Sitcom (Com)Mission Page 72

Quote: Ponderer @ April 19 2010, 11:06 PM BST

I saw the 5pm show and Sitting Ducks didn't really fly (no pun intended) for me. It had flashes and lots of potential though. I understand you thought it better, but why do you say it is more commissionable?

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Stand and Deliver was the one I liked!

I did say 'non-industry expert' and I meant to say TV-commissionable.

BBC aversion to Media shows in their Comedy Commissioning Guidelines has been discussed on this Board. "... we're not actively looking for any new projects set in the media ..."
I believe Period is too expensive for Production Companies to consider.
Of course, the above strictures are more likely to apply to newbies than to Sullivans and Saunderss.

Last night, my favourite was Should Know Better.

Morning all

The day after the night before.

Four more sitcoms last night, and, although the quality was good, nothing really sparkled like last week. Maybe a bit of a case of after the Lord Mayor's parade.

Anyway, everybody gave 100% and we couldn't have asked for more.

The 5pm show's judges were slightly depleted, but we still had a quorum of Robin Parker from Broadcast, Catherine Oldfield from Monkey Kingdom TV and Gabriel Tate, TV Editor of Time Out.

As I don't actually have the votes on me, I can't tell you what they were. I can tell you who won, and I can tell you that we have decided, in the face of much public controversy and debate, to change the voting system. Hopefully it'll make it easier to understand.

So, a non-winning sitcom from the heats can go straight through to the Grand Final if it receives a big enough score. We believe that all 16 sitcoms are good enough to be represented in the Grand Final, and if we didn't we wouldn't have chosen them or invested money in putting them on. However, as it's still done on a cumulative basis, with the heat and semi-final scores being added together, the chance of something going straight through from the heats are pretty slim, but still possible.

Another thought I had was to have a third semi-final, with an audience winner from each heat going through, so that you have two semi-finals made up of judges' vote winners, and a third made up entirely of audience vote winners. This semi-final would then be purely done on an audience vote to see which one went through to the Grand Final. With my producer's hat on, this is the one I prefer as it pretty much guarantees to sell out!

But I'd really like to get away from the whole competitive side of the showcase anyway. Does competition in these circumstances make for better product? Does it encourage innovation? Or does it make for nervousness and fear, controversy and anger at a result that didn't go the way I wanted? Discuss.

Anyway, the audience vote in the 5pm show went to Gladiators and The End Of Fun. The audience vote in the 8pm show went to The End Of Fun and Should Know Better. The judges' decided to go with Gladiators and Should Know Better.

So, we'll see Gladiators and Should Know Better in the semi-finals.

Congrats to Steve Keyworth and Maggie Inchley and Natalie Johnson and Suzann McLean and their respective casts.

Commiserations to Adam Greenwood and Kamaal Hussein and Chris Wallace and Phil Hodgson and Andy Fox and their respective casts for their hard work, effort, spirit and energy. Special mention must go to Andy and the cast of Sons Of Diamond, who met for the first time last Thursday, and turned it around in three days. Outstanding work, guys.

Thanks also to our brilliant compere Jessica Fostekew and stage manager for the night Stuart Aird.

Improvisors The Scat Pack did their now legendary job of creating a musical film in 20 minutes, and brought the night to a satisfactory close.

Not a sell-out, and maybe without the buzz of expectation of last week, but still a good show nonetheless, and a fantastic effort from all concerned.

Next week's show is selling well, so make sure you buy in advance.

Cheers, Declan and Simon

Well done Ennie! Sorry I didn't make it but I guessed there might be another chance.

Quote: JohnnyD @ April 20 2010, 6:56 AM BST

Stand and Deliver was the one I liked!

I did say 'non-industry expert' and I meant to say TV-commissionable.

BBC aversion to Media shows in their Comedy Commissioning Guidelines has been discussed on this Board. "... we're not actively looking for any new projects set in the media ..."
I believe Period is too expensive for Production Companies to consider.
Of course, the above strictures are more likely to apply to newbies than to Sullivans and Saunderss.

Last night, my favourite was Should Know Better.

View original

Oops! Sorry for that. I guess I'd make a similar comment about that though.
I'd imagine Thunderer's only realistic chance is radio where period doesn't really cost any more. Although, to be fair that would generally be true for most new writers as TV is more expensive and so more risk averse.

Here's the audience vote from last night:

Gladiators 25
The End Of Fun 37
Should Know Better 35
Sons Of Diamond 21

Cheers, Declan

My internet has been down so I've missed all the furore caused by my describing our system as 'democratic'.

In view of the fact that only two people pick 16 scripts from 500 it's perfectly reasonable to argue that it isn't. I accept that.

In view of the fact that the views of 4 industry judges out of an audience of 80 count for so much you could argue that that also isn't democratic. I accept that, too.

What I obviously should have said is that it is as fair a system as we've been able to devise. So much fairer than letting the audience decide what goes through because the rent-a-vote system of packing the audience with mates is manifestly unfair on those writers who, for example, don't live in London.

Declan has already asked the forum for an alternative system, but I don't see a lot of suggestions up here. We genuinely want to make the voting system as fair as possible. If anybody can come up with a better one we'd really like to hear it.

Obviously Simon you need to have Amanda Holden on the panel every week and she should have the deciding vote.

Ah the voting, the voting. Who ever came up with the stupid idea of making sitcoms compete head to head then the audience voting for the winner? Madness.

Obviously when you've got a TV audience so big it can't be swayed, then you can just leave it up to the public vote. Or if winning isn't so big a deal, just for fun, which is how it used to be in the days when the Sitcom Trials didn't have the tournament element to it, then it matters a lot less who wins.

But since the Trials and the Mission became a competition with an increasingly attractive prize, the voting has been a headache. Though to be honest I thought Declan and Simon had cracked it by their spring 2009 Trials season, and I'm not sure why it needs changing.

James (Parker) followed Declan & Simon's example for his autumn 2009 Trials season and it worked. We had the added twist that, regardless of what the panel of judges decided, the audience winner would have its end performed. This meant that the audience always got a reward for their decision, even when the judges chose different winners. And that happened with us, on a couple of occasions, where the sitcom whose writer or cast had the most friends in the audience won by a big margin in the audience vote, but came 3rd or 4th in the panel's view.

To get round this, we had two elements that helped. One was the fact that we had 5 sitcoms in each heat, giving us 2 clear winners and 3 clear losers every time. This also meant that, with 5 sitcoms in each semi final, James had leeway to include two "wild card" semi finalists. These two were sitcoms that had been highest-scoring runners up. In both cases, I think, they had won the audience vote but come 3rd in the panellists eyes.

With 4 sitcoms per heat and semi, the Sitcom Mission has less elbow room to accommodate this solution, but it worked for the last season of the Trials and we would stick with it next time I think (if we do an autumn 2010 season, which is still in the balance, stay tuned).

Keep up the good work guys, you're still providing a vital service.

Kev F http://sitcomtrials.co.uk

why couldn't the decision rest solely on the judges and not have the audience vote?

If you were going with the audience vote, could ranking all the sitcoms on the night work? First gets four points, second three points etc.

That way there is a clear distinction of audience preferences for all four(/five) sitcoms, as even if 'your mate' is marked top, the other entries are at least marked in order?

Re: the showcase over competition. Of course, I am all for this, but not sure if some audience interest is lost by doing it this way. Having said that, Sitcom Saturday already do this and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm.

If you were going down this route, maybe running multiple episodes of certain sitcoms from week-to-week would provide some continuity to the process? ie episode 1 first week, then episodes 2, 3 and 4 on different nights? This would provide more focus on development (as you guys wanted this time around) and would be a better seller to the audience as if something gets a rave review one week, episode two would have a buzz attached to it.

Dan

Excellent suggestions guys, all of which mirrored our own thoughts from this morning.

We're no closer to a solution, but at least other people are having the same thoughts.

Yeah what Dan said. Mind you I said it a long time ago.

Just the two eps though so round one first ep, the remaining eight the second ep, the remaining four both eps in two show cases and the final two either the two eps together or the first two eps then a break and then the second ep or.... a full half hour ep for the final as a proper sitcom length,

Dan said a lot of things Marc, which things did you say?

Ah. I see.

We did want to have two eps showcased, which is one of the reasons we ask for a second ep, but it's a logistical nightmare to get them all rehearsed in the time. Once we get more rehearsal space, it might be a goer.