Sapphire’s Wayne Blair to direct Jungleboys sketch show
Wayne Blair
One of Australia’s most sought-after directors has signed on to a new ABC sketch comedy series, Encore can reveal.
The Sapphires director Wayne Blair will direct sketches in The Elegant Gentleman’s Guide to Knife Fighting, produced by The Jungleboys for the public broadcaster.
Last week Blair received the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts award for best direction for his work on The Sapphires, which also won best film.
Cool, go Wayne – but did u know Jungleboys sought sketches in January (albeit in paragraph form which IMHO is counterintuitive to gag writing) received 2400, culled them to 90, only to have the ABC reject them all?
Hi Mort,
Sorry but that’s not correct. Yes , we had a huge response and the ABC could only have us produce about 90 but those 90 were approved.
Jason Burrows
@Jason… That is to be hoped for – maybe the confusion comes from the email you guys sent out viz:
“There was a huge response to our call out for sketches with over 2400 sketches submitted from which only 90 could be chosen. Unfortunately the ABC’s final list has come back and your sketches have not made the list. ”
AND
“It was a tricky one. Nobody had time to read 2500 scripts so we had to ask for one paragraph descriptions, and when someone is quickly reading through these, and making a very quick judgement, not all decisions are going to be the right ones. I have no doubt that some of you will see sketches going to air that are not as funny as some of the ideas that you had in your head. ”
Asking for “paragraphs” is a bit like expecting someone to submit “A man walked into a bar and something funny happened” – with sketches you really need to write them out and craft them for the humour to come thru…
That said, the ABC are notoriously unadventurous…