Learning from #FriendsReunion - Plan Your Bottle Episode
While watching Friends: The Reunion a while back
( Yes, i am super late, been a very busy week) something struck with me
which the show’s creators said about "budgeting" a term called
Bottle Episode.
On Friends - Its one of the most successful
television sitcoms of all time. From 1994 to 2004, the show never left the list
of top 10 most-watched television programs. It was
also one of the most expensive television series of all time. By the last two
seasons, each of the six main actors earned more than $1
million per episode. From the resources perspective, the show has more
than justified that expense since then. As per some estimate Friends earns
around $1 billion a year from syndication, merchandising, streaming, and other
deals.
During the reunion show, creator Marta Kaufman talked
about how they planned “bottle episodes” each season to manage the show’s
budget. So what are Bottle episodes? They are shot on one stage or location
without guest stars or anything that would increase costs. The idea is to spend
less on these to save for more extravagant storytelling in other episodes. Net
net – even on a show with abundant resources, the creators planned
for the fact that not every episode had the same budget to work
with.
The fundamentals of economic will always remain,
resources are always limited i Yes, the team had to consider the budget
during the annual planning process. Yet some of the Friends bottle episodes
ended up being among the best episodes of the series. Spending less on these
episodes didn’t mean the team could slack off in terms of creativity – if
anything, they had to get more creative.
Comments