AP Bio Creator Mike O’Brien Talks The Evolution Of Jack In Season 4 And More [Interview] – /FILM

I think one of my favorite things in the show comes from the reaction shots that you have from them when Jack is talking at the front of the classroom. Do you write those into the script? The cast is so big, I feel like you can't always get coverage of each of them reacting to whatever Jack is doing, but they all have such genuine reactions that are so funny. I was wondering how you pull that off in production.

It's a big discussion with each director, because I agree that a big, important part of the humor of the show is the look after the joke. We're always like any show, feeling like we're behind and racing. So there isn't a lot of picking up some reaction shots. What we'll do is each person, like a student, will have two lines in a big long classroom scene. At least once keep a camera on them all the way through the whole scene, even though they only have two lines. So you have Anthony at least just looking around, and you get a bunch of that.

Sometimes, if we're almost done with shooting in one direction towards the students, and if we have three cameras, I'll ask the director to just have the third camera just go around and get five seconds on everyone you can grab. So those ended up being like gold when you find them [in the editing room], because they aren't scripted, and I'm not even positive where we'll want them. It's in the edit that you realize this needs a little bit of a beat, or the editor found this great look from so-and-so, but it's never in the script, "Anthony rolls his eyes a little bit." That's all found in production in the edit. But they're so good at them that it really makes the show I think.

Yeah. Some of my biggest laughs have come from the reaction shots. They're hilarious.

Yeah. They're great.

Has the show gone in any directions that you didn't expect when you first conceived of it? I don't know necessarily how far you had planned out when the first season came along, but has it taken turns that you just leaned into? You're like, "Okay, yeah. Let's take this route now."

Definitely. Yeah. Speaking of the students, in my original concept of the show, it was supposed to be a high school show about the adults in a high school. None of those rols had shrunk, but the students have forced their way into almost equal weight as Helen and Durbin because they're so good. We have so much fun writing for them now. But I kind of pictured, there'd be a couple of students that speak, and that they'd say one or two jokes an episode, or not even jokes, they just say straight man lines to Jack. Then he'd go off on his missions and he'd talk to the other adults and all that.

To be honest, I think maybe I was worried about young actors pulling off comedy, and I've had tough experiences with that. These guys are just so good that it's grown to where we're like, "Guys, we don't have a Yuyao joke for this episode. And she's the 10th or 11th person to become a speaking member in the classroom, a former background actor. Now we're like, "We need a Yuyao joke this episode or the episode is just not complete." And if you told me that right after the pilot, that I'd be looking to serve around 10 or 11 students and making sure they all had a good two jokes every episode, it'd be crazy. But I'm really happy it's gone that way.

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AP Bio Creator Mike O'Brien Talks The Evolution Of Jack In Season 4 And More [Interview] - /FILM