On set for The Librarians

TV Tonight recently dropped by a location shoot for Season 3 of ABC’s comedy  The Librarians.

Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope are part of the growing band of Aussie performers-turned-production company in the world of television comedy.

But there are days when it’s much easier to wear one hat instead of two, as Hope explains.

“The hard part of wearing a producer’s hat is on a day like today. We’ve got here and after two and a half hours it’s raining and we’re supposed to be outside. So you’re wearing the dual hats where you think ‘Well I’ll just push it.’ But you know what it costs per fifteen minutes to keep the show going,” he says.

“As the Director, you need four more shots and as a producer, you think ‘Another fifteen minutes is going to cost X thousand dollars, so is it worth spending?’ And one part of my head thinks it’s always worth spending and another part of my head knows how much we’ve got.”

Today Hope is a director watching the weather patterns on a phone application, while Butler is rugged up against the elements in rehearsal for the next scene. At lunch, they can’t help but slip into Producer mode, consulted on invoices and making sure they have the best coffee delivery to keep the crew cheerful.

Television, like filmmaking, is very possibly the art of compromise.

“It’s because you can’t assemble sixty people, eighty people on a given day and go, ‘Okay let’s all try and arrive at the same story idea.’ It’s a miracle when anything gets made really, because to organise eighty people and get them on song, which is my job, often that gives us, compromises from lots of people,” he says.

“For us it’s to have the right amount of control. Not to let it get unhealthy, I guess. We write and produce and direct and Robyn’s in it, but you have to get let people feel ownership of what they’re doing. And if you do, I reckon you get the best out of them. So it’s trying to let people bring as much creatively as they can to the project.”

Season Three will include Tony Martin directing plus appearances from Victoria Eagger, Celia Pacquola and Angus Sampson.

“We’ll see Angus in episode one and he pretty much challenges Frances off the cuff and sets up a major storyline for the series and becomes the person that Frances has to battle. And he’s delicious in his characterisation as he always is. I could have just had the cans on and listen to that voice of Angus Sampson.”

All principal cast from Season Two are returning, although Josh Lawson, won’t reappear due to other filming commitments.

“We had his bum in Series Two and we thought we can’t show it again in Series Three. But all the ensemble cast are back. Bob Franklin has an extra job in this series too, doing a whole lot of online material.

“We’ve done lots of ‘Making Ofs’ and stuff on the DVD and things like that involve Robyn and myself and this time I thought we can’t just stare at the camera. We love Bob and we’ve been working with him for the last twelve years and we thought let’s ask him. We know he has a very particular take on things, so he’s been off making The Robert Franklin Show alongside The Librarians.”

The comedy also likes to give new talent a leg up.

“Robyn’s really good at scouring things like the Comedy Festival in Melbourne. She tries to go and see new or relatively new comics that have one or two shows before and they might not have the screen experience. And especially women, because she is very keen on finding who’s good,” says Hope.

“Robyn gets our casting person Alison Telford brings in thirty or forty people and just sees them all. Sometimes they’re not right for this show but now after a few years we kind of hide people away and that’s been a really nice thing. We keep a little top drawer for people that we find really interesting.”

The Librarians is expected later this year on ABC1.