Video: How to Make a Great Sitcom

A conversation with the showrunners of Abbot Elementary.

Here’s another in the excellent ongoing Behind the Curtain video series hosted by Nehemiah Jordan.

Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker are the showrunners of the Emmy-winning ABC series Abbott Elementary. In this video, they break down the essentials on how to go about creating a TV sitcom.

Chapters: 
00:00 Preface 
00:51 What’s the point? 
02:06 Do characters matter? 
04:40 Who’s the bad guy? 
07:16 What’s REALLY funny 
09:33 How to make a Pilot Episode 
13:14 This stumped them

It’s not surprising, but gratifying to me that every single one of the talking points is about characters. For example, when reflecting on the question Who’s the bad guy, Halpern makes this observation:

The most interesting villains to me are the ones who have a point. You may not like the way they go about it and it may be the wrong way to go about it, but the thing that they’re saying is making our main character, our protagonist really uncomfortable. I think that is when the most interesting stories are told is when our protagonist is put into an incredibly uncomfortable situation that makes them have to like dig deep find a way to overcome their own problems.

This recalls my article: The Nemesis as the Protagonist’s ‘Shadow’.

Here is a trailer for Abbott Elementary:

For more Behind the Curtain videos, go here.

For 100s of more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.