100% IMPROVISED — Because life doesn't come with a script . . .

In this smart new comedy, four best friends learn that life never goes according to plan. Tom, an out-of-work mechanic and hopeless romantic, had everything he needed, but never knew what he wanted. Now without a job, Tom is desperate for work, but also — for the first time in years — he’s learning to live his own life and pursue his own dreams. Roommate Alex was living off his parents' trust fund until the economy went bust. Now he's stuck on Tom's couch and might even have to find a job of his own. Together with friends John and Skip, these guys are always hatching new schemes — trying to get rich, get the girl, or just get by.

Completely improvised by our talented ensemble cast, Best Laid Plans is a new spin on the traditional sitcom. Our grounded approach creates totally relatable characters, while the unscripted comedy brings a witty and fresh brand of humor to the screen.

Best Laid Plans is conceived as a traditional half-hour sitcom. The series is 100% improvised with no scripts and minimal outlines. The ensemble cast and our directors spent close to six months in rehearsal in order to craft each character. Thanks to this process, the world of Best Laid Plans is richly developed and diversely populated.

A number of "test scenes" have been produced with the cast as a proof-of-concept. These test scenes were released online as a web series in August 2010 and we are now using the audience’s feedback to fine-tune and polish the series before shooting a 22-minute pilot and subsequent episodes.

Viewers of our test scenes have compared the series to Arrested Development, Friends, and The Big Bang Theory, but have emphasized how much better they connect with the "down-to-earth" characters of Best Laid Plans. This relatability is foundational to making our brand of comedy work. The humor inherent in improvised comedy relies less on the traditional setup-joke-punchline formula and instead capitalizes on those hilarious, unexpected, and often awkward moments of our lives — the kind that we cringe at when they’re happening, but laugh the hardest at when it’s all over. With this in mind, Best Laid Plans finds common ground with traditional sitcoms in its plot and set-up, but offers a very new and unique style of comedy rarely seen on television. The result is wholly original, while still feeling familiar, comfortable, and totally relatable.

With a completed pilot of Best Laid Plans, we plan to pursue all options — broadcast, cable, internet, network, and syndication. Once distribution venues are secured, and with the aid of investors, New Renaissance Pictures is prepared to produce an entire season of the series.

Ultimately, Best Laid Plans is envisioned as a multi-platform property, with content created for multiple distribution venues — for instance, we can produce four 22-minute episodes for television and that same content can be repurposed into a 90-minute feature film. We have employed this multi-platform strategy on our previous productions with great success.

Contact us to learn more about the Best Laid Plans TV series.

While Best Laid Plans was first envisioned and developed as a TV series, we've been able to bring this unscripted comedy to the web through a new series on WebSerials.com. The web series showcases the amazing talents of our ensemble cast and introduces viewers to the world of Best Laid Plans.

The series premiered in August 2010 and has been incredibly well-received by viewers, who have found that our grounded, improvisational comedy makes the characters and events of the series totally relatable. With calls for more episodes, our production team is now planning a second batch of scenarios for 2011.

The web series also highlights some shifts in our web series philosophy. For the first time, we released all of the current videos at one time, rather than a traditional weekly release schedule. Having all of the videos available to viewers from day one led to a much higher audience retention rate from video to video. The sitcom format also frees us from the serialized approach we implemented on past series. This allows viewers to watch the videos in any order and makes it much easier to promote various scenarios, apart from the overall chronology of the series.

With new content we also plan to flesh out the world, not just by telling future stories, but also by producing earlier scenarios that set-up the events of the series and by exploring the lives of some of the supporting characters in the Best Laid Plans world. Thanks to the web, all of these new scenarios can be clearly presented to the audience in a variety of fashions that highlight how each video is connected to others in the series. We hope to continue to explore the freedom that this provides us as storytellers in new media.

The web series can be viewed online at WebSerials.com.

Executive Producers Joshua Sikora Jesse GrothOlson Matthew Phillips Starring Jesse GrothOlson as Tom Joshua Adam Snyder as Alex Ben Seaward as Skip John Mellies as John Kate Hackett as Katie

Created by Joshua Sikora Jesse GrothOlson Web series also created by Chris Hartwell Kevin Christensen Anthony Parisi