W.L.I.A.S. | CREATION
● ● ● ●
Production
The goal was to make the show quickly and cheaply. The less professional the aesthetic, the better. We filmed and recorded sound on our phones, used only natural lighting, and left any set design up to the shed’s natural state.
Producer and friend, Eoin, was the mastermind behind everything technical, filming every shot and editing it all together. Eoin’s previous job was on Antoine Fuqua and Mark Wahlberg’s 2020 film Infinite, so this was quite a big step up for him.
Title Sequence
We needed a cliche opening sequence for the show. Something that screamed “Warning, stiff studio laughter up ahead.” The answer came in the form of carrying a full-sized couch across Dun Laoghaire town and down onto its East Pier.
If you watch a handful of sitcom openings, you’ll notice two distinct tropes are always hit. Firstly, they establish a setting you never see again in the show, something public and “real” that heavily contrasts against the look of the fake studio sets soon to follow. And secondly, they introduce the main characters in small clips, having them do actions that make no logical human sense in any way shape or form.
Hence, the couch on the pier.
Eoin
Producer, Camera Operator, Editor.
● ● ● ●
Theme Music
Every sitcom needs a catchy title sequence, a tune that will slowly drill itself into the soft tissue of your brain until you ardently resent it. Musician and friend, Matthew, understood this brief and composed the perfect Seinfeldian baseline to bookend the show.
Having a theme song to this joke was the first tangible piece of the puzzle, even before any filming had begun. This really propelled us forward. We understood the joke in more detail now. It wasn’t the lines or the goofy baseline that we found so funny, but rather, the absurd effort behind bringing this ridiculous concept to life.
Network Pitch
The first time we pitched the show, it wasn’t for funding, it was for freedom. It turns out that there’s something quite off-putting about five twenty-year-old men dancing around a seemingly stolen couch at ten o’clock at night. And so when the police arrived, we had to explain the concept in a concise and convincing way — or at least in a way that made a shred of sense.
In retrospect, this was a perfect test of the idea’s strength, and I’d recommend this process to others who are embarking on a new creative project. There’s nothing quite like the threat of jail to really help you refine your idea down to its core.
Matthew
Composer and Music Supervisor.
● ● ● ●
Sponsorship
Around our third episode, we received three free mini kegs from Sullivan’s Brewing Company, the brand of beer showcased on the show and, in fact, the same brand we had been drinking when the idea first struck. We stored these kind gestures of support in the shed’s attic for a use that would later reveal itself.
● ● ● ●
Writing and Script
The writing process played a key roll in taking this joke seriously. We wanted to treat it like a true sitcom as much as possible. We wrote our ideas and jokes separately before bringing them together in a writer’s room type scenario. The room in question of course being a dusty old kerosine-smelling shed. Here, we enacted table reads over a rusting wheel barrow, where lines would be changed, new concepts pitched, and blocking options proposed.
This process would typically happen two hours before we filmed — So just about enough time to learn the lines and supply the script to any guest stars on that week’s episode.
The goal with the writing was always to capture the essence of a sitcom. Ridiculously illogical and over the top stupidness was our North star.
“THAT’S COOL, MAN. MY COUSIN IS UNISEX.”
With each episode only being a few minutes long, the challenge was to make every interaction between characters a kind of sitcomy joke. This was tougher than we initially imagined, especially when you add in the construction of some vague form of plot. We knew that if we wanted to push this joke to its absolute limit each episode needed to have its own mini arc from which the jokes could spring.
But how do you make jokes that also provide narrative information? The answer turned out to be simple: Consume endless hours of sitcoms until you start to dream in one liners and laugh tracks.
● ● ● ●
The Pilot Script
Tap script to absorb
“IT’S PORN, HUGH. THEY ALL TEND TO FOLLOW THE SAME STORY LINE.”
● ● ● ●
Cold Opens and Guest Stars
One original element of the idea when it first struck was to cast our non-actor friends as guest stars, like when an A-list celebrity will suddenly appear in a quick cameo and the whole studio audience goes fucking nuts. We thought it would be funny to take that concept and make it personal, like a tv show made only for a specific group of friends.
Our first guest star was our friend, Bonnie. We designed her part as an entry into a wider season arc by calling her Stacey, the same name Curtis mentions in the pilot episode. With this, the We Live in a Shed universe was extending beyond just us, the joke becoming even more absurd.
We used the sitcom’s cold open format to showcase these guest stars. This was just logistically easier, getting them in and out before they could question why they agreed to do this.
Bonnie
Played the role of Stacey.
● ● ● ●
Episodes
With every episode, we tried hard to drill down to the most cliched of plots. These included such classics as; one character has a date and needs some advice, one character gets seriously injured and denies it, all the characters fight over some form of object or opportunity, the parallel universe episode, where a retrospective What IF plot is explored, and of course, the good ol’ flashback episode, where the audience is given a glimpse into life before the pilot episode, an origin story of sorts.
Guest Stars
Isabel
Played the role of Parallel Universe Hugh.
Julia
Played the role of Parallel Universe Curtis.
Ellie
Played the role of Parallel Universe James.
Annie
Played the role of Parallel Universe Greg.
Charlie
Played the role of Confused Hostage.
● ● ● ●
The Live Show
The final trope to tackle, and perhaps the most important, was to be able to truthfully claim that We Live in a Shed is filmed in front of a live studio audience. The solution was immediately clear, we would perform the final episode live, as a play, in front of thirty or so of our friends, the people for which we had originally created the show. And so we did.
“AH YES, DEMOCRACY, WHERE SOMEONE ALWAYS LOSES.”
At the time, we were living together, and so a lot of ideas on how to end this Summer-long joke were constantly being thrown around. But once the live show concept was proposed, it became blindingly clear that this was the only worthy punchline.
I spent a few nights writing the script and went through a lot of drafts, trying hard to incorporate every idea I could into some form of narrative. There were a few versions where it got very emotional, where the guys would part ways, or things would all be tied up in a neat goodbye, but none of these ever seemed right.
What felt right was to end the show in the same way it had began, making very little to absolutely no sense.
That said, a final quick change into suits always carried a hopeful note for me, a symbol that maybe these characters were taking their first true steps toward adulthood, toward the independent life they all so desired.
“A FRONTMAN OR A WOMAN?”
I scripted the live episode to involve audience interaction, specifically with our past guest stars. We also included musical numbers, setting up a stage-like space in the corner of the shed where Matthew could play the opening theme song live as our curtain (the automatic shed door) was lifted.
This was truly the original idea in its fullest form, the purest version of the dream we’d all had for the joke at the very beginning.
The first night vs. the final show
For the live show, we thought it would be a good idea to construct a playbill into which we could put a massive thanks to all those who helped out with the joke along the way. These playbills were handed out to each audience member as they entered the lane and took their seats.
● ● ● ●
Roll Credits
And so it ended just as it began. The shed door came down, and as our live studio audience left down the laneway, the four of us sat around on the garden furniture to drink a mini keg’s worth of Sullivan’s beer. I recall feeling young and old at the same time, like I was coming out of some multiple month-long fugue state. In a very pretentious way, I remember thinking, This is how Neil Armstrong must’ve felt after he planted that flag on the moon. Proud. Looking around at his friends, all dressed in ridiculous outfits, all hammered (ok, maybe not), and then glancing back down towards Earth, knowing that the next challenge they faced was returning home, back to some form of normal life. And I wondered if, in that moment, Neil thought about just staying up there, forever. I know I did.