COLD OPEN

Shot in multi-camera format and edited into fast-cut, TV promos, the cold opens and tags on the series provide our only proper look at the show within the show. These bookends take the shape of “Previously on Keeping Up” and “Next week on Keeping Up.” Check out the Cold Open below!

ACT I

Below you can see Act I as read by Bonnie Hunt (as Sandy), Dylan Brody (as Larry) and Paul Provenza (as Dave)

Dave Wilkins, the network liaison sends Larry Timmerman, the series’ creator and showrunner out to dinner with their director, Sandy Spooner. He wants Larry to convince her to stop bothering him about the journalistic integrity of their third-rate, basic-cable unscripted competition show. Also, he thinks they might hit it off.

AT A RESTAURANT - Dave insists on discussing business despite Sandy’s efforts to inform him of the depth of his secret adoration for her. He remains unconvinced by her arguments. He assures her that he wants her around not because he is secretly in love with her, but because she’s a terrific director. She helps him keep it together while working on this crappy show. Sandy doesn’t buy any of this. He is obviously secretly in love with her. Also, he created the show he’s hired her to work on. As it turns out, he had not intended to create Keeping Up. He pitched a sit-com about neighboring families grappling with the friction between competitive Capitalism and the human impulse toward decency and community. Somehow in a meeting with the Network, he accidentally sold Keeping Up an unscripted competition show that makes him feel as though he is a contributing factor in the slow spiral of modern society. Sandy listens concerned and a little bit excited. She doesn’t mind work talk and existential angst. Given enough ramble-room, he’ll figure out that he’s secretly in love with her.

The grown up, slow-growing romance between these two the heart of this series beating. From Ricky & Lucy to Rob & Laura — from Sam & Diane to Paul and Jamie Buchman, the tradition of romantic comedy forever holds viewers enthralled in the nostalgic memory of romance discovered and the fantasy of love eternal.

ACT II

Below you can see Act II as read by Bonnie Hunt (as Sandy), Kate Orsini (as Isabella),Dylan Brody (as Larry), Paul Provenza (as Dave), Mike McShane (as Karl Banks)

Isabella, Sandy’s hand-picked editor cuts the show together in her cramped editing bay. Dave kibbitzes about the edit-in-progress. She suggests that he should not be here when Sandy’s not around; he informs her that he is the network liaison, but shifts his conversation away from the edit and on to the spitballing of ideas. Karl Banks crowds in suggesting that his daughter might need an intervention ‘cause she’s smoking pot. Isabrlla informs him that he should not be here, but he points out that he’s the talent. Dave offers to talk to the kid for him deftly ignoring and deflecting a clear suggestion that they humiliate the exploit the man’s daughter . . . any more than they already are. Larry arrives. Isabella tells him he should not be here. He tells her that he’s the show-runner and then suggests funny lines that Karl might be able to get on screen. Sandy arrives to find her editor overwhelmed in the space and tells her that none of these people should be here. Long suffering Isabella ishrugs. She is the editor. Sandy clears the room and . . .

. . . alone with Isabella, Sandy gets down to reporting on last night’s dinner. She confirms Isabella’s suspicion that Larry is completely, secretly in love with her. They get down to editing the episode. Witness the sheer competence of these women, a director and and editor who have been together since well before their first documentary: TRICKLE DOWN THEORY - The Mansplain that Broke a Nation. In sync and focused, they clean up the dynamic quality of an unscripted competition series. Because that’s where the money is.

The scene that opens Act II of the pilot really sets the pace and tone of the series in general. The story, the comedy and the pathos all come from this vortex of energy as personalities under the claustrophobic, time-sensitive pressure of a production schedule live their lives in the rhythm of the modern churn factory. The second act of each episode provides an opportunity for real ensemble work.

ACT III

Below: ACT III as read by Paul Provenza (Dave), Kendra Jain (Riley), Dylan Brody (Larry), Bonnie Hunt (Sandy) and Todd Waring (Ronnie Granta)

Dave brings young Riley into his office to let her know that her father has come to him about the pot smoking. A surly teenager, she shows very little interest in his avuncular outreach. He delivers to her a package wrapped in brown paper “just like the others. Just a name. No return adress. No postage. Left at the production office.” He knows shes having pot delivered somehow. She knows he knows. None of that is said aloud. She offers tips on ways that members of the opposing family might be exposed on air, angling, like all the so-called ‘talent’ to direct the cameras to her own advantage.

Outside the production offices, Riley unwraps the marijuana, throws out the butcher-paper wrapping and is gone before . . .

. . . Larry and Sandy emerge from the production offices into the sunlight. As happy as she might be to talk about Larry’s undying secret love, which he assures her had not at all been the conversation he was trying to have, she steers her attention to her fear that she she is selling out. Larry does his best to reassure her that selling out and cashing in are not at all the same thing. Sandy has aspirations for the future and real success behind her. She won awards for her documentary EDUTAINMENT, ADVERTORIAL, INFOMERCIAL - the Decline of Western Civilization. Larry knows this. He liked the film. It’s why he hired her.

She escapes before having to interact with Ronnie Granta, patriarch of the Granta family, competitors on Keeping Up. He requires Larry’s attention immediately. He has become convinced that Karl Banks has been trying to rig the game. Larry, in a rare moment of candid transparency schools the man on the nature of the world, the changing rules, the self-service, the tendency for everyone, always to find ways to manipulate whatever game is being played. It doesn’t matter if cameras are rolling or the challenges parade through, arbitrary and absurd with manufactured time limits and unexpected twists to heighten the drama. This is As Real as it Gets. Shocked, shaken, Ronnie demands to know any other secrets Larry might be holding onto. It comes out of him at last. There’s a significant chance that he’s secretly in love with Sandy Spooner.

TAG

Below, see the reading of the TAG with Todd Waring (Ronnie Granta), Robyn Heller (Cynthia Granta) and Mike McShane (Karl Banks) PLUS a stock photo as Gabby Granta celebrating a small success.

Back to multi-camera, fast-cut promo style. Returning to the show-within-the-show for the back end of the book end, next week on Keeping up gives us in fast bytes the in-one smack talk and the familial squabbling of reality television. Also, in this pilot episode, a child’s action in the background as the parents obsess over the competition reveals the missing piece of information in the small, B-story mystery.

<The bookending cold-opens and tags buy us room for a bunch of punch-lines and story point set-up/payoff opportunities. These isolated chunks of real estate provide space for both content and for a simple, satisfying parenthetical structure.>