Oh for goodness sake…

Apparently the personal opinion of a low level comedian (me) about some aspect of something he doesn’t like and thought he would bring up on what is basically an online forum is seemingly a news story requiring the production company to have to make a statement in defence of my accusations.

I wrote a thing for Chortle to go in the Correspondents thing they do where you write about things you notice about comedy because I really want £75 (which you get if yours is the best one of the month) and I wrote a piece about how the broadcast version of The Pursuasionists was, in my opinion, not a fair representation of how good the episode had been when I saw it being filmed during the warm up and how like most BBC shows it was ruined and undermined in post due to fake laughter being added and the timing being disrupted by editing which threw off the pacing of the scenes as happens a lot in BBC sit coms.  The article was edited for content very slightly (irony alert!) to take the blame off the BBC but it is the BBC I blame.  This never happens with CH4 anywhere near as badly.

Also, I worry it may appear that in trying to be objective about things like Jokes working/not working I may appear to be slagging off the show, which it is not my intention to do.  I had an awesome time doing the warm ups, The cast and crew and production company were all awesome, friendly and really good.  And, I really think the show is funny, well, what I saw being recorded was genuinely very funny and that was the nub of my piece.

In case you doubt this then look at my status update from the day the show was broadcast:-

“Persasionists on BBC 2 tonight. Me and Stu did some of the Studio warm ups and most of what I saw was genuinely very funny. As long as the BBC don't ruin it in post with fake/extra laughter where it isn't required and they don't edit the comic pacing out of it like they normally do, I think it will be a good show and well worth a watch... That is my opinion on the matter...”

And as that is exactly what happened I wrote about it…

I should just point out that no one has taken any offence as such or moaned to me personally but I thought it best to offer this pre-emptive strike in explaining my actions as I am not some whistle blower trying to fuck shit up, I just thought I would share my opinion of comedy post production as I had experience of both the shoot and the broadcast.

What doesn’t come across is that I thought the show was funny for all it’s PP techniques that I don’t like and that needs to be redressed.

This is my article here:- http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2010/01/15/10343/how_the_bbcs_brutal_edits_are_ruining_comedy which I didn’t title How The BBC’s Brutal Edits are Ruining Comedy, I called it Fixed in Post

Here is the now news worthy article with defence from Bwark http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/01/15/10345/editing_ruined_bbcs_new_comedy

Oh well, you live and learn.  Best to keep my opinion to myself on Twitter and Facebook…

Currently feeling shitty now as I have obviously inadvertently offended people I like and respect when it wasn't warranted and for all my use of the term 'fake laughs' instead of 'enhanced volume laughs' which rightly was right to be clarified there is no reason at all to make my opinion newsworthy and make a big thing out of it.