French Sitcom
Thursday 18th November 2010
Screenwriter Guillaume Cremonese came all the way from Paris to London to attend our workshop in January, and he loved it so much he wanted us to go across the water to take the seminar to his French colleagues. So we jumped on Eurostar and spent a day with a group of very eager screenwriters, producers and educators at a workshop which had sold out two weeks beforehand.
They were eager, we found out, because they don't have sitcom in France. Apart from Friends. And we wanted to know why this comedy art form, so prevalent in the UK and US, is practically non-existent with our Gallic cousins. We were there to learn just as much as share our knowledge.
We looked at where sitcoms sit in the broadcasting schedule, and what function they provide. In the US, where there's no socially realistic soap opera like EastEnders and Corrie (it's all Bold and Beautiful people, who have One Life To Live and are Young and Restless), sitcoms can tackle serious and social issues in a comedic way and give a voice to those affected. In the UK, sitcoms can express the problems of modern living and the quirks of family and workplace life. In France, where they spend August on holiday, riot at the thought of the retirement age being raised above 40 and take a four-day holiday to celebrate Remembrance Day (we take two minutes, then it's back to work), there isn't the tradition of narrative-based comedy that explores how we work, rest and play.
What they do have, is hour-long, feel-good fantasy comedy-dramas, with happy endings. This explained a huge amount. Sitcoms rarely have happy endings, they're about maintaining the status quo, especially British ones which have a tradition of being class based. American sitcoms can indulge the American dream - Rachel got pretty much every job she applied for in Friends - but it just lead to a new job with new problems.
But France is on the edge of a breakthrough into creating their first half-hour sitcoms, and it's potentially a very exciting time. We're hoping to go back in the New Year and take the workshop to the French Writer's Guild, and, with luck, some interest that had been shown from the heads of comedy from one of the TV channels will bear some fruit. We're really looking forward to forging greater links across the sleeve.
One thing that did come across from the workshop was that old prejudices die hard. When set the challenge of coming up with inappropriate jobs for a character, one that was offered up was 'an English chef'. You mean we've suffered Jamie Oliver for nothing?
Here's some feedback from our Paris workshop:
"It was thrilling, really, to see how you know your topic, and how you can easily judge what's working from what's not."
"It was very lively and stimulating. You kept an open mind at all times and didn't deflect any question, no matter how bizarre."
"All the techniques and exercices were very useful and practical, I'll definitely use the 'hotseating' technique."
"We were immediatly involved in the process of creating a sitcom in a fun and simple way, with great tips (the hot sitting is a great exemple) and a 'method', a way to proceed we can reproduce by ourselves. We learned that we could be funny even if we didn't know it..."
"You did the course with simplicity. You made us comfortable enough so we can take the risk to be unfunny (and God, it struck me how a sad girl I am!). It was a warm atmosphere you created. Also it is a very good thing to actually write, and not just listen. That is the best way to learn and we can reproduce it at home until it works."