As a big fan of Saturday Night Live, I've always wished they'd show the process of how each episode is created, or how they decide which sketches would make the air and which get the ax. Thanks to James Franco, we finally will get a glimpse into the madness of a weeks work at SNL.
The documentary Saturday Night, which debuted at this years Tribeca Film Festival, started out as one of Franco's student projects for NYU's Tisch program - a seven-minute short about cast member Bill Hader.
There's always been an interest to film the making of an episode, Franco explained how there've been other attempts to capture the chaos, "Lorne told me that D.A. Pennebaker actually asked once to do a documentary, back in the '70s, and he said no. So I was very fortunate he said yes."
No longer a student project, it turned into a full-length film that captures a full week of SNL madness for a December 6th 2008 episode: Monday's pitch meeting, Tuesday's writing sessions, Wednesday's table read, Thursday's rewrites by committee, Friday's rehearsals and Saturday's dress rehearsal. It's a harrowing process that cast members and writers have learned to navigate via trial and error. "If you give away your joke at the pitch, it's not going to get the response at the table read," Will Forte says. "It's all about the table read."
Franco wanted to show how certain sketches get selected and there's one bit where Seth Meyers lobbies Lorn Michaels outside of the usual meetings to get a skit aired.
Some cast members were a little leery to be filmed backstage like Kenan Thompson and Kristen Wiig but Franco explains it's defentitly an authentic week, "That's the energy of a real week," he says. "These are people that put up a show in one week, and every week, they're coming up with jokes. Who else is doing that? I mean, with this consistency. Of course some casts are better than others, some weeks are better than others, but it's a pretty well run machine, and it seems to me that it's a kind of meritocracy - you come up with funny stuff, and it'll get on the air. So who am I to say how to improve the process"
Franco is shopping it around and hopes to get a theatrical release in the upcoming year.
[Photos via]
Get the RSS Feed
