Quick Links
Shooting a scripted series in front of a live studio audience can bring a very unique set of problems to a production.
Most of these would have to do with how the audience interacts with or reacts to the material being performed. For example, they could cheer a little too much when a favorite character enters a scene.
On the other hand, writers of such shows have benefited in the past by leveraging the reactions of the live audience to gauge how people watching from home are likely to respond to their material.
Most sitcoms - past and present - are usually shot in front of a live studio audience. NBC's classic series Friends falls into this category as well. So successful were the producers in executing the format of the show, that it lasted a decade on television.
This would be a fantastic achievement for any TV show anyway, although it perhaps also contributed to a number of the cast members saying that they have forgotten shooting some scenes in the series.
Courteney Cox - who played the de facto leader of the titular group of friends, Monica Geller - revealed recently that the writers would indeed change some elements of the show depending on how the live audience reacted.
Who Were The Main Writers On 'Friends'?
In most cases, there are usually very many writers who contribute the conceptualizing and scripting of various episodes of a TV show. This is especially so in the case of a series that lasted as long as Friends did on air.
For most TV shows, each episode will have a different writer, and the same applies to directors. Friends was the brainchild of producers David Crane (who is also known for creating the sitcom Episodes for Showtime and BBC Two), and Marta Kauffman.
Kauffman is also the brains behind Netflix's groundbreaking comedy series Grace and Frankie, whose final season is set to become available to stream on the online platform this weekend.
Krane and Kauffman wrote a lot of the episodes of the show in the early seasons, and they predictably joined forces to pen The Last One, the two-episode finale of Friends in 2004. Other frequent writers on the show included Jeffrey Astrof, Mike Sikowitz, and Alexa Junge.
Courteney Cox Had High Praise For The Writers Of 'Friends'
Courteney Cox was talking to YouTube star Sean Evans in an episode of his Hot Ones show in March this year when she addressed the question of jokes being rewritten on Friends.
"How would you quantify the impact of shooting in front of a live studio audience?" Evans posed. "You know, I saw the interview with executive producer Kevin Bright, where he talked about how writers... like if a joke didn't hit in the live studio audience, writers would workshop and rewrite the joke in real time."
Cox responded in the affirmative, and then went on to sing the praises of the writers' team on the show. "Yeah. These writers were so incredible that when we were taping the show, the reason why Friday nights would take so [long was] there would be no high voice, 'Oh, it was good, or it's okay.' It had to be the best," she explained.
In a separate interview, Kevin Bright himself confirmed that they would usually shoot the same material in front of different audiences to sample reactions from a wide demographic of people.
How Did The Cast Of 'Friends' Feel About Shooting In Front Of A Live Studio Audience?
"We had this whole approach to [taping Friends], Kevin Bright told Saratoga Living magazine in 2020. "We would shoot it three times, nonstop, in front of three different audiences, and that way, the most possible people could see the show."
It was an approach that really helped the writing, but not everyone in the cast enjoyed it. Matthew Perry played Chandler Bing in the series, and he particularly felt that having a live audience added to the pressure of performing his scenes.
"To me, I felt like I was going to die if [the audience] didn’t laugh," Perry said during the Friends reunion special episode that was filmed and aired last year.
"It’s not healthy for sure, but I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh," he continued. "I would sweat and just go into convulsions if I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get. I would freak out."
This came as a bit of a surprise to the rest of the cast, as Perry had never disclosed his fears to them while they were filming.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTErZ%2Bippeoe6S7zGibopxdqbWmedaroK2doqh6sLqMn6minZ6ZwG6%2BxLCpoqyVYsGpsYyjpqSdo2K2p3nToZxmmaWZtqa6wp5knaGUo8FuuMCunqFn