8 Reveals From Our 'Life of the Party' Set Visit8 of 8
Constant re-writing and multiple takes means the comedy comes together in the editing bay
With their improv backgrounds, Melissa and Ben rely on "alt lines" to hone their comedies. Essentially, the couple, along with Melissa's co-stars and cache of joke-writers, are constantly pitching new lines and jokes for each scene, that the actors then employ over a range of takes. Here's how Matt Walsh compared the style to the "Veep" set: In some ways we have more room here to improvise. I could be wrong but on 'Veep' because there are so many scenes and they overshoot every episode and there’s a much bigger cast – there’s probably like 20 regular characters coming in and out. I feel like the alt lines come in at the very last takes and there perhaps not as many, so in some ways this is a little looser. I think the production pace of 'Veep' is too ambitious. It always is. I think they built this (Life of the Party’s pace) to like fit the way the process works."
With their improv backgrounds, Melissa and Ben rely on "alt lines" to hone their comedies. Essentially, the couple, along with Melissa's co-stars and cache of joke-writers, are constantly pitching new lines and jokes for each scene, that the actors then employ over a range of takes. Here's how Matt Walsh compared the style to the "Veep" set: In some ways we have more room here to improvise. I could be wrong but on 'Veep' because there are so many scenes and they overshoot every episode and there’s a much bigger cast – there’s probably like 20 regular characters coming in and out. I feel like the alt lines come in at the very last takes and there perhaps not as many, so in some ways this is a little looser. I think the production pace of 'Veep' is too ambitious. It always is. I think they built this (Life of the Party’s pace) to like fit the way the process works."
PeopleMelissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone
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