Last Man Standing is a tv show staring Tim Allen that is on ABC Friday nights. If you are not watching it you really should be. Very funny show. One of my favorites. I had a trip to LA planned and decided to take in the filming of a couple tv shows while here. Many shows are filmed in front of a live audience. Mostly half hour sitcoms and talk shows. They need butts in the seats and the tickets are free. There are a few different websites designed to give away those free tickets to people they want to laugh themselves stupid and clap when they want you to. Luckily for me Last Man is very funny and we never needed prompting on when to laugh or clap. I have used www.tvtickets.com a couple times to get free tickets to shows. There are many shows on all the networks available.
I received my emailed pdf tickets and info a couple weeks ago. Last Man Standing starts filming at 6p. The tickets say to check in atleast an hour before. I found out the atleast should have been in all caps ATLEAST. Like many Delta flights they oversell the tickets and it's first come first serve. I got there at 445p with another couple from Orange County and all the tickets were already gone. We were the first three on the waiting list. Seems they had a large amount of VIP invited guests show up that were bumping some of us mere mortals. Luckily some of the VIP's did not show and I was in. First they put me in a bad seat in the far corner of the stadium seating of 220 seats. Then they realized I was THE Royce Brown from Atlanta and they moved me to the front row center. Or one of the VIPs didn't show and they had one empty seat they needed to fill. Whatever.
They make you leave your cell phone in the car or you can't get in. So I have no pictures. They are very strict on this. The soundstage is very cool. About a hundred yards long with five or six different sets that looked like different places you see. One for the kitchen area, one for the living room, one for the outdoor store, ect. No seat can see all the filming areas so there are tvs overhead so you can see the filming as it happens.
They have a warm up comic that keeps the crowd loose and laughing before the show and during the lulls when they are setting up the next camera shot. He introduced the cast one by one at the start. Tim Allen took the mic and welcomed everyone. What was surprising to me is they have what looked like forty writers for the show. Tim made a joke that they were all depressed from the last elections were the Republicans won many. He said the only people depressed were the liberals and since this was LA that meant almost everyone but him. He was funny and came across as a likable nice guy.
I was surprised the taping for a thirty minute show took just over three hours to film. They do most every scene twice. Sometimes tweaking the lines a bit from take to take to see which goes better. Of course the funniest parts are when they mess up on their lines. Tim would mess with the other actors to cause them to mess up. What I found interesting was the behind the scenes. The actors when they were not in the shot were often sitting on one of the other sets texting on their iPhones or talking quietly among themselves.
After the show some of the actors came out the same exit we were. We were able to say hello and give a high five. I'm sure that was the highlight of their day. : > This was a fun experience that I'd definitely do again.
Going to see the Craig Ferguson show tomorrow!
