Laid: death by sex
Animal Kingdom producer Liz Watts has made her TV series debut with the black comedy Laid. Aravind Balasubramaniam reports from the set in Sydney.
Set to debut on ABC1 on February 9, Laid is the brainchild of Marieke Hardy and Kirsty Fisher. Its death-related premise – about Roo, a young woman (Alison Bell) whose previous sexual partners begin to mysteriously die off, making her think she’s cursed – provides the black comedic tone to the series.
Inspiration came to Hardy from a story she saw in the newspaper, about “a handsome boy” around her age, who died while during a holiday.
“I started to imagine, what if I had dated him and it ended up being a horrible relationship, would I be supposed to attend his funeral? What are your responsibilities to the ex lovers you had a very bad time with?” explained Hardy. “It wasn’t really about a fascination with death, but about the social rules regarding people who were complete dickheads that you never want to see again, but when that person dies, they become somewhat of a saint.”
“It’s about people who are on the periphery of your social group that die. In many ways this can be a slightly confronting experience. What’s interesting is how people process that kind of information in different ways; we sometimes overcompensate for others that we have met once or twice and are suddenly deeply impacted by their death,” added director Trent O’Donnell.
The show went through a number of title changes before becoming Laid. “At the beginning, we called it The Undertaking, but the feedback was too grim. I actually don’t know who came up with Like a Virgin. I always
just saw it as a working title, but it just stuck in people’s heads,” said Hardy. “I called up Trent and told him I didn’t like it. Laid was one of the earlier titles we had, and for me it works really well. Like a Virgin never quite sold it the right way; everyone else seemed quite happy with it, but I was the trouble maker!” she admitted.
That wasn’t the only change. The writers define the show as a black comedy, but admit that the tone changed during development.
“We tried to give the comedy a bit of warmth and heart, rather than just going for laughs, so it went from being a one-liner black comedy series to something with a lot of sentimental moments, and more of a love story too,” said Hardy.
Hardy and Fisher met on Seven’s Last Man Standing, and started to work together on a number of ideas they presented to the ABC. The broadcaster responded to Laid and provided some development funding, and the project then received support from Film Victoria, as well as the Screen Australia fellowship. That was three years ago.
According to the show’s creators, the ABC was the one that “married” them with producer Liz Watts.
“It was really fortuitous that we got Liz on board. [Head of comedy] Debbie Lee and [Head of Arts and Entertainment] Amanda Duthie had been trying to work with her for a long time. Liz met us separately, and she
really loved the scripts and was speaking very positively about getting it to screen. I don’t think she came in with any doubts,” said Fisher.
Watts is not a complete stranger to the world of television, having worked for Southern Star Entertainment in the 90s. Laid is, however, the first television series she has produced. She was partly attracted to the project because of the potential of the medium:”At the moment, I feel you can do edgier work in television than in the feature film world,” said Watts. “Television is not totally new for me, but it is a slightly different process from the feature films I’ve worked on in the last 10 years. It has been fun in a way; it has been fast because it’s a very low budget series and everyone is working really hard and really well, for not a lot of money.”
Watts then contacted Trent O’Donnell and the rest is history. He is the creator of the award-winning Review with Myles Barlow, a show he lived and breathed for years. Directing Laid was a welcome change; joining a
project where others had done the hard work of getting the scripts rights and polished.
“The girls have been on this for a long time, before I came on board, so it’s a nice experience being the fresh eyes coming into a project,” he said.
BREAKING THE CURSE
Encore witnessed one of the defining moments in the series; it was shot at Oceanworld, Manly in late July, during week three of production. The dramatic scene represents Roo’s only hope at having a romantic future
– will the curse be broken before the grim reaper takes her best friend’s boyfriend Zach – with whom she’d ‘accidentally’ slept in a drunken moment – as he decides to go swimming with the sharks at the aquarium?
Given that the show’s premise is the death of Roo’s former lovers, the writers had to come up with creative ways to kill their characters… and do so off camera, to avoid having too many expensive and complicated stunts.
That doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be any big moments, with a “quite graphic and fairly confronting” stunt taking place in the first episode.
Laid was shot entirely on location in Sydney. Most scenes take place in interiors such as Roo’s apartment and workplace, avoiding constant location changes: “It’s just so much easier when you are not moving. It’s the
moving that kills the day,” said O’Donnell.
Laid was shot on two Panasonic P2 cameras, “because we’re shooting the whole series in five weeks, we are moving fairly quickly, but the look is sort of a filmic look. But to be honest, the visual element on a day-today
basis isn’t as important to me as the performances,” explained O’Donnell.
I hope this is good…Australian TV needs it…Underbelly last night was shockingly bad.
User ID not verified.
The trailer is amazing. Big fan of Trent and I can only imagin the darkness in Animal Kingdom and quirky intelligence of Review will mix fantastically.
Though it’s not competing against much. Shame about the P2.
User ID not verified.
The trailer doesn’t look amazing…it looks competent and promising.
User ID not verified.
The trailer isn’t amazing. Nor was the first episode.
Disappointing.
User ID not verified.
Dave- so there we have it…the trailer wasn’t amazing the first episode seemed disappointing…but I can tell you they will beat it up and try and make us believe “it was groundbreaking television” and every other cliche that gets pumped our way. Our culture seems to be split in two…those that think they are making great entertainment and those that have to watch it. Those that think they are making quality content seem to have little interest in actually making the quality content that they seem so smug and satisfied with, the show may evolve, hopefully. Its as if the producers must get as many people as they can saying how brilliant it is..while us the audience, the taxpayer, who helps fund this stuff, must sit mute and watch while most certainly another series will go into production.. whilst us..the poor audience channel surf looking for a homegrown product that isn’t riddled with every Cliche in the book.
Its a strange culture we live in…and I’m not really impressed with Marieke Hardy as a screenwriter…at all
User ID not verified.
Waambulance for you Dolly.
I was squirming and laughing. Liked it a lot.
User ID not verified.
And so it goes…
User ID not verified.
Just watched this with my girlfriend,…this was supposed to be a comedy..right?
Australian TV another nail in the Coffin…and total government support at not only State and Federal level but also the ABC…is it possible that nobody at any of these agencies could read well crafted comedy? I mean really how did this get a rubber stamp? Is the state of scriptwriting in this country so bad, this is all we can slop up? The poor lead actress, she just had nobody to work with and writing, that at times seemed like wet cardboard drying. Enough really is enough…can we just buy some comedy from the BBC or at least send our writers over there to work out how its done..this wasn’t funny, no squirming and I hated it a lot. First we had the Librarians and now this..I mean come on..this isn’t diverse..its just awful and too cautious…write the crazy stuff push the boundaries..fail trying..this is writing by numbers. Bland quirky and full of nothing. We deserve better…its our money
User ID not verified.
I love Australian Cinema, when we get it right, also the same with TV, but this was just nonsense. I think I hit the target market, but I couldn’t relate to the characters at all. I have a sense of humor tuned into Black Comedy..but this didn’t hit anything, talk about exposition. My mother hated it and my boyfriend walked out of the room after ten minutes. I mean this passed through the hands of lots of people until it actually made it to the audience, why wasn’t the utter lack of anything remotely compelling about the show, or the utter lack of actual comedy picked up at the script level. It was just boring and if I want to watch people sitting around talking uninteresting crap, I’ll film myself and watch a re-run waaaaaaaammmmmmmbulance for me mainly because I was bored beyond belief. I’m also a big fan of British humor, why do they get it right and we get it so wrong?
User ID not verified.
Hold on….I’m reading this article again and I see this
[Head of comedy] Debbie Lee and [Head of Arts and Entertainment] Amanda Duthie had been trying to work with her for a long time. Liz met us separately, and she
really loved the scripts and was speaking very positively about getting it to screen. I don’t think she came in with any doubts,” said Fisher.
Watts is not a complete stranger to the world of television, having worked for Southern Star Entertainment in the 90s. Laid is, however, the first television series she has produced. She was partly attracted to the project because of the potential of the medium:”At the moment, I feel you can do edgier work in television than in the feature film world,” said Watts.
Where was the bit where somebody just stood back and said “I know you think television is edgier but these scripts that you think are great comedy on the page…aren’t, they simply aren’t edgy, they aren’t pushing the envelope and the comedy just doesn’t play”…I mean what is going on?..this from the intelligent woman who made the superb Animal Kingdom, saw the potential form the seed level (maybe you can’t do both Drama/Comedy)..go back to making features if you think this is what edgy television is about. I just feel really sad for the talent..actors, producers writers, directors who submit stuff to state and federal funding agencies and The ABC and can’t get a look in and then this gets produced and we’re supposed to say “Yippee.. its really really funny”…when it simply isn’t. ten people I have talked to in 48hrs about this show, all just rolled their eyes, didn’t even want to speak about it. There’s a massive canyon of taste going on between those at the ABC comedy dept/ funding agencies and those that have to watch what simply isn’t funny, those we sometimes refer to as the audience, but are in fact shareholders funding this stuff….nor is it remotely black in humor. I mean I’m all for a diverse variety of content across a variety of screens…but I can’t see how this gets the greenlight..who is doing the appraising? Well now it seems obvious
I just shake my head with shock…and yeah I’m really annoyed, because I wanted to like this show..I really wanted to. Is it that hard to get it right? Maybe…but is it that hard to appraise something and say “I think we can do better?”
We need a real shift in entertainment perspective…especially the farts and giggles of the comedy genre. A massive shift.
User ID not verified.
The writing was on the wall. Marieke Hardy was the writer of Last Man Standing. It was rightly canceled after one season. I watched about half the episodes and had to stop watching because it was abysmal to the point of embarrassing. If Last Man Standing is indicative of Marieke Hardy’s ability as a screenwriter then it is doubtful the writing on Laid will be any better – the first episode has confirmed this.
Producer Liz Watts recognized a good script in Animal Kingdom, but her radar was completely off if she thought Laid was quality writing. After sitting through the first episode, all I could think was, ‘How the hell did this get made!?’
User ID not verified.
I know for a fact ABC comedy have rejected some fantastic scripts and funded dross such as this, not to mention Lowdown. Boring, flaccid shows that will be forgotten in 5 mins.
User ID not verified.
Grey- Producers get paid when something goes into Production… funding agencies want to back somebody who’s had something Produced (it seems it doesn’t matter if any of that was a success, with the exception of AK, drama/comedy..massive gap in genre.” if they’ve made something before at least they can deliver” seems to be the mantra…that mantra needs to stop!!) but if you look at this article, it seems for whatever deluded reason people were keen to work with Marieke Hardy..not keen to produce work that was sound, entertaining and funny, which I know being an Australian comedy “not being funny” is somehow a badge of honor. What annoys me the most is that you can somehow have a career as the “It” writer in this country and you can just “fail upwards”. I mean why are Producers & the ABC falling over themselves to produce Marieke Hardy’s scripts and ideas? Whats the track record? And why can’t the audience have more of a say in who Greenlights our taxpayer funded content.
Funding Agencies- did you voice that the scripts were half baked? I hope you did
Porchlight- You voiced that AK as a script wasn’t completely cooked, why the eyes off the prize for Laid..that’s what Producers do don’t they, the voice of reason?
Could it be that Debbie Lee wouldn’t know cutting edge comedy if it was wrapped in a bow and presented to her…”I Rock” what a shocker…”The Librarians” just not funny, no matter how hard it tried it just died..but they gave it a good run in an attempt to try and make it play. I don’t feel good about having to explain the obvious, because I think and know that there is an enormous amount of talent out there waiting to get a shot, so why isn’t it getting noticed? Why are we failing in the comedy genre? When we shouldn’t be. Why do we put all our eggs in the one basket?
Here’s a tip Debbie Lee…good comedy takes chances…good comedy try’s to push the envelope, good comedy isn’t polite, and good black comedy is often best played without a hint of the quirky, cookie cut out characters we often see being played out on our ABC TV screens. So stop giving this dross the Greenlight, get in some discerning readers and writers and get some sounding boards, because the one’s that your using just ain’t cutting it..at all. Our diverse talent pool, Australian audiences and our taxpayer funded TV screens deserve better..
“We tried to give the comedy a bit of warmth and heart, rather than just going for laughs, so it went from being a one-liner black comedy series to something with a lot of sentimental moments, and more of a love story too,” said Hardy.
When writing a comedy Miss Hardy…it pays to go for laughs, not the obvious kind, but the kind that comes from more often than not intensely serious characters going from one struggle to the next and failing…if you want warmth..stand near an open fire or hug a kitten. I don’t have to like the character I want to see them struggle and the best jokes and giggles are often in the drama and the cut…not a gag for gags sake..but a gag that comes from seeing a character struggle and fail…don’t believe me…go and watch Faulty Towers, The Office, 15 Stories High, League of Gentlemen, etc etc and it also helps if the dialogue has a certain wit and isn’t filled with exposition…which Laid is…its basically 30 minutes of never ending exposition…this is what I’m doing..this is where I’m going…this is why I’m doing this, this is what I’m thinking..blah blah..call me the waaaaammmmbulance.
User ID not verified.
Great show
User ID not verified.
I beg to differ. I think the script is very accomplished – in fact I would say that the show isn’t always directed as well as the script deserves. Which is not unusual, given how rare it is for directors and crew to get comedy experience in Australia.
User ID not verified.
yeah…well I don’t know anybody who begs to differ and I’m talking a very wide demographic…its flat…and getting worse as the show progresses…which is never a good sign
User ID not verified.
So far I’ve been enjoying this show. I don’t think I’d really call it a comedy, I doubt I’ve laughed more than once or twice at it, but it’s entertaining enough and the premise is interesting. I’ve actually been looking forwards to seeing the next episode to see what happens next and how exactly they’re going to deal with what’s going on.
User ID not verified.
My god…the script is very accomplished? C’mon..this is ridiculous, open your eyes, look at whats on the screen…its just never ending exposition about cardboard cut out characters that never really do much, leaving you to care even less about what they might end up doing. I watch a wide variety of comedy, can’t get enough of the stuff…what I don’t get is why we are constantly served up this utter tosh..its neither funny or dramatically engrossing..it just hangs there…and I..and pretty much everybody I know couldn’t wait for it to end or simply flicked the channel.
What I don’t understand is why we fail in the comedy department in this country…if you walk into any pub..cafe..bar social setting in this country..humor is everywhere..I think we’re a funny race of people but somehow this doesn’t translate to our TV’s screens. If you’re blaming the director for the shows weaknesses…you’ve obviously never worked on an Australian TV show or seen how they’re made…the Director is basically a hired gimp…and I think this is also we’re the problem lies..we need to look at the American model..Writer/Producers…and get rid of this dysfunctional system of a handful of Producers handing out advice on what works in a script…when in actual fact they haven’t a clue…if they did..this tosh wouldn’t get the greenlight…assessing Comedy and Drama, are two polar opposites. Very few know both and can assess them equally..so stop pretending and hire somebody who can.
User ID not verified.
Dolly the sheep dude, respect what you’re saying
give some other geezers a go. check it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYGFRtwiVpk
User ID not verified.