Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks
The Big Bang Theory | Photo Credit CBS
After years of producing iconic shows like Two and a Half Men, Mom, and The Big Bang Theory, Chuck Lorre is working to torment himself by completing changing up his sitcom routines. This means moving to Netflix for Disjointed and single-cam for Young Sheldon.
Disjointed went to Netflix after Chuck Lorre’s show about a marijuana distributor seemed too much for primetime. In the new series, Kathy Bates plays the stoned owner of the small facility for the streaming service.
For Young Sheldon, the producer decided to change up the live audience multi-cam like TBBT and move to a single cam, like Life in Pieces or Modern Family, but without the mockumentary talking heads.
Working With Jon Favreau
Disjointed | Photo Credit Netflix
“I spent 30 years working in front of an audience, so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” Lorre told IndieWire. “I was following [director] Jon Favreau around during the pilot shoot just asking questions. ‘What’s that lens? What’s the camera doing now?’ I got to watch [him] make a movie, which I’d never had a chance to do before.”
In addition to his help from Jon Favreau, he also brought on a new writer named David Javerbaum to pitch Disjointed to CBS. The show wasn’t right for the network so they rewrote it for Netflix.
Luckily for Chuck Lorre, Javerbaum didn’t know how to follow the rules of sitcom writing so everything he did was “astonishingly fresh.”
The Complications Of New Projects
Young Sheldon | Photo Credit CBS
For Disjointed, “Instead of 21 and a half minutes to tell your story, you have whatever you need. 28, 29, 31 minutes, it doesn’t matter,” Lorre said. “Obviously you have no censorship issues or broadcast standards. And you can have an ongoing story because the audience is watching 10 episodes.”
With Young Sheldon, the single-cam is even more complicated as shots have to be done multiple times for many angles. What might take five shots with multi-cam might take 20-40 shots with a single cam as the camera moves from different POVs.
“When the camera moves from one place to another, you start thinking about alternate lifestyles for yourself, and maybe I should pick up a hobby… I’m brand new, and still learning about this,” joked the producer.
Are you excited for Disjointed and Young Sheldon?
