The most popular show on BYUtv, Studio C, had their first ever live broadcast on Friday, June 19. The broadcast featured two hilarious sketches along with some behind the scenes look at the making of Studio C (Click here to watch the taping: https://goo.gl/EkTkKg). The broadcast received over 100,000 hits on YouTube and was also trending on several social media sites.
No Fan Left Behind Act
Studio C has quickly become one of the most watched shows on BYUtv with over 174 million views on YouTube. Obtaining tickets to a live taping of Studio C is next to impossible with an audience rejection rate of 93%, and the cast wanted to find a way to give back to the fans. The idea to do a live broadcast was born, and it quickly turned into a reality.
The members of Studio C have a wide audience that spans across the globe. In order to thank the fans for helping them get to where they are today, Studio C created a way for fans to feel as if they were a part of the audience. Fans were encouraged to go online to watchstudioc.com in order to stream the episode live.
Fans responded in an extremely positive way. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe tuned in live to watch the event, with more watching after the show aired. Not only did thousands of people watch, but thousands of people, on every social media site, were offering their support and love to the cast for doing what they do best.
#StudioCLive
The show kicked off with Stacey Harker, a writer and actor for Studio C, giving a backstage tour of the studio and encouraging fans to send in their questions for Studio C members for a Q&A session at the end of the show. Stacey introduced each member of the crew—from makeup, hair, and costume to cameramen, lighting technicians, and set designers, giving the audience a taste of not only how much work goes into the making of Studio C, but how much the cast and crew are like a family.
Studio C then presented two hilarious sketches: one featuring several different bearded pirates and the other a pair of surgeons working on an injured magician. Both the live and internet audience responded with enthusiasm and delight to the sketches. In order to make the internet audience feel like they were part of the show, Stacy led the cameraman to one of the seats in the audience and the sketches were captured right from the audience.
Once the pirate sketch had finished, Studio C cast member Natalie Madsen went into the audience and asked audience members to be in an Instagram picture that she could post online with the hashtag Studio C Live in order to continue to spread the word about the online broadcast and to keep fans asking questions for the other members of Studio C.
Producer Jared Shores was then given some time to show what live audience members see when the crew is changing the set. Jared showed all the work that goes into making the sketches look good, praising each member of the crew for being able to create the worlds that they do. Audience members quickly responded with comments on how much they loved being able to see the work that goes into creating Studio C.
Studio C Gives Back
While the crew were continuing to change the set, Stacey Harkey, Jeremy Warner, and Adam Berg did an advice segment titled the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly advice based off of questions from the audience. Every audience member was eager to have a question answered with Studio C social media sites blowing up with questions for the three actors. Their advice was humorous, yet each actor encourage people to be themselves, have fun, and to laugh.
Before going into the next sketch, Stacey led the camera into the audience where he greeted Sturt Edge, another BYU student who has made several humorous YouTube videos, and Steven Sharp Nielson, the cello player for the Piano Guys, and got their opinion on the previous sketch. Stacey continued to keep the audience involved, asking internet viewers to comment on who their favorite bearded pirate was and asked people to continue to tweet, Facebook, and Instagram their experience with their live broadcast.
Stacey then introduced the next sketch, which featured two surgeons attempting to operate on a magician who continuously pulled tricks on the surgeon’s even while unconscious, which produced an even bigger response from the audience than the previous sketch.
Behind the Scenes of Studio C
Once the sketch was finished, Matt Meese, one of the creators of Studio C, took the cameraman backstage to answer more questions that were flooding in from fans online. Matt took the audience around to some of the cast members who were getting ready backstage and got their responses to random questions from social media sites.
The audience members were able to see the relationships between the actors, the actor’s different personalities, how they come with sketches, and some of the crazy responses that they’ve gotten from fans when they’re not filming. Comments from the internet audience were shown on the screen, each portraying enthusiasm for the broadcast and how much they love the actors.
A Thank-You from Studio C
The show was then wrapped up with Stacey announcing the winners of a skype session with the Studio C cast and a lucky fan who won airfare and tickets to the last season six taping of Studio C.
Matt Meese then thanked fans for supporting the show and for being a part of the Studio C family. He also encouraged fans to continue to spread the word about Studio C stating that clean family friendly comedy is back and that its home is Studio C.
James Perry, another Studio C actor, when asked about how the Studio C taping went, stated that “The taping went really well and we had a lot of fun with it. We had a lot of interaction with fans on YouTube and the numbers exceeded what our expectations were.” A few days following the live broadcast, Studio C announced that they had reached 400,000 subscribers on YouTube, something that they attribute to the live taping.
When asked if Studio C would ever do another online taping, James stated that: “with the success of the live show, we might try to do it again, but it will definitely go better in the future because we’ve gotten so much feedback from fans and we will definitely hone in on the things that the fans like and what might have gone smoother.” The actors also had a lot of fun doing the live taping. James stated: “It was really fun to interact with audience in a non-scripted way and it was fun to feel like there was a bigger, different show going on.”
With the increase of fans since their live taping, Studio C will continue to rise in popularity, bringing clean, family-friendly television to their viewers.
