Eight Episodes. No Crew.

When you don't have a crew, your routine is your crew.

Eight episodes of a superhero TV show. Over seven hundred visual effects shots. King Bach in the cast. Shot in the middle of a global pandemic, when nobody was allowed to leave their house, for about ten thousand dollars, with no crew.

My dad ran camera, and he didn't know anything about cameras. My wife Cher was the art director, and she's in the cast too. My kid was in it. And I was the lead actor, the co-director, the DP, the sound guy, and the props department for every single shot.

This is tier one of the constraint ladder, all the way at the bottom. Here's exactly how we made it.

The show

A global virus breaks out, and the most powerful superhero in the world, Paradyme, ends up quarantined at home. He's stuck doing his day job as a therapist, until a client figures out his secret identity. Soon he's giving therapy to every other superhero on the planet, because they're all stuck at home too.

I play Paradyme. I co-created the show with my partner Carl Reid, who wrote it, and we co-directed it together. The cast includes King Bach, Kaley McCormack, Nick Cardiff, Jared Winkler as my sidekick, and Cher as Paradyme's wife. All eight episodes are streaming on Tubi and Amazon.

What Grounded taught me

Lesson oneWrite for the walls you have

Before Carl wrote a single page, we agreed on one rule: everything has to be shootable inside a home. A living room, a kitchen, a home office, wherever the actor already lives. The constraint didn't just shape the production. It became the story. The thing stopping every other production that year was the premise of ours.

At tier one, you don't write the story and then figure out how to shoot it. You figure out what you can shoot, and then you write the story that lives there.

Lesson twoTeach your cast to be your crew

Most of our cast shot their scenes at home, on their own phones or cameras. So I wasn't just directing performances. I was teaching actors how to shoot: the right camera settings, how to light themselves, how to handle their audio. Sometimes we'd sit outside an actor's door and watch them perform so I could give notes in real time. Directing Jared, the best man at my wedding, from outside his door in the middle of a pandemic is one of the most fun experiences I've ever had making anything.

Lesson threeYour routine is your crew

We shot my scenes on a Blackmagic camera, mostly locked off on a tripod. The focus routine: Cher stood in my spot, I set the frame and pulled focus on her, then I walked around the camera and stepped into the shot. Every setup, every time. It worked almost every time. The one time it drifted was a ten-minute take in the superhero suit, and nobody caught it until it was over.

Build a checklist you run before every single take, no matter how tired you are. The one time you skip it is the one time it breaks.

Lesson fourNever compromise on sound

We recorded with a shotgun mic into a Zoom recorder. Nothing fancy, but I focused on it more than almost anything else on that set, and I talked every remote actor through their audio before they hit record. Bad picture with great sound feels like a choice. Great picture with bad sound feels like an amateur film. Our mixer was relatively happy with what we handed over, and on a $10K show recorded in living rooms, that's a win.

Lesson fiveAt tier one, you are the redundancy

I was the actor, co-director, DP, sound guy, VFX supervisor, editor, gaffer, and props department, while the real world was falling apart outside our front door. With no money, no help was coming. I pride myself on doing a lot of different jobs, but that one, even for me, was too much. Know that going in, plan for it, and protect the people around you, because they're carrying it too.

Lesson sixYour budget is people who believe in it

The reason this show exists is Mark Renton. He did all of our visual effects, over seven hundred shots, for deferred pay, and came on as an executive producer. It took about ten or eleven months after wrap to finish, mostly because of those effects, and every one was worth it.

At tier one, your budget isn't money. It's somebody with a real skill, some time, and a reason to say yes. Treat that deferment like it's real money, because to them, it is.

When it was done, we went direct through the aggregator Filmhub. Grounded premiered on Tubi, it's on Amazon, and a show made in our living rooms is still out there finding people today.

Make your list this week

1. Every room you can use. Write down every space you have access to, for free.
2. Every person who'd show up for you. And every skill they have, along with yours.
3. Every piece of gear you own. Even if it's just your phone.
4. Write something that lives inside that list. That list is your budget.

Questions, answered

Can you really make a TV show for $10,000?

Yes. Grounded is eight episodes with over 700 VFX shots, made for about $10,000. Almost every line was deferred, and the show was written to be shot inside homes.

How do you shoot a scene with no crew?

Lock the camera off, build a focus routine (someone stands in your spot while you pull focus, then you step in), and run the same checklist before every take.

What gear did Grounded use?

A Blackmagic camera on a tripod for Enrico's scenes, a shotgun mic into a Zoom recorder for sound, and the actors' own phones or cameras for remote scenes.

Where can I watch Grounded?

All eight episodes stream on Tubi and Amazon. It was distributed through the aggregator Filmhub.