Big Four-Oh!

This year we were thrilled to be asked to film the Melbourne International Comedy Festival's absolutely stacked ‘Big FOUR-OH’ comedy gala at the Regent Theatre.

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Our history with the festival

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We began working with the Comedy Festival over 10 years ago, starting out backstage filming artist interviews at the Oxfam Gala (you know, the ones where they ask you for money).

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Over the years our responsibility at the Festival has grown, with us filming a lot of their major events including Deadly Funny, Raw Comedy and The Great Debate for broadcast and online.

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We were also extremely busy during the Covid era, filming a number of lineup shows for their online platform including a series about Melbourne's thriving comedy rooms, all of which you can view on their YouTube channel.

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In recent years we've also taken on some more creative projects, including writing and producing promotional materials for the festival's commercial partnerships.

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The 40th anniversary gala - The Big FOUR-OH! - is the biggest project we've undertaken for the festival, and we're grateful to outgoing CEO Susan Provan for trusting us with one of her last big events before passing the torch.
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Production

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This production was a huge undertaking. Not only was the event itself really large, with almost 30 acts across the night, but we had an extremely tight turnaround, with the first episode of the two-part series going to air less than 48 hours after it was filmed.

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For this we brought on a dedicated producer, Sarah Ben-M'rad, who helped us pull everything together.

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Filming for the show began weeks earlier, with us taking to the streets with hosts Nath Valvo and Geraldine Hickey to film show openings outside the Regent and Melbourne Town Hall in the midst of the festival, surrounded by comedy lovers.

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Shoot night

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In the lead-up to the event, we had two other huge shoots for the festival - Deadly Funny and Raw Comedy.

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In order to make sure the stage crew at the Regent Theatre had cameras set up so they could confirm the lighting looked great for both stage and screen, we needed to leave Raw Comedy as soon as the winner was announced and take all of our gear across the road to the Regent Theatre.

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Once there, we unpacked, ran cables, set up some cameras, and then got ourselves home for a bit of rest before returning first thing the next morning.

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Setup included hours of running cables, setting up cameras, and configuring our control room for live vision switching. To do this, we brought in a fantastic team of camera operators, sound recordists, jib and steadicam operators, along with our trusty Production Manager and assistants - all to help things run smoothly and make sure our crew were fed and well looked after.

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Post Production

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In order to get a head start on post production, we sent our main editor back to our studio at intermission holding a drive containing the media from the first half of the show. He was able to do a quick assembly of part 1 that evening, ready for notes and fine tuning in the morning.

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Long editing sessions and a lot of treats were consumed, and the first part made it to air on Wednesday the 16th of April - just two days after we filmed it - with part 2 going out a week later.

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Where to watch?

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If you want to see the fruits of our labour, you can watch Melbourne International Comedy Festival: The Big FOUR-OH! on Tenplay

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