how the pandemic inspired Episode One

Episode One was a series of different sitcom inspired episodes I wrote featuring my family that I wrote during the pandemic. This first episode was mockumentary Modern Family/The Office inspired. The second was Arrested Development inspired and the third was Brooklyn 99 inspired. I never ended up making the others, but they were an excellent writing exercise.

Because the pandemic forced me to be unable to make films with my friends and classmates, I opted to make something internally with the people I was seeing every day. I was also seeing a lot of discouraging, isolating content come out of quarantine, so I wanted to make something more lighthearted.

It was easy to write my family into more exaggerated tropes of themselves, but difficult to get the performances as none of us are trained actors. Still, the experience was extremely memorable and we were able to produce the entire thing in just a couple of days.

Maybe one day I’ll make Episode 2, 3, and so on.