Quote: Mikey Jackson @ July 17 2009, 5:46 PM BSTJan Jung told me that TV networks were thinking about rejuvinating the taxi genre, then decided against it.
Has he had much on?
Settings to avoid Page 3
I don't think so, as yet.
He's just fed titbits of info, I assume, from TV people he knows and/or has meetings with.
He liked my taxi sitcom, but just like Tim with his hotel sitcom, it's hit a barrier.
It's been advised on this board time and time again that anything in a TV production setting should be avoided at any cost, as TV doesn't want it.
Yet I see Shane Ritchie is appearing as a TV producer in Whatever It Takes on ITV next week; a new drama series about people who get "famous without talent." (a la BB contestants)
Why do people seem to always focus on picking a setting?
Aren't people coming up with characters first? Ones who just live and exist - like Friends - rather than needed a hook to hang it on - like Black Books?
Would a really angry Budhist monk running a spiritual retreat work?
Quote: Seefacts @ July 21 2009, 10:53 PM BSTWhy do people seem to always focus on picking a setting?
It's because it's called a situation comedy. That what confines us defines us.
Hmm now that maybe one I'll actually write.
You want me to help you find inner peace? Well I'll put my fist down your throat and my foot up your arse and see where they meet in the middle.
Quote: Seefacts @ July 21 2009, 10:53 PM BSTWhy do people seem to always focus on picking a setting?
Aren't people coming up with characters first? Ones who just live and exist - like Friends - rather than needed a hook to hang it on - like Black Books?
I recently watched some first season friends, and it reminded me why at the time I had thought I was watching a bunch of interchangeable cardboard cutouts. It got better, but that probably had a lot to do with the characters ceasing to exist in a vacuum.
Bernard Black was a character who was recognisable and credible in the context of a second hand bookshop, hence the setting.
Settings to avoid? Anything that's been a big flop, no matter how different your spin on it seems; and anything that's been a great success. People want things that are "just like [success]" but "totally different from [success]". Easy.
Micheal Barrymoore's pool parties.
Avoid my arse. Only I can write about my arse. See, I'm doing it noooow.
Quote: Seefacts @ July 21 2009, 10:53 PM BSTWhy do people seem to always focus on picking a setting?
I've only done that once, quite recently in fact, and it made it really difficult to write the bloody thing at first, because obviously you don't have a sitcom, you just have where it's set.
Quote: Matthew Stott @ July 22 2009, 9:08 AM BSTI've only done that once, quite recently in fact, and it made it really difficult to write the bloody thing at first, because obviously you don't have a sitcom, you just have where it's set.
I tend to mix it up a bit and try to write one that's a sitcom and one that's a char-com. Yes, you heard, 'char-com'. That IS a word.
It's fun to be able to write lots of jokes about a particular place.
Has there ever been a sitcom set in a slaughterhouse? I imagine a wealth of opportunity for comedy there. I think I'm going to write it in fact. I'm going to call it Slaughterhouse, and have the letter 's' drop from the title at the beginning of each episode in a brutally funny statement of intent. I see a sitcom on the telly set in an abattoir one of you f**kers is in for it!
Quote: David Bussell @ July 22 2009, 10:00 AM BSTHas there ever been a sitcom set in a slaughterhouse?
There's a scene in the film Maitresse where you see horses being killed in a French slaughterhouse. It's quite disteressing, even if they are French horses.