The pilot episode of a British sitcom about venture capital has gone out free on YouTube, and how it was made says as much about independent production budgets as it does about comedy. No Big Deal is billed as the world’s first sitcom written by a human and produced entirely using AI, and the episode is available here.
Its writer and creator, Andrew Dickinson, a former angel investor and investment manager, did not set out to work this way. The script existed long before the production method was settled.
“I originally planned to make the pilot through traditional television production, but it quickly became clear that the process would be slow and prohibitively expensive. When I met the team at ModeLabs, I realised AI offered an entirely new way to bring the project to life.”
A small project against a large cost base
Conventional television production carries crews, locations, studio time and scheduling, and for an independent project with no broadcaster attached those costs tend to decide what gets made at all. Dickinson took the pilot to ModeLabs.ai, a UK AI studio, instead.
That moved the work rather than removed it. The script was rewritten more than 65 times during production.
“Making the Pilot wasn’t simply a case of pressing a button. Every shot, camera movement, performance, line reading, location and visual detail had to be carefully planned, refined and recreated through an iterative creative process between the writing and production teams. Even while we were making it, the script was rewritten more than 65 times.”
The comedy is still the product
The setting is an investment firm called Janus, where the search for the next billion-pound business idea usually ends in disastrous results. Fart-proof underwear, clinical toilets and questionable items of sex furniture all get a hearing, and each promising investment ends in comic disaster.
Janus is staffed by Derek Tudor, a brilliant but unpredictable investor who cannot keep his thoughts to himself, and Lydia de Mabro, the firm’s de facto leader after its only successful investment earned her a board seat. Perry Kent, an experienced investment banker, treats the firm as a stepping stone to a US Green Card. The founder on the receiving end, John Stevens, means well but is spectacularly underqualified, and inherited the money that started his business.
Dickinson says the storylines are not inventions.
“I wrote No Big Deal during my time as an angel investor and investment manager. Every storyline began with a real incident that has been exaggerated and expanded for comic effect. I also wrote all of the original music used throughout the series, which was performed and recorded with the help of my good friend and outstanding musician Andy Pike.”
The studio expects an argument about tools
Dan Hawthorne of ModeLabs.ai drew a comparison with other production technology.
“Nobody questions whether the CGI in a Marvel film is ‘cheating’. People judge entertainment by how it makes them feel, not by the tools used to create it.”
The first episode of No Big Deal can be watched free on YouTube, here.
Anyone wanting to keep up with it can do so on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit.
