Recording begins

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Lee

Last night, after a lot of time spent in front of the blinking cursor of doom, we finally made it into the studio. I say studio, it was Anna’s front room – thanks Anna!

Lee and Ian (not to be confused with Ironman)

This is the perfect opportunity to introduce you to the two newest members of The 4amcab Company: Ian and CJ.

When the first episode is released you may recognise Ian’s voice from a previous episode. Ian was the main storyline character in S1Ep4 – Hainault?, playing a very tired Martin, who falls asleep on a night bus to Hainault and ends up robbing a petrol station. Ian has ventured north, out of London, to join us for the whole of Series 3.

CJ and Ian look on, as Lee pretends to do some acting

CJ is the other new member to join the merry band of 4amcab actors. CJ has worked extensively in theatre, both behind the scenes and on the stage. The first thing I asked her to do was speak in a Dutch accent and pretend to be on a porn shoot – as she didn’t run away, I think she’ll fit right in!

More details will be published soon on The 4amcab Company page.

So the first session is done, with more on the way. Now the mamoth task of editing almost 4 hours of intensive 4amcab goodness begins. We are very much on our way to Series 3. Exciting, eh?

Almost Ready…

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Lee

It’s been somewhat quiet on the 4amcab website this year and that’s partly because of Rachel’s crazy plan.

Well, excuses aside, the gears have been turning and very soon you will start to see the fruit (mixed metaphors allowing). I thought it might be interesting to share what has been going on and fill you in on the plan for the rest of the summer, with the forthcoming release of series 3.

This time around, I decided to try things a little bit differently. With previous series we had found that the conveyor belt of writing, script editing, recording, editing and releasing (then starting all over again on the next episode) was a difficult one to maintain. Something had to change to make the project more manageable. I decided that for the third series I wanted everything to be written before I began the recording. The good news is, that’s nearly done.

Right now, at time of writing this, there are just a handful of sketches to complete. Next week I will be recording the first three episodes followed up with another recording session of the second half of the series.

So the big news is, I’ll release a short tease for the new series on 1st July and then two weeks later, on 15th July, the first episode will come out. As all the writing and recording for the series will be in the bag, this means I’ll release the rest of the series weekly. You’ll be able to hear all six episodes by the middle of August. Phew!

The final bit of 4amcab news, for the moment, is that I’m hoping to have a few new voices on the show. More on that shortly.

Set your podcatcher to stun* and get ready for the 1st July. It’s going to be a bumpy ride**.

*automatic download
**no, it won’t

We Are Two!

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Lee

Happy Birthday to Us,
Happy Birthday to Us,
Happy Birthday sang to a different tune for copyright reasons….
Happy Birthday to Us!

We’re not really celebrating this as we feel old but it’s two years since the 4amcab project began.

The writing process is still, erm, processing and we’re hoping to record the first half of the series on the 19th May. Oh no, it’s in writing now so I feel committed! Anyway, the good news about writing the whole series in advance is that when we release the series we’ll be able to do so a lot quicker. That means that you’ll get a new episode every week (or fortnight if I run out of time!). And that will happen in June.

Happy Birthday to Us.

Rachel’s Third Installment

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Lee

For those of you that already follow Rachel on twitter, you may know her recent big news. For those that don’t, well… she’s preggers, again. She also has stockholm syndrome.

I realise that this is not the sort of news we normally bang on about here but do not worry, we are not about to announce a sponsorship deal with Pampers or Mumsnet. Although…

The reason for this news is that Rachel will be taking a bit of a back seat with 4amcab for a while. She’s still on board, but very much covered in puke and poo and adding to the dark rings around her eyes with even more early morning feeds.

Rest assured that Series 3 will steam on as planned. I may even blackmail Rachel into a bit of light script editing… headlocks are okay for pregnant women, right?

Thank You

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Lee

Well, I’ve been blow away.

When I opened the submission window on the 1st of February I was expecting only a handful of people to send in their ideas. Boy, was I wrong!

I’ve literally just finished logging everything that’s been sent in and even with my basic maths I can count almost 200 sketches. Thank you so much to everyone who has spent countless hours writing stuff for consideration, it is very much appreciated. I’ve only managed to read about a tenth of what I’ve been sent so far but already I can see a few sketches that could work. The inclusion of themes for series 3 really seems to have helped writers to focus their ideas and hopefully it will also make the episodes a bit more joined up… well maybe.

I aim to have read through everything over the next few weeks and so I’ll commit to letting everyone know if they’ve been successful by Tuesday 1st April. This should put series 3 on track for the first episode being released in May, but I’m not going to put that in bold just yet.

For series 3, I plan to record more than I need and cut sketches that don’t work out in the recording which is a common policy on shows like the BBC’s Newsjack and The Show What You Wrote. The idea with this is to be left with the strongest material whilst giving everything that I like a good chance. Hopefully this also will encourage those that get recorded but not used that they are on the right path for the show.

So thanks once again for sending in your work, it’s good to know that people like 4amcab enough to spend their time submitting sketches.

Series 3 Submission Window – OPEN!

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Lee

The window for submitting your work for consideration for 4amcab Series 3 is now officially… open!

This time round we’re looking for lot’s of really short sketches so we can get as much into each episode as possible. The other key difference is that we’re asking for sketches on a theme. Each episode will have it’s own theme into which all the sketches will relate. We will retain the central storyline concept too, so there’s opportunity to write a longer sitcom style story for each theme.

Those themes are as follows:

Class,
Love,
Work,
Creativity,
The End
and The Future

The deadline for entries is Sunday 2nd March 2014 at midnight.

Send your sketches into us at the usual email address: ideas@4amcab.com

More details can be found on the Write for 4amcab page of this website.

Good luck and get writing!

Series 3 – update

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Lee

Happy New Year to you all. Has the hangover passed? Good. Well, hopefully this is a timely update as maybe you won’t have given up on all your resolutions yet, particularly if they involve writing sketches.

We are beginning to think about Series three of 4amcab. At this early stage I don’t have any details to share other than it will be the same format as before: six episodes (and a secret Christmas Special, shhh!), made up of a story and sketches. There will be a submisison window for anyone wishing to send us their work which will open in February. This time we will be asking for sketches on a theme for each episode. Follow us on twitter to get the updates as and when they are released.

In other news, we are working on two other comedy projects which will come under the 4amcab banner but which will be more of a departure from what we’ve done before. Again, no real details at the moment but Rachel will be spearheading one and Lee will be doing the other one.

Finally, I’m thrilled to say that all of our actors will be joining us for Series three, with the exception of Chris Luck. Chris has been with us since the very first episode but he is very busy running a pub full time, so he’s not able to be a regular performer. One of my favourite sketches to record and to listen back to is the Dentist sketch from Series 1 episode 1, where Chris plays an oil drilling orthodontist, check it out here. Thanks go out to Chris for being a great member of the team, hopefully we can entice him out of the pub in the future.