The Cutting Room Floor: Episode 3 from The Cutting Room Floor on Vimeo.
The Cutting Room Floor. was a cable access sketch comedy show that was
produced in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Four episodes were created and aired
on BTV Local Cable Channel 8 between 1989 to 1993. The show was the
brainchild of Bob Caron, who was an intern and later an employee at BTV-8.
Bob and his childhood friend David Almeida had made super-8mm films when
they were kids; doing a TV show seemed a natural progression. The episodes
were produced with no real deadlines or set air-dates, it was mostly a
spare-time project that they did during their college summer vacations
and/or weekends. .The Cutting Room Floor. was not a low budget production;
it was a NO budget production. Sets and costuming weren.t always available
or emphasized. and sometimes it shows. But Bob and David still have a lot of
affection for these shows, and still laugh when they watch them. They hope
you will too, in spite of the uneven conversion-dub, shoddy production
values, and dated references. (Thanks to Bob for his GeorgeLucasesque
Restoration Project on these!)
Episode 3, "Changed At The Last Minute", actually won a local .Cablevision
Award. for Best Comedy Program. It was the only episode on which Bob and
David collaborated with actor/writer Christian Roman. David met Christian at
a youth summer theatre camp, and Christian approached David about working on
the show. When all three met, Bob and David loved his writing, and felt they
had found a perfect match for the show. Unfortunately, scheduling prevented
them from being able to work together again before they stopped doing the
show when David relocated to Florida. They feel this was the stronger of
their 2 sketch-format shows (Episode 2 and Episode 3) because the material
was better, thanks to Christian.
Trivia:
· The opening montage is edited from Super 8mm footage taken mostly
during the filming of Episode 2.
· The Cutting Room Floor Theme Song was written by Chip Neault/Cheap
Shot Music, based out of California. Chip.s brother Dave worked with Bob at
BTV8.
· Bob Caron.s Hitchcockian cameo in this episode is in the role of the
conductor for the choir sketch.
· The show was shot over 3 days in the later summer of 1991. The
production schedule was so ridiculously short because David had to leave
town for his last year of college. Bob and Christian ended up editing the
shows with Christian doing all the the voice overs in post-production. David
was mailed a VHS dub, and he sent back notes for minor changes and
improvements.
· Locations included BTV.s studio in Bridgewater, Christian.s parents.
house in Pembroke, David.s parents. house in Brockton, and David.s father.s
office in Brockton. At one point they split into two units, shooting
"Clarabell Clinic" and "Michael O.Sullivan" in one location while David,
Christian, and Synneve were simultaneously taping "Indifference Society"
elsewhere.
· Actors Catherine, Synneve, Steven, Seth, and Karl were friends of
Christian.s from school. Alex and Bob Garrard were friends of Bob.s through
the Cable studio.
· Christian had taken a sketch-writing class in college and much of
that material was performed in this episode. "McSorely Today" was originally
written with another character as a host. Bob and David thought it would be
fun to reprise a talk-show character David had done in Episode 2 called Todd
McSorely. (This sketch was later replaced with "Sleeping Through The
Movies".) "The Indifference Society" and "Clarabell Clinic" were also
sketches Christian had already written.
· Bob and David had been wanting to do a filmstrip/slide-tape sketch
for some time, but could never find a subject. Christian had already written
the "Your Money And You" sketch, intending it to be live-action, and all
three immediately knew it was a perfect idea for a filmstrip.
· "The Pillow Heads" was conceived and written by Christian. No script
existed, they just shot footage, and he wrote the voice overs afterwards.
· "Attorney Michael O.Sullivan" was written and performed by Karl.
· The original "Tangeer" speech was written in normal English. David
asked Christian, "Wouldn.t he speak broken English with an accent?", at
which point Christian grabbed the script, quickly crossed out every third
word on the page, and handed it back saying, "Done!"
· In the "The McSorely Family", the kids Sean and Dennis were named
after two high school kids who were also producing a sketch comedy show on
BTV-8 called "The Elephant Auction".
· Bob and David were so pleased with the collaboration with Christian,
they felt he deserved sole writing credit, opting to take only "additional
material by" credit for their script contributions. David had written only
"Femynex" and the "McSorely Family" sketch (ideas by him and Bob);
everything else was either written by Christian or scripted by him from
David.s and/or Bob.s ideas (specifically "Hot Babes In Heat", "Tangeer", and
"Painting With Bill X").