Fennell to record TV sitcom pilot

 

Following in the tradition of classic network TV sitcoms like “Friends” and “Family Matters,” Custer native and New York City filmmaker Neil Fennell is set to make a television pilot show that will be recorded in front of a live studio audience. 

Fennell, a Custer High School grad and the son of Gene and Linda Fennell of Custer, is working with his Off Hollywood Productions company to record the half-hour show “Shut Up, Astoria” at the off broadway Gene Frankel Theatre in lower Manhattan. This is the same company with which Fennell has competed in several 48-hour filmmaking competitions. Two of those short films were shown in May at the Black Hills Film Festival. (See the article in the April 24, 2019 edition of the Chronicle.) 

Fennell said the script written by his frequent and long-time collaborator Guy Olivieri attempts to capture “a retro ’90s sitcom kind of feel.” 

“We decided the only way to do that was to film it in front of a live studio audience,” said Fennell.

Working with Ground Up Productions, which has experience in the live theater aspect of the production, Fennell and his fellow filmmakers are putting together the pieces of the show which will be recorded Nov. 1-2.

“We’re going to shoot it five different times with three cameras, all in one take,” said Fennell, “four times with an audience and once without, so we can get clean audio if we need it.”

Fennell said the production is “definitely a New York story” set in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. 

“It’s a neighborhood that I lived in my first eight years living here in New York,” said Fennell. 

“It’s a really fun, quaint, family-oriented neighborhood and still has a lot of Greek population, so it has probably the best Greek food you’ll find in New York City.”

Fennell said the character-based comedy surrounds a set of twins who inherited an apartment building from their uncle who their mother always hated. They need a certain amount of money by the end of the month or they will lose the building.

Fennell, who wears three hats in this production — executive producer, director and editor — said the process is incredibly daunting, but he is excited to step out as a pioneer of sorts. 

“We have researched and we think we’re the first independent company in New York to ever try this,” said Fennell. 

The use of the term “pilot” in reference to the production naturally implies the producers have hopes it will be only the beginning of a vehicle that will carry them to greater success, and Fennell said that’s just what he and his partners have in mind. 

“The pie-in-the-sky dream would always be that you sell it and it gets made for real,” said Fennell, “and that we’d be on something like FX or even CBS or Netflix or something like that. That’s why we’re trying to package it as professionally as possible.”

The producers recently raised $16,000 on Kickstarter for the project and Fennell said they will use every penny of that to ensure high production values. 

They have even gone so far as to put together a 1980s-style opening sequence complete with theme song and opening credits. View the short video by using the My Black Hills Country app on your smart phone to scan the photo accompanying this article.