‘Love U Too’ is a sitcom that revolves around one big colourful family: grandma and grandpa, mum, dad and a stepdad, uncles, aunties, cousins and a dog. The series brings us heart-warming, recognizable and funny stories with, at the centre of it all, the story of Lou, a young girl with a passion for making TV programmes who has to divide her time between living with her mum and stepdad one week and her father the next.
The idea for the series was developed by Eyeworks and pitched during lockdown in Belgium, within three weeks of it starting. The entirely new and corona-proof production method makes this project extraordinary. The creators built their concept around a number of actors who were living together in various “social bubbles” (couples, friends or family) where the imposed social distance was not a hindrance. Preproduction, production and postproduction were organized in such a way that production could never be interrupted by a new lockdown or extreme measures.
All scenes were written to be filmed at home by the actors themselves. The whole preproduction was organized in such a way that actors would act as crew in their own home, with the directors present via a video link. So there was never ever any direct contact between cast and crew. With a strong team of technical people and producers, Eyeworks built a pipeline that would allow the directors to be in direct contact with the actors. The camera was operated by the actors themselves, based on the instructions of the director who could see the shot images via a streaming link that went directly to a server at Eyeworks. There, the image and sound were immediately checked by a technical coordinator, who prepared the material for the editor. This way of shooting had never been done before. The whole crew was on unknown territory and it was pioneering from beginning to end. The result is fantastic. However, this could only be achieved because how the production process was envisaged was already integrated in the concept and visual language of the series.
The concept is, of course, also suitable for shooting in a conventional way in a studio with a complete film crew.