact, I suggest people don't even sit down for long periods if you don't want to piss people off any further back.

(And if the guy with the massive afro is thinking of coming again -- at least sit on the back row, you selfish git...)

Dan

Ah good, your comment about what you'll be judging a script on is just what I wanted to hear - excellent!

Yes I realise that is just one year's shows you have online and possibly they didn't have the cliffhanger requirement.

The cliffhanger - it's not that I think it needs complex staging as such, more that writing a scene that ends in one defines the style you write that scene in from the start ie. the whole scene must be a moving narrative and before this I hadn't attempted one in a one room static set (with minimal action), but yes, there's no reason why you can't build up to one with dialogue. Can we establish that by the cliffhanger you mean the end of the main act and not the separate pay off scene - I've put that scene on a new page. It's actually very difficult I think to write a traditional type sitcom form for stage in a condensed piece but I think you are dead right to ask us to do that. Who eles apart from me thinks recent sitcoms have lost the art of ending with a proper comedy punchline? Remember the 70s - a sitcom wasn't a sitcom without a punchline or payoff ending. Anyway I've waffled on again, thanks for the reply.

One final question, the option thing doesn't mean that the industry folk and interested producers there won't still be able to sign up a writer they like, does it?

Thanks again, Mr Kipper.

Okay Dan, thank you, point taken about the view one gets. I will go with the duvet idea anyway and see what they make of it. I only saw this a week ago so I'm still furiously trying to make my thing work. BTW, who here has written a brand new piece and who has adapted something they had? I've gone for the latter.

Mr Kipper, Alfred to my chums.

I'm writing something new. Tomorrow, it looks like...

Dan

Really looking forward to the Sitcom Trials; whether we get picked or not, I'm just pleased we've gone onto write an entry. There aren't really any opportunities (comedy wise) like this one. We even wrote a full draft script for another project yesterday. It's motivated us to keep pushing our ideas and putting them out there.

I'd reiterate what Dan's said. No-one beyond the first row of about 10 people will see anything if you have people lying down and not much if they sit down. (re lying down, your actors may not be keen to lie on a very uncomfortable and by then dirty floor either!)

In terms of furniture (based on last time) I'd say it's best to assume you can have table and chairs or a sheet over a couple of chairs for a sofa and no more. It really is a tiny space. Unless, as with one show last time, you bring in your own sculpture or something. The compere can say this is set in a dungeon/ heaven/ nightclub or wherever you are when he introduces it.

Also if it's the same as last year don't expect anyone else to bring props or costumes - that's for you the writer to sort out (or if you're lucky, the actors you work with).

There's v little privacy/ time for costume changes. I just had Steve in a dressing gown but underneath he had his normal clothes on.

All that aside if you keep it simple it can still be very effective and I did have an excellent experience last time round.

I'm not convinced someone has seen them online though as I wasn't aware of any filming when I went and I saw about half of the heats!

Good luck to all who enter - and in sorting out those contracts...

Jx