Probably my favorite comedy after The Office is FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I developed a meta-appreciation for it this season, when I realized it’s shot at the Herald-Examiner building in downtown Los Angeles, using some of the same sets we used for The Movie.
Last I heard, there was talk of converting the Herald-Examiner building into condos, so who knows what they would do for a third season. If there is a third season.
iTunes has free featurette about the show, focusing on the logistical nightmare of shooting all of Danny DeVito’s scenes for the season in just 20 days. They had to write all ten scripts ahead of time, then found themselves shooting pieces from up to four episodes per day.
In watching the behind-the-scenes footage, I was surprised to see how puny the main cameras are for the show. They’re using Panasonic DVX-100A’s, long a staple of no-budget indie filmmaking. (We used it for b-roll.) It’s pretty ballsy to use it for a real TV show, where you’re spending millions of dollars and recording on a mini-DV tape.
