After the incredible experience of Tutto Bene! 1, my team reunited and the preproduction for seasons 2 and 3 started. In these seasons I was involved in almost every aspect: writing, directing, soundtrack and mixing. The great game-changer was the hiring of a producer, Giulia Milizia, who brilliantly organised our schedule in and out for every day of production, from the other side of the world.
Writing
Our brilliant authors Francesca (who interprets herself in the series) and Anna wrote a first draft of the plot, to contour the educational and grammatical elements that had to be present in each episode. Then, with the help of comedy writer Ray Matsen, Elio and I rewrote the entire season.This is my personal favourite season of the three: each episode is very characteristic and has a very definite arch. With the introduction of more “sophisticated” words (we could finally use phrases like “where are you going”, “what do you do” and similar), we could finally tell more compelling stories, relying less on slapstick and more on feelings.
Plot (yes, there is one!):
In this season, Sandro develops a crush on his housemate Anna, who is also starting to secretly see Antonello, Sandro’s bestie. Sandro, who is notoriously melancholic and self-effacing has an enlightening experience with a yogi master, who teaches him how to be confident and positive. This begins a new life for Sandro, but he also starts misinterpreting Anna’s messages and glances.
Once his friends organise a trip to the beautiful town Orta San Giulio, things don’t go as planned. Sandro thinks it will be the perfect moment to tell Anna about his love, but he finds the two friends kissing, leaving him desperate, running back home.
After a whole night wandering around Rome, he meets Chiara, but the encounter is interrupted by Sandro’s mum Giuseppina, who is trying to secretly match his son with someone through the app Soulmate. Sandro has a surprise lunch with this girl, which ends up terribly wrong when he sees Chiara passing by. That’s the beginning of a friendship (relationship?) between Chiara and Sandro, whom we find some time later walking at the market. Antonello, who is a YouTube chef, is also there to buy some ingredients for his famous melanzane alla parmigiana. Antonello cooking episode is a fiasco, and it ends with the passerby Marcello screaming “che buono” (so yummy).
As it often happens on the Internet, the cooking episode becomes famous because of Marcello, and Marcello turns into a very quirky rapper because of his new hit “melanzane alla parmigiana”. Here you can find the clip that made him famous. Everything is again disrupted by the appearance of Pietro, Sandro’s father.
From this series, we adopted a very absurd style, where silly unexplainable things happen. For example in episode 1 Antonello’s niece is so “pretty” that she looks exactly like Antonello, the Yoga master (by the way, that is me) can fly with the power of the mantra “forza e coraggio”, the little kid dressed as an old man (“il barbino”, a mix between the words barba + bambino) who likes to give directions to tourists, the crazy market vendor who speaks with his vegetables, etc. It was incredibly fun to write, and incredibly challenging, as we had to basically make up a whole story based on very strict dialogue, without the possibility to modify much at all of what was being said, in a process of “back-fitting” the script to the dialogue.
Production
The producer and I flew in Novara (IT) a week before starting shooting, to scout for locations, collect props and finalise things before we started.
We shot between Novara, Arezzo, Orta San Giulio and Rome. The Saturdays off were actually days when we had to relocate to another set, so in a month we never had a day of rest. The working hours were long, and although we made storyboards and shotlists in preproduction, time was never enough.
The fast pace and exhaustion made us loose an entire episode (sic!), number 4 of season 2: we had to reshoot it the last day, in another city and location, but in the end it was worth it, because the actors knew it so well that we had to do only two takes of the whole thing to wrap it up.
At the end, we shot 24 episodes (10 of season 2, 10 of season 3 and the first 4 episodes of the first season) in 20 days. It was incredibly fun and hard, but I was incredibly lucky to work with my crew and actors, and we became a big family, all living together on the set, either in the same hotel or the same BnB.
Post-production
Once we were back in Melbourne, the post-production begun. This time, I looked after some of the VFX, the music and the SFX. I don’t even remember how many times I had to pass through After Effects to fix something, so I won’t even bother. The coolest effects though were made by my dear friend and Freebooter Republic’s bass player James.
Music
For the second series I decided to opt for a more orchestral sound. As the episodes get bigger, so does the music. I decided to produce completely within a virtual orchestra, but also keeping the same instruments as the first series as extra (fiddle, clarinet, accordion). I learnt a lot by doing, and I am very happy with the result. We were publishing the episodes on a tight schedule, so I had only one week to write the music for an episode, mix it, and mix the whole episode.
Every episode has its own flavour. The main Tutto Bene Theme was reprised throughout the season, while the love theme between Antonello and Anna developed as their relationship progressed.
Because this series required more sound, and because I wanted more control, we built a studio in a disused classroom. After weeks studying the acoustics and room treatments I came up with the best possible design for the budget, which included several bass traps and custom made panels, to try to flatten the crazy response of the room. I have been producing and mixing in there since.