Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going?
Friday 26th November 2010
Sometimes it's difficult to get your message out there, so it's great when other people want to do it for you.
We were delighted this week to be interviewed by Kirstie Swain for innovative web magazine IdeasTap. As well as spreading the word about what we do, it helps to refine and define in our own minds who we are and why and for whom we're doing this.
We've done a few interviews recently, for university dissertations and projects as well as a couple of online magazines, and they can act as a type of journal for us to look back on and see where we've come from, where we are now and, more importantly, where we're going.
Just as your central protagonist or family will have challenges, struggles, defeats and victories, so we've had our own fair share, and we're only in season two of The Sitcom Mission. But one thing to consider is this: is this episode in life completely self-contained or is it part of a larger, over-riding story arc?
Animated sitcoms like South Park and The Simpsons can freeze or even reject time and what happens in one episode is entirely unrelated to another. There's no cause and effect. Kenny dies in each episode of the first five series of South Park, and nobody bats an eyelid. Bart has been ten years old for 20 years.
In real life, it's difficult to live this way, although many people seem to achieve it.
At the other end of the spectrum, Friends adopted a soap-opera quality, almost reminiscent of Susan Harris's seventies hit Soap. In Friends, everything that happens has an effect on everyone. Each episode had an inciting incident ('My mother's coming to visit' 'But I slept with your mother'), a middle where funny things were said and happened, and these things were resolved at the end.
However, at the end of each episode, everyone was a little older and wiser and our two heroes, Ross and Rachel, had taken another step from loss of innocence (in their case, rejection of the family unit - Rachel rejects Barry at the altar and Ross's marriage breaks down) towards enlightenment (Ross and Rachel walk off into the sunset together).
When constructing a sitcom, it's worth thinking about where you want to be on this spectrum. Graham Linehan favours the cartoon end - nobody grows, nobody learns anything about themselves and they're constantly trapped with each other in their sad, desperate, empty lives. It's a pretty bleak, European outlook, which adds to the comedy. In Only Fools And Horses, Del Boy, the eternal optimist, and Rodney do become millionaires and are offered the chance and ability to escape. Where do you want your sitcom to sit? It will affect what happens in your first and subsequent episodes.
And what will happen next with The Sitcom Mission? Will you be a character in future episodes? Tune in next week...