Bonny & Clyde Production Journal

In the last week we’ve been filling out more of the episode narratives, but going has slowed due to not having cast the major roles yet. Unlike traditional casting to fit a role, we’re picking a cast which works together best, and slightly adapting the characters to suit their improvisation strengths, which we already know pretty well from performing with them for several years.

We’ve been planning the audition process, which has been delayed due to other show rehearsals and work commitments, but we’re assuming at this point the end of June to audition and select the main cast.

The audition will include improvising several of the key scenes in the series, but with alternative narratives so the actors don’t really know what the series is about. This will hopefully keep it fresh when improvised in front of the camera. I know some improvised projects have jammed characters and story lines, and then taken those to the shoot, but we want it to be created spontaneously when the camera is rolling, so once we have the cast, we’ll jam the characters and relationships, but only introduce the scene narratives on the day of the shoot. This is what these guys do best, improvise from nothing, with no going back.

Went down to Henley again and worked through the start of episode 3, as well as more detail on a couple of the major characters. In fact the casting now seems to be settling itself a bit, due to the nature of the narrative, making the upcoming audition probably only for a few remaining roles.

Still thinking through how much to pre-storyboard and block each scene. Most likely the first few days of shooting will need to be fairly preplanned, but I’m hoping latter days will be mostly improvised, as our stage experienced actors tend to adapt quickly to what works and what doesn’t.

This will also come out to some degree in the rehearsals before any of the real shooting, because we’ll be shooting while rehearsing. One of the roles is in fact one of the actual cameramen, which strangely enough blurs the line between cast and crew, and who the actors really are. I’m not suggesting this is a normal part of improvised filmmaking, it is just an additional complexity due to the characters and story arc we’ve chosen for this series.

Today I set up a custom web on my private installation of TWiki, which should ease the production process. No more swapping flash drives and emailing changes. The script and all the production materials are available to the crew if they have an Internet connection and a web browser.

Lou and I went down to Henley again tonight, and worked through episode 2 in more detail. We now have the full episode 2 scene breakdown.

The way filming will probably work, is to go into each episode with a scene list and the characternuity journal, a summary of the character history so far, and improvise each scene twice, with two cameras shooting at once. This gives us two angles to edit from, with a primary version of the scene and a backup version, giving a total of four shots per scene.

In a previous improvised film Lou and I made, the backup shots were required in case there were continuity or characternuity problems unnoticed in the primaries during the shoot, or in case a slight change in direction was required after considering the rest of the footage in post. With the two cameras, which will be a change for us, this should allow us more choices for angle and the ability to do cutaways without having to stage them later, which will also reduce continuity errors.

Episodes 2, 3, 10 and 11 are the sketchiest at this point. Episode 2 triggers the main story arc, and 3 is the first episode where the lead characters try to deal with the situation. The episode’s outcome is done, but the actual build up to it is not.

So tonight I went down to Henley, and sat on the shoreline of Sydney’s inner harbour, to think things through. There next to me, overlooking the water was this fabulous house, which just begged to be used for a location, and just thinking through an improvised scene gave me a possible option for the start of episode 2 and 3. So I videoed the story outline, and sent it to Lou to think through.

A character in a space is a rich starting point for an improviser, and by imagining a scene in the space, story just seems to come naturally, especially comedic situations which we typically build on stage.

With the series story arc complete, and most of the episodes sketched out to some degree, we need to cast the major roles in order to finalise the episode narratives.

There are 4 major roles, 4 minor roles, and about 6 extras at this point.

Directing a weekly Theatresports and long form show, with a pool of about 30 rotating players, makes the casting easier, with 7 players being obvious choices for the 4 major roles. Last week we sent out a casting email, inviting the 7 to audition for 3 of the major roles. The fourth is already cast (me), as are two of the minor roles.

One need only look to the success of “Whose line is it anyway?”, “Thank God You’re Here” and the number of people taking courses, to realise that improvisation is becoming more and more popular, and in some ways looks to become, particularly in business, a core people skill. What was once the domain of out of work actors performing competitive training games, has become a way for lay people (lawyers, I.T. geeks, call centre operators etc.) to discover their innner performer and develop both story telling and comedy skills.

With this increase in competency, comes the opportunity to create complex, entertaining and thought provoking narratives, without having to rely on the traditional writer/actor/director triad. In combination with recent developments in the citizen media space, we now have the opportunity to develop high quality amateur films on a limited budget and in a short space of time. One need only consider Chasing Windmills and even machinima like Red vd Blue, to understand how ideally placed we are to make a move from backyard videoblogger, to professional cinematographer.

I began this project in October 2005, as an attempt to bypass that traditional process, to create a televisual series by developing a high level story arc with short episode summaries, and have the actors improvise each scene and each episode. The production is shot sequencially, with continuity, and what I’m calling characternuity, monitored and reincorporated as the story progresses.

On the technical side, the use of small domestic video cameras with not so perfect lighting setups, is now generally considered watchable, as is the audio quality from most built in camera microphones.

So this is the production journal for an improvised video comedy series.