fluffy sheep productions

I’m sure many of you have had that feeling when you startsomething new and you reassure yourself that it’ll all go ok, when really, inthe back of your mind, you know that there?s every chance this will all go to shit.There are just so many factors which hinge on this being a success that it willonly take one small fault for everything to just fall apart at the seams, crashand burn into a heap and leave you standing naked in a room of your peers whoare laughing at your inadequacy.

Oh, so I’m the only one who’s had that dream?  You know the whole “naked in front ofeveryone because you forgot to put on your clothes” dream? Right? Moving on,today was a remarkable step forward for FSP as it was the first time the castof our new sitcom were together in the one room. Everyone got to meet our gueststar, Maz, who I was afraid would be a little put-off by the amount of male testosteroneflying around the room, considering what us FSP boys are like.

Suffice to say, we all squeezed into the lounge room of whatI now call “Fluffy Sheep Headquarters” to have the first rehearsal of the pilotepisode for our sitcom. It’s amazing to think that we are so far into pre-productionfor this thing and we still don’t have a name for it. It’s like a couple havinga son and just referring to it as “boy” for the first few years of its lifebecause they haven’t been able to give it a creative name that’s short, easy toremember, and has a lot of cut-through, sizzle and traction. All the while thisyoung boy grows up as a character-less shell, becoming just one of the crowdbecause he has nothing to separate himself from his fellow toddler, except thefact that HE DOESN?T HAVE A NAME.

But I digress. It was fantastic for us to hear the scriptout loud for the first time, and hear how some of the jokes worked great and ironout the kinks in some of the less successful ones. Mind you, we didn’t get offto a very good start as today turned out to be a prime example of the lack oforganization in our group (me included).

Just yesterday I had printed myself four copies of thescript but didn’t notice until late last night that I had printed one of theearlier drafts of the script, rendering the 84 pages totally useless to me. Imanaged to print a couple of copies of the most updated script this morning,only to find out that only two other people had printed their own copy of thescript.

To give you an idea of what it was like, there were seven ofus packed into that small room. Only four of us had chairs, the others havingto opt for bean bags (and not very conventional ones either, who the hell makesa cube bean bag? A soccer ball bean bag is just as inefficient). If we weren’t readingthrough the script, we were discussing the finer points of comedy, like tryingto find a more poignant word for “tosser”, figuring it out whether Michaelshould say he wasn’t gay or admit he was just pretending and putting a new spinon an old classic comeback line.

Somehow we managed to get through the script twice in thespace of 2 hours, even with Carlos and Michael wrestling on the couch orchatting away totally ignoring what was happening in the room while Stewartsupplied sound effects by calling my phone at the most opportune moment and Mazsat quietly in her armchair, slightly distant from the cacophony in the smallroom.

Despite any pessimism that may be coming across from thisrecount of today’s events, we got a lot done and the sitcom shall be all thebetter for it. Were also currently looking at creating a little more contentfor you all to see in the very near future (like, next week) to keep you hookedon the Fluffy Sheep’s flavour.

Stay tuned for more updates on this project, we cant wait tomake it, and for you all to see it!

The revolution is coming,

Antonio