Behind the Scenes Notes #4

While titled 'Bigger Night,' this episode is the pilot episode of Three Abreast and as such is still referred to as 'The Pilot'. It was the first episode scripted, filmed and edited - and served as the testing ground for Three Abreast (which at that point was just called, 'The Sitcom'). I'm very fond of the episode, as there's a little excitement around the edges of it, as it was the very first one we did.

Upon conceiving of Three Abreast as a seven episode entity, I had the idea of doing one episode as a means of figuring out how to do the rest. I'd always intended the Pilot to be buried in the sequence of episodes - thus 'The Prize-Winning Tomato' reference in the very first scene. The story line is straight forward and most of the episode takes place in the kitchen/dining room. It was a thrill to do the tiny 'location' shooting at City Feed and Supply - a snappy shoot that took 20 minutes in total! Gaspalsa actually does exist - Sarah made it quite often in the summer of 2000. It was after one particularly soupy batch that I coined the term.

The production values vary as I began to learn more about lighting and sound, but the story format kind of served as a template for future episodes. In fact, 'The Prize-Winning Tomato' was filmed directly after this and people who saw the early versions of these episodes often confuse the two (tomato/gaspalsa).

The prime difference between this episode and the subsequent episodes is the practice of me addressing the camera/audience directly with wry commentary ("Now that's a spit-take!"). I decided that with the 'Comedy Extender,' my voice and commentary would be plenty present. Also, this means of addressing the audience had become over-used in the sitcom genre through such shows as 'Malcolm in the Middle'.

Another factor is the ever changing beard factor that Brian and I grapple with. I don't know why I had a beard when we filmed this - I think I just did.

This episode is blessed with the fine performance of Donald Burgy - who had been my professor at MassArt in the Spring of 2000 (and who joined us in London for a madcap field trip). I like to refer to the casting coup of getting Burgy as being akin to George Lucas getting Alec Guiness for Star Wars.

We did all the scenes with Burgy on one Friday night - with the rest scattered around September and October 2000. The very first scene of the episode was the first thing we ever recorded - I had a small microphone that I had borrowed that I soon had to replace with another more powerful microphone. I don't know why I adopted such a bizarre 17th century theatre style acting style for this first scene...

There are lots of little lines of dialogue that have been re-edited and reseen so often, that they've worked their way into the vernacular of those around us: "What time?", "Spice is Nice!," and my favorite, "Oh, I'm just Sarah's boss!".

While most of the laugh track is from stock sound effects CDs, I did screen this episode to a group to try to record a real laugh track. There were problems with audio bleed, so I basically could only use small bits when there was no sound in the episode. I have (and have always) used some of this raucous laughter and thus in this episode I give thanks to the "Larry Kim Laughing Troup," as Larry's laugh is the most prominent.

Oh - and lest I forget - the title is a direct reference to the Stanley Tucci film, 'Big Night' (which I should probably see some day!).

/ravi jain - april 2002