Squatters the Sitcom

Introduction: Why did FAH want to write a sitcom?
Arms tweeted something that shook the FAHndom (in a very pleasant way of course!) at the end of January 2020:

The consensus was, to no one's surprise I guess, a sitcom about long-term FAHn favourites Oisín & Parents, featuring the wildly popular Hog character Anne Flanagan. You can read all about this series elsewhere.

Aodhagán
Everything we know about the character so far goes here.

Suits
Everything we know about the character so far goes here.

Chris
Everything we know about the character so far goes here.

Synopsis
Goes here.

Production
Notes on the way the episode was filmed, props, sets, etc.

You can find some commentary on establishing exterior shots in sitcoms, and the lack of one in Squatters, in the Shots Bar section about camerawork.

Review

 * Comments from social media & YouTube can be collected here

Synopsis
In episode two it is revealed that Suits has a strong dislike of Chris, and that they get dinners from Meals on Wheels, who believe that they are delivering to the previous owners of the flat, Alfred and Olwyn.

Production
Notes on the way the episode was filmed, props, sets, etc.

Matching close and wide shots is hard, as Arms has also commented in his set diary. How did it turn out and did they figure out how to get the continuity right?

Review
Arms wrote on Patreon on the third day of filming episode 2:

"Certainly it seems more cohesive than the first episode, the characters seem more well rounded, and there's a bit more of a story."


 * Comments from social media & YouTube can be collected here

The Lockdown Hiatus
On every social media platform, but also during Patreon streams, Foil Arms and Hog have dropped little squatters bombs about writing episode two of their sitcom as early as October 2020.


 * Comments here (date and platform source, link if possible)

Set Diary on Patreon
The shoot for Squatters took 3 days, with an additional 2 days for editing. They shot the episode in chronological order, making it as easy as possible to get the beats and flow of the action and dialogue right.

Day One: The Set Up (Tuesday 2 March)
Where they are starting to get to know the characters and trying their best not to deliver their lines at top speed, as if it were a 3-minute sketch.

From the set pictures we learn that the script is called "Deceased Dinners" and the character names are also finally revealed. They each get a tag line, which is helpful for their characterisation. It was fairly obvious who was going to play who, only the very Irish name of Foil's character was still a total mystery (which turned out to be part of the plot of course!):

Hog and Arms's wardrobe was identical to episode 1 but Foil's character seemed to have got a full makeover. He was wearing a LOUD shirt from their sketch wardrobe room, which you can see in sketches such as A Party with the Months of the Year (worn by Arms as July).

Even more exciting than the shirt was the fake moustache, which he definitely didn't have in episode 1. For their sitcom, they didn't go for the usual low-budget low-effort sketch comedy fake moustache, drawn on with eyeliner and dabs of sudocrem! It was a pretty decent looking blonde number that he was seen trimming himself with a pair of scissors (and we know how adept Foil is at trimming with scissors don't we?). Was it even a fake?? FAHns on social media had all kinds of opinions about it:
 * Comments about Foil's squatters moustache here

The set looked pleasantly familiar: the same shoddy door-that-isn't-really-a-door; the messy shelves full of pints, books and board games; and of course the famous pink damask patterned Anne Flanagan's living room  wallpaper.

Any clues about the storyline? We got a set picture of Foil's character doing some measuring on a shirt and Hog's character wearing headphones as if in the middle of playing computer games. And finally, a couple of screenshots from the rushes showing Arms's character hoovering behind the sofa Foil and Hog are sitting on, and another of Arms carrying groceries in a paper bag with an idiotic smile on his face.

We had no idea how they were going to bridge the gap between episodes 1 and 2, how much time had passed, or even if they would incorporate lockdown events. Any mention of the pandemic obviously puts this series at risk of getting dated too soon, so perhaps these characters were living in a COVID-free parallel universe.

Day Two: Fast-Paced Jokes (Wednesday 3 March)
Where they're getting better at this long form filming lark and had EXTRA time to mess around doing nothing.

We learned a bit about the technicalities of shooting, as Arms explained they shot with two cameras simultaneously (this multi-camera setup is also how soap operas and game shows are filmed in a studio).

Arms messed around with his character's hair today, giving himself a totally new look by brushing it out with a naff side parting. It looked awful and absolutely perfect for the character, Arms was right to be pleased with his new look! He warned us about continuity issues but that's just on brand FAH to the FAHns, and we kinda love to see it, as the comments proved:
 * Comments about Arms's squatters hair here:

He gave us some insight as well into how they are running this production, each of them playing different roles as crew. Foil was in charge of Hair & Make Up, Hog is the resident Set Designer and Arms is Editing & Post Production as always. He didn't wait to start editing until after the shoot luckily, but took the rushes home for a rough cut after each shooting day. All three did some directing and camera operating for scenes they weren't in.

We got another handful of still from the shoot again, showing what looks like a dinner scene with Foil and Hog's characters eating from tinfoil take away boxes.

Day Three: Lots of Messing (Thursday 4 March)
Where Hog had to wear nose plugs affecting his voice, Foil was still wearing a moustache and Arms got very distracted. He claimed they were riding a wave of energy that falls off a cliff on the final "cut". But he thought it was working out and they were getting excited about their sitcom now.

It was Foil's turn to direct a couple of scenes today. He was wearing a different shirt, also part of his character's wardrobe. A picture of Hog shows him adjusting the blue swimming cap he's wearing on his head for a scene, still in the same costume as before. Arms revealed he's been using firm hold hairspray from Wella to get his hair to stay in place.

We get a good look at their studio setup in two pictures, showing where the cameras and lights are positioned for different shots. The image captions read "rehearsal" and "learning those lines". Make no mistake, these lads may pretend not to know what they're doing, but they ARE proper filmmakers and very serious about their craft.

Today's screenshots show the weirdest scenes in this episode yet: Hog's character playing computer games in his suit and kitted out with the nose plugs and swimming cap, Arms's character sitting next to him and spraying him with mist from a can, with tubs of salty snacks on the foreground. This is gonna be excellent fun! There's proof of a mood switch as well for Arms's character, throwing someone offscreen (Hog probably) a very stern look. Quarrels ahead for our Squatters!

Final Day: Lots of Energy for the Climax Scenes (Friday 5 March)
Where they finished the shoot early at 6 pm, emotional, tired, happy and satisfied. They only a few scenes to do today, but "looong ones". They do look extremely happy in their group selfie, I must say.

Arms's character had to play the trumpet in a scene. That trumpet has been mentioned before and if you look closely it turns up in the background of some sketches, such as How to be a Lad (next to Anxious the Board Game in Foil's shots). In his diary he writes that he bought it as a 16-year-old to annoy his mother but I seem to remember he got it from Foil and Hog as a birthday present, because he is of course always doing the mouth trumpet at live shows.

Arms confessed to wearing differently coloured jeans on every day of the shoot, which he knew was going to mess with 'continuity', even though he was apparently also "continuity officer" on set. Their weird hairdos were commented on by staff at their local coffee shop where they went for lunch, wearing their costumes. Apparently these lads thought Hog looked "sharp". He had his curls parted in the middle, sort of, which makes him look like a cartoon character.

There was a costume change for the final scene: both Arms and Hog's characters are suddenly wearing a black blazer and tie. That ties in with the episode title of deceased dinners of course, so we can assume there is a funeral scene in there somewhere. Foil's character takes it up a notch, wearing a red bowtie with his black blazer, and a neatly ironed pastel yellow shirt.

There are a bunch of fake flowers in vases in the background as well. Definitely something formal is going on during the climax. My favourite bit of the set is however the shoddy wallpaper, looking like it's going to peel away any minute.

We finally get a closeup of the fake moustache... neatly stored in a box! And even better: the full array of LOUD shirts owned - presumably - by Foil's character. It'll be fun to try and spot these in different Foil Arms and Hog sketches!

There's another brilliant long shot picture of the set with tripods and cables all in view. It's delightful to see how they can transform an ordinary office space into a realistic looking filmset!

It's up to Arms to edit four days of shooting together into a neat little episode, and he's not sure yet if it's going to end up being 15 minutes or half an hour long. He's going to do his editing in two days, Monday and Tuesday, taking the weekend off - well deserved!

Synchronising audio to video was going to be a huge task as well. As he told me afterwards, they did have some trouble with their audio as one mic cable gave out, but there were plenty of audio channels to choose from luckily. But he sounded like he was looking forward to it, he even took the opportunity to slag Hog for having to do the subtitles afterwards. Poor Hog!

Creating the Title Sequence
My personal story and a WIP of the titles in Adobe After Effects.

The very first title sequence I created was very closely inspired by the credit sequence of How I Met Your Mother. To create this so quickly in After Effects, an app I didn't know much about back then, I downloaded a template and replaced the placeholders (still pictures) with clips from the episode. I changed the yellow colour from the original titles to the magenta to match the end card they used back then, and added the logo and episode title. I underscored it with the FAH Doomdap jingle from their older videos. I posted the result on IG the very next day after the premiere of The New Housemate.



This was just a FAHnVid really, nothing serious. But the idea of Squatters needing a proper title sequence, especially with the lads dropping some hints here and there (in the comment sections) that they were keen on making the next episode sitcom-length, kept brewing in my head. During a Patreon livestream they even dropped a bomb of having started writing that episode, aiming at 22 minutes, the standard sitcom episode duration! I knew I had to try, so I brushed up on After Effects and followed heaps of tutorials, trying to figure out if I could pull this off. But what source material could I use? I only had the first episode to go on, so I collected clips and screenshots, messed around with them in Photoshop to prepare them for After Effects, and tried a couple of techniques. It was going to be a long, slow process, possibly going nowhere. But I couldn't leave it alone.

When Arms commissioned motion graphic end cards from me mid-October 2020, I bit the bullet and propositioned him. At first I simply said that I wanted to pitch him a project, and he said he was looking forward to it, like the kind and friendly guy he is. I didn't want to pitch empty-handed, I knew I needed to have something to show him, to prove I was being serious, and capable of doing it. It took me about two weeks and the help of a couple of amazing and supportive FAHns (specifically: Gen Fisher for the slap bass track and Nadine Day for the voice over). To make it even more "real", I edited a short compilation of what happened in the first episode, as they often do in sitcoms. Not such a bad idea with the huge lockdown gap between Squatters episodes, right? Watch the result below.



[more to come later]



Foil told me he was working on creating some interstitial music samples and asked if I would be interested in creating a short graphic for those as well. They would mark the transition from one scene to the next and help break up the story into manageable chunks, like we're used to seeing in TV shows like The Big Bang Theory. The graphics should of course match the title sequence of course, just as the sound bites for them should match the soundtrack. I came up with three versions that worked quite well, all based on the stop-motion wallpaper animation I had used in my titles. I didn't have to start from scratch, luckily, as there were only a couple more days till the premiere!

Flat Vector Comic for Squatters Episode 1 (by @Helsteendje on IG)
The first Squatters FAHnArt I know of was a 10-panel flat vectors comic I created myself in Adobe Illustrator, drawing the figures from scratch using just shapes (and a couple of downloaded vector graphics for the props). I'm a total beginner but I was quite pleased with how they turned out!

I don't draw - not saying I can't, I just don't have the tools, the space or in fact the mindset to do analogue art at the moment - but drawing these guys made me consider trying out the digital art route, maybe even animating my own characters. You can check out the full comic on the FAHn Comics & Cartoons page or go to the Instagram post (which got a lovely comment from Foil, wahey!).