This is my first time. Bacon and Herring Page 2

Like the Vichy French i'm always willing to collaborate.

Nice sketch! Great ideas. As user generated websites like this one are effectively acting as a form of radio or television, how about giving this new spin off site a name (the kind of name given to sketch shows) and let interested /worthy writers use it as many have used Radio 4?
I'd be very interested!

Very exciting. Now, what next. Any volunteers?

Quote: Tom Pk @ January 29, 2007, 7:30 PM

Maybe we could have a number of submission dates and say at the end of each fortnight there is a massive poll to decide the top 3 sketches which go in, then we do the same again for another batch. Just ideas.

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To me, as I am assuming this is not a satirical show, several fortnights would be too long. I reckon we should have a deadline and look for, say, up 50 sketches and songs. A vote is then taken and after it's decided how many are going to be used, we video them.

Sounds like a good idea Mr B. So you are now thinking along the lines of actually trying to produce filmed sketches as opposed to just a website containing scripts? One problem that might arise there is that people who want to be involved could well be spread all over the country.

Ok yeah good idea (by the way Baumski you can ignore your pm I didn't see the rest of these posts). But again, I think the videos should just be samples for sending to producers if they request them. I'm still not sure about trying to actually fully produce a sketch show. In my opinion it would be a much better to compile scripts to send to producers as a comedy writing company.

But that's my opinion, obviously if the majority of people just want to write sketches to film themsleves and put on Youtube that's fine.

EDIT: And yeah that's another good point raised by Matthew. I think keeping it to scripts is the best way personally.

Just seems the more professional way to go about things as well,I'm sure that's how writers in the trade would go about it.

EDIT AGAIN: And I think we need a sticky thread for this, it would be more organised maybe.

I generally go along with the general gist of things. I guess we're all kind of hungry for success so in theory, at least, this should be one hell of an adventure. I think what's called for now is for those with experience in these matters to come forward. As for me, well, I guess like a lot of the writers in the BSG, I know a little something about writing but bugger all about filming so I can start posting to the designated thread just as soon as it's up and running.

Yeah I think what's best is just to get a thread up and then fill it with scripts for sketches. I'm a real fan of the mass vote off I think that will be the best way to sort stuff in the future, but we could do with a proper website with voting facility. We need one of the guys to get down here.

I`d like to be involed if you`ll have me!I think we could turn out some funny,quality stuff from from what I`ve seen.

Steve

I think it's a great idea Baumski and I'm sure it has legs. I'd be interested in getting involved

B

Sorry I'm late to this thread - been a bit busy with the boring day job (booo!).

I like the idea of this - wouldn't it be cool to see a decent clip show on TV that makes everyone laugh and launches a few new writing careers as a result of this very thread! It's not entirely 100% un-feasible if everyone works on it together.

Looking in the critique forum there's certainly some material in there up to the standards that would be required of a broadcast TV sketch show. This Bacon and Herring is certainly one example - trouble is it stands at about 15 seconds long so there's still a lot of other material to source!

Before worrying about filming it all for a pilot (there may be some cheapish options available to us when it comes to that) I think it is a case of getting enough really, really good and unique sketches together to make up a full programme length.

I think that whatever happens from this point forward three golden rules will need to be adhered to if this project has any chance of being anything:

1. absolutely no padding of sketches
2. only really funny stuff is selected
3. all sketches must be unique – comparisons, however slight, with existing sketches should be dodged

Making sure the humour in the pilot is unique, zippy and has a very high hit to miss ratio is the only way that this project stands a chance of getting off the ground.

I'm not quite sure what the best way to approach the collection and selection of sketches is - after all judging and voting normally gets a bit controversial and the last thing anyone wants is arguments and nit picking over why one sketch was picked over another. I'm sure we can come up with something though?

I'm happy to lend the BSG's support wherever possible. The only problem is that, contrary to appearances, it is just a couple of us running this site and I'm particularly tied up with my day (and currently night) job till mid-February. After that though I'm sure we can come up with a voting mechanism, submission mailbox, a project website or whatever would be required and help arrange some filming then get the publicity machine whirring before steaming in and plonking it on commissioning editor's laps.

(At some point I'm really going to have to look into renaming this website so we can 'officially' cover sketch shows etc without confusing people)

Cheers Mark that would be great. I for one don't mind waiting til mid Feb, we can all be putting sketches together until then anyway.

Definately agree about your criteria for sketches. And I think we should be pretty brutal but understanding about what goes in, as you say we need to go for different and clever, not just puns and 'groan laughs'.

I know what you mean about the hazards of a voting system but if decisions were made by the masses (as it were)and we all just agree not to take any rejections personally it should be ok. I think maybe the voting system could just be a case of 'if the numbers say it's in it's, if not then it's out'. Depending on how many people are actually a part of this discussion of sketches may not actually be that productive (if there are a lot of people). And if we have a general adjudicator when needed, things wouldn't get out of hand.

Is it possible to get a sticky thread for this project with perhaps a summary of what has been said so far, try to get as many people as possible aware of this?

Cheers

youll be surprised by what you can do on a small budget, if youve got a decent camera and know how to film and a pc that can run the edit software etc then you can get some good results on a small budget.

Yeah that's a point. If we get enough of us together we should be able to gather some farily decent resources. I for one have done editing before and have the resources to do that.

We could do with a few budding actors.

First things first though, getting scripts together.

Top notch idea fellas. Was on the verge of suggesting something similar myself but blah blah blah.

I assume it will be open to anyone from the BSG crew, an open submissions type scenario. How would the voting work then? Only the people who have put submissions can vote for say 3 (obviously they can't vote for their own material) And then maybe if we have a certain percentage in agreement the sketch is iin? Just an idea, sorry f I'm repeating.

Also, i'm sure you'll all agree, it'll be important to have a demogarphic(ish)to aim for, and whether it's going to be post/pre watershed. If it's gonna be aimed for 8 oclock, theres little point in people submitting dogging jokes week in week out.

How about as well having different criteria to write about each week, practice writing to a brief (and deadline) i.e. drug related sketches (just using the Bacon and Herring example). We could keep them simple, and not too strict and see where it takes people.

Why not call it Bacon and Herring for now?

i like the sketch, it isn't to long but it still creates a good visual image, well done