"Let's hear it for the stars of Friends!" "Jennifer Aniston!" "Courteney Cox!" "We're on a new adventure, and it's very exciting." "Lisa Kudrow!" "We sort of built this family that just kept growing and growing and growing and it sort of culminated and grew into Friends." "Matt LeBlanc!" "A teenager came up to me and said, "You've gotta tell me what happens with Ross and Rachel. " And I said, "I don't even tell my children."" "Matthew Perry!" "David Schwimmer!" "It's the beginning of a new season for the hit television show Friends." "In little more than two weeks, the first episode will be filmed  in front of a live audience." "Over the next nine months  23 more will come together in rapid fashion." "A TV show is like a freight train." "Once it leaves the station  it gathers an unstoppable and relentless momentum." "First onboard for Friends are the writers." "In the first episode, maybe the first line you're playing catch-up but, you know, the second one, "I just gotta get it off my chest."" ""Not to me!" You know, I think you're definitely there." "This is the..." "Rachel's hotel room." "Remember in the cliffhanger last season how they..." " Her and Ross got drunk." "...got kind of drunk in here?" "Kind of?" "They were blasted." " Hello." " Hello." " Hello." " Hello." "The cliffhanger was a double cliffhanger." "This is it." "You sure you wanna do this?" "Monica and Chandler plan to get married." "Just before they walk into the chapel and are able to go through with it Ross and Rachel drunkenly stumble out of the chapel having just gotten married." " Whoa!" " Oh, my God!" "We, A, don't know what Monica and Chandler are gonna do and, B, we have no idea what the hell Ross and Rachel were thinking and what they're gonna do to get out of it, or if they wanna get out of it." "Adam Chase is an executive producer and one of the head writers on Friends." "He's written two drafts of the premiere episode  and how it works is the script gets thrown to the table  where the entire writing staff gives input and makes suggestions." "It's not about that." "What it's about is he really just does not want another divorce and I really think that confuses things." "You can fix it by, in that scene he says, "We'll get an annulment."" "And he goes, "Oh." She says, "Blah, blah, blah."" "And he says, "Well, it's still a failed marriage."" "She goes, "It's like it never happened." She sells it." "And he goes, "Okay."" "He reluctantly gets onboard." "Then you'll at least understand it, and it's not just odd." "This episode, the first episode of the season we've got the wedding chapel, Rachel's hotel room the coffee shop at Caesars with the buffet line." "We have an airplane." "We have Monica and Rachel's apartment." "John Shaffner, the art director, runs down the list of sets  in the season premiere for supervising producer Todd Stevens." "But it's all guesswork because the script is still a work in progress." "Like, if you leave really upbeat, "Bye, Rachel." "Bye." "Bye." "See you." "I didn't do it. " "What?" "I didn't do it."" "I think that's less funny." "I think it's funnier, not the way you..." " It's opposite." "It's opposite day." " No, I think it's funnier when it's got a kind of..." "When it's got a few-line buildup." "I'm sorry." "No, the acting, I loved." "It was vivid." "It was like:" ""Wow, where'd Shana go?" But..." "As Friends heads into another season  there's a lot riding on just how funny they can make it." "It's always one of the top- 10-rated shows on television  and NBC still relies upon Friends to kick off  its crucial Thursday-night block of Must See TV programming." "Must See TV Thursday in two weeks." "It sets off our Thursday night, and without it we would have a very difficult time keeping the numbers as high as they are." "It becomes an identity." "When people drive by Warner Bros and they see the Friends cast photo on that wall, for the studio it is:" ""Our studio produces Friends."" "And the financial rewards should be obvious." "Friends averages over 24 million viewers every week." "This makes it one of the crown jewels for Warner Bros. Studios." "They produce the show and sell it to NBC." " It's simple." " I think that's all you need." "I think Phoebe..." "After Phoebe's joke she can walk out, and they can all walk out after her." "At either end of the writers ' table sit Marta Kauffman and David Crane." "They created Friends, and together with their partner Kevin Bright..." "Big first show." "Big first show." "... they oversee one of television 's most successful production companies." "Besides Friends, Bright, Kauffman, Crane has two other shows in prime time." "Bright, Kauffman, Crane." "Jesse and Veronica's Closet." "Meet your new boss." " Hello." " Hello." "There you go." "We met in college, and so we've been writing for over 20 years together." "We did musicals in New York." "We wrote musicals." "In our late 20s we went, "Wow, we're not making any money," and so..." " Had a baby at this point." " We came up with ideas for shows and tried to sell them, and one of the first ones we sold was Dream On." "Dream On's success on cable opened the door to the networks." "NBC put Friends on the air in 1994  and Bright, Kauffman, Crane was off and running." "Kai Blomberg, Quent Schierenberg and Greg Bruza  make up the set-dressing department for Friends." "Their first order of business is to dress one of the three main sets on Friends:" "Monica and Rachel's apartment." "This means putting back every piece of furniture, decorative art, books  and the countless other items that turn a soundstage into a TV home." "This is Marjorie, our prop master." " But we like to call her a "prop diva."" " Prop divas." "First day back." "Coming into the prop room." "Let's see what it looks like after last season's close." "Yeah, that's pretty much what I remembered." "Props are what I do." "Props are anything an actor touches." "Anything they need to touch and handle is something that props handles." "On other kinds of shows, it would be guns." "A clipboard, a briefcase, a cup of..." "In this case, a cup of coffee." "Their food, their magazine." "Anything the actor touches she has to find and make it perfect for that character and for the scene." " Oh, Monica, it's so beautiful!" " I know!" "One episode, Monica had a dollhouse given to her by her great aunt." "It was a Victorian dollhouse, and Phoebe wanted to play with it." "But Phoebe wanted to bring absurd things into it, and Monica refused." "So check it out." "What's this?" "That's a dog." "Every house should have a dog." "Not one that can pee on the roof." "So Phoebe decided to make her own dollhouse out of shoeboxes." "Look, look!" "So that was a real fun one." "Of course, we had to make six." " So not only did we make..." " In, like, three days." "Yeah, yeah." "It was a short day." "We had the licorice room." "You can eat all the furniture." "Does anyone want to join me in the Aroma Room?" " All right." " I would." "We made six because, of course, they had to burn." "Fire!" "There's a fire!" "Fire!" "It was like the pièce de résistance of this department at one time." "All the pieces of Friends' signature set, Central Perk, have been found  and work continues on reassembling the world's most famous  make-believe coffeehouse." "Looks great." "Good job, Matty, Tommy, Ruben, Danny, Larry, Johnny." "You guys did a nice job." "Adult Model Building 101." "Let's go to lunch!" "Once Central Perk is back up, Greg, Kai and Quent  begin to choreograph the re-dressing of the set." " Why don't I make it straight through?" " I can see it." "To re-dress these sets, we have all these continuity photos to help us along the road." "We have, like, in this plexi counter we got all this coffee and tea product and you name it that we change every third, fourth episode, you know, to make it realistic because you can't have a stagnant shop where everything stays the same." "A new draft of episode one has come down from the writers ' room." "Some scenes have been written out and replaced with new ones." "This triggers a hasty conference held on a prop, a Caesars Palace blackjack table." " We can leave the wedding chapel as is." " Can we work on this to light now?" " It's not gonna move?" " They can, but it's a gamble." "Right here." " Thank you." " Watch your eyes." " Double on." " Raise it up." " Half-double on the bottom?" " Yes, sir." "I'm the gaffer." "I work with the director of photography to get the look of the show." "As you can see in the apartment, we have a week to get everything prepped and ready for the actors and everyone to come in." "The basic goal for the gaffers is to make sure  each part of the set is uniformly lit." "Once the cameras are rolling  there's no time to stop and light for each and every shot." " Josh, you gonna go with a diffuser?" " I was thinking about bottoming it too." " They did Joey and Chandler's." " Lf you eliminate Joey and Chandler's it won't matter because I'm gonna pull out two walls and then reset the back wall and just get it dressed so you can do both." " There's so much of the show after this." " How many scenes are in here?" " One elevator walk to the table, so..." " How many scenes do we have in here?" "One giant scene." "The difficulty is that when they originally walked out of last season everyone went on vacation thinking, "We'll come back and finish at Caesars." "Not New York." "We'll leave a lot of the sets up."" "So we left everything up." "As they sat around the table and thought about it, they got:" " "We only have a little story there." - "Get us back home."" ""There just isn't enough material." "They're done."" "After tonight, we basically run out..." "The crew runs out of stuff to do." "While the writers work the script and the art department tries to stay ahead  the boys from set dressing put a few more props in place  and unwind with their favorite pastime." "Yes!" "Got that one." "Okay, here we go, guys." "Welcome back." "It's the first production meeting of the season." "So here we go." "We have Kevin directing this week." "Yeah." "Okay." "Some people needed a little more vacation." "As an executive producer of Friends  the last thing Kevin Bright needs is more responsibility  but he will personally direct at least 10 episodes this coming season." "The enjoyment I get out of spending a week on that stage with that cast is really what makes it worthwhile with everything else I've got going on." "Okay, we're in the wedding chapel." "It's continuous from the last episode." "The meeting is the first time all the department heads  gather to prepare for episode one." "We're on six." "With show night only four days away  they flip through the latest script  discussing everything from wardrobe to props to makeup." "We're on 10. "Ross and Rachel come over to the table." "They no longer have ink on their faces."" "They no longer have the ink on their faces, except there's..." "Should you see a letter?" "He says, "You have writing on your head."" "So should there be an S that's not covered from the "Ross"?" "The idea is they've washed it so much that it's faded and now the makeup does work so that when he does do the makeup bit, it should cover it up." " Okay." " Depends on how I wanna play it." "The meeting finished, Kevin Bright takes a quick tour of the sets  to make sure everything is in place for the next day's rehearsal." "It should come from around this corner and just basically pull up right here." " It makes it feel..." " It's a fire thing." "This is the first time you've ever worked in five years." "How you doing?" "I've never seen you down here on the stage ever before." " This is great." "Matthew Perry." " Nice to meet you." " How are you?" " Didn't recognize you." "Who is this guy?" "After his summer hiatus, cast member Matthew Perry gets reacquainted  with his executive producer." "That's it." "That's all I have." "Stay on me, man." "I'm the actor." " Let him walk out." " Page one." "Let's make that cut, after Chandler's "Is everybody getting married?"" "The writers ' room is the usual hub of activity  as they continue to tighten the script." "Shoot anywhere." "Rehearsal begins as Kevin, cast and crew pick up the story  from the previous season 's cliffhanger." "So everybody here saw the last episode of last season, right?" " Just to make sure." " No." "Here we go." "And action." "Hello, Mrs. Ross." "Oh, well, hello, Mr. Rachel." "Oh, my God." "Oh, my God!" "Is everybody getting married?" " I don't know, but we were next." " The first couple of days of rehearsal it's really about the excitement of "Here's a new script."" "It has that atmosphere like kids in the playground together creating their own game." "It's this "What if we do this?" "Where should we start?"" " We could go back." " Yes." " But..." " Yes?" "Well, last night we let the dice decide." "Maybe we should let it up..." "Leave it up to fate again." "I love you." "Let me say that again." "But last night we let the dice decide." "We should leave it up to fate again." "I love you." "The writers watch, scripts in hand, hanging on every line of dialogue." "If a joke isn 't funny, they're looking at a long night of rewriting." "There are 12 of us because the way life works is you're not always on." "Today I might not be at my funniest, for whatever reason." "We know that there are, like, 150 people waiting for the new version of this that has to be at the stage at 8:30 in the morning." "Everybody thinks they can do it." "And I'm sure there are many people who can." "I think A, it's not as easy as it looks or we wouldn't be there till 5, 6 and 7 in the morning with 14 incredibly smart people." "It's not hard to be funny." "It's hard to be funny in a way that will translate to the show and can air on TV." "You don't have time to worry about not being funny." "You have to be." "Everything stays the same." "Go unpack." "Your clothes have been there for three days, and it's driving me crazy." "And I'm gonna sit down here and try to lower the volume of my voice!" "Television is a writers ' medium." "They get paid very handsomely to be smart and funny." "The hours are long, and the schedule, insane." "Some shows are out early." "I mean, it just depends on the nature of the beast." "But if it's a show like Friends, where you're here until 4 and 5 and 6 once you're pretty deep into the season and it's gotten harder, yeah, that's tougher." "Is that writing on your forehead?" "Thanks." "So you got married and became a woman all in one night?" "The compact thing gets in the way now." "Especially now." "It's so in the middle of something else that's so much more interesting, and we step out..." "We talked about that last night." "We can't just abandon the fact that they have magic marker on their face." "A continuity problem has come up." "The first episode picks up with Ross and Rachel waking up  in their Las Vegas hotel bed with writing on their faces." "Do you have any clothes on?" " Yes." " Really?" "No." "The debate is over whether the writing should be visible  when they come down for breakfast." "The question is, do they not have writing on their face?" "They washed it off after they woke up." " We've established rules." " We've said it's indelible." "I know, but then how did they cover it up and...?" " Because..." " But even stuff..." "When you write something on yourself the next day it's less." "That's what I was saying, if in this scene it's there, but it's fainter and then the next time we see them, it's a day later, and it's gone by then." "I would have it be very faint in the morning and you don't see it here." "This is so amazing." "I really thought I would have to talk you into this more." "Okay, now I'm scared because I don't actually think you're kidding." "Rehearsal is an important time for script supervisor Jolie Barnett." " Action." " We go through all the dialogue and just see what we need to do to change stuff." "We were long today." "I time the show." " They'll go in and trim." " Since yesterday, the script grew a lot." "We were nine minutes long today." "It's midnight, and after a long rewrite session  head writers Adam Chase and Greg Malins  take a few more minutes to proofread yet another pass on the script." "Tonight's rewrite was less about solving story problems than it was about finding seven pages to cut, which is hard on a script that works." "Today would be the first day of camera blocking for the 1999-2000 season." "It's the first day cameras are on the set." "Hey, what's happening, man?" "Sitcoms are shot using multiple cameras on every scene." "Friends uses four, and sometimes five, to film all the action." "I'm gonna come over to you." "Camera blocking is the process of, at any given part of the scene where are the cameras and what are they photographing?" "They're gonna be standing here, holding hands." "The elevator opens up, and you wanna see between them the priest standing here." "In order to keep camera dollies from crashing into each other  the camera assistant places numbered tape marks on the stage floor  which tell them where they need to be in every scene." "Stand-ins are used to mark where the actors will be." " I think it's funnier from here." " Me too." " I like that it happens in one shot." " I think they need to let go hands." " And you don't have to cut to do this." " They let go?" "Then they see the priest when they look at each other." " That's part of the..." " Okay." "I got you." "That's it." "We'll clean up tomorrow." "I think we're in okay shape." "Show day is finally here." "Four hours before filming begins, 500 fans line up for 300 seats  to watch the premiere episode of Friends come together." "We came all the way from Kentucky to see this." "My favorite character is Chandler." "I just wanna go see Rachel." "Christine for Miriam." "Please send me eight more ticket holders with the six production right away." "Come on." "You guys play the most important part." "The live studio audience." "We're gonna record your laughter." "Your laughter's gonna be heard all over the world." "A night of filming on this show is not just a filming." "It's almost like Club Friends." "It's really hard to describe." "There is certainly a pinch of Beatlemania in it." "The audience raises to their feet." "There is definitely excitement and energy, like a concert." "Yeah!" "Whoa, you are iconic." "This is intense." " Wow, all right, I'm excited now." " All right." "This is a show." "It's exciting." "People are screaming." "If everything goes smoothly, it will take about five hours  to film the 22 minutes of actual show time." "The cameras are rolled into position, and the first scene gets under way." "Scene apple, take one." "Four cameras." "Marker." "Each scene is shot a number of times  with a surprising amount of rewriting going on between takes." " "I can't believe they got married."" " I can't either." " I was holding you like this." " All right." "And action." " I can't believe they got married." " I didn't know they were dating again." "I don't think they're as much dating as they are drunk." ""I don't think they're as much dating as they are unbelievably drunk" or "very, very drunk." Something fun and emphatic there." ""I don't think they're as much dating as they are completely filled with alcohol."" "The first take of the wedding-chapel scene  fell a little flat on David Crane's ears." "As cameras reset, they quickly try and come up with something funnier." "Finally, they go to Matthew Perry." "You know what?" "Why don't we ask him?" "Because it's so, like, Matthew." ""I don't think they're as much dating as they are acting out a scene from Barfly."" ""As they are completely filled with alcohol."" ""As much dating as they are two bottles of vodka walking around in human form."" " Yes." "Seven minutes later, they're ready for take two." " Action." " I can't believe they got married." "I know." "I didn't even know they were dating again." "I don't think they're as much dating as they are two bottles of vodka walking around in human form." "The changing as we go is a really good testament to just how smart the executive producers are." "I've done shows in the past that had a tyrannical:" ""Don't touch the words." And it's not the way to do a show." "If a joke doesn't work, this group of smart people huddles and then they come out and tell you a joke." "The audience tells you what's working." "Things that crack us up, they sometimes don't get." "Sometimes they get the setup, and you don't need the joke." "I'm gonna jump in as they roll the dice, then I go back into the two?" "After they roll the dice, take a beat and then go back into the two." "The key in half-hour comedy, while there are things a director wants to bring to it it is a very short window of time to get everything done." "And so, yes, speed is a necessity." "Speed and a very good pair of shoes." "Action." "Let's get married, I guess." "On your "Let's just get married, I guess," can it be even more forced enthusiasm?" " It's not funny to play that bummed?" " Which?" " "Let's just get married, I guess." - "Married, I guess."" " It didn't feel funny." " Okay." " I think..." " Let's get married, I guess." " I can't believe I actually rolled an eight." " That was so unlikely." "Well, let's get married, I guess." "Moving on, guys." "We're in the cab." "The call to move on is the battle cry to prepare for the next scene." "As cameras travel across the stage, the writers continue to pitch new jokes." " I like it." " All right." "Anything else on 10?" "One little pitch on nine." "Yes?" ""It's a buffet." "It's in trouble."" " It's kind of funny." " I don't get it." " "It's in trouble."" " In trouble, like I'm gonna go eat it all." "How about "Here's where I win all my money back"?" "I like that." "Great." "After "It's a buffet," Joey says, "Here's where I win all my money back."" " Kevin, there's spot changes coming." " Good shit." " You guys ready?" " Good shit." "Where is the waitress?" "I'm starving." "It's a buffet, man." "Here's where I win all my money back." "Okay, now we're gonna reset." "The completion of this scene triggers a frenetic bout of activity." "The set dressers and grips tear out the Caesars Palace buffet  to make room for the next scene." "Oh, you gotta get more excited." "A set change can take as long as 20 minutes  but with warm-up comedian Jim Bentley to entertain them  the audience has no time to be bored." "No question about it." "There is nothing like a Friends audience." "They are just complete maniacs when it comes to Friends." "A sitcom is as close to live theater as television gets." "The actors play to the audience, and their feedback is crucial." " We play off the audience all the time." " Very important." "It's like a test to see if the material works if the jokes work, if the story tracks, if the audience is with..." "If we've given them enough exposition along with jokes." "We've done 120 of these things but our energy just elevates every time there's an audience." "I still get nervous before shows, and I think it's just generally..." "You know, it's like putting on a one-act play every week." " Marker." " This is insane." "What's the big deal?" "It's not like it's a real marriage." "What?" "If you marry in Vegas, you're only married in Vegas." "If you marry in Vegas, you're married everywhere." "Really?" "Yeah." "Oh, my God!" "Oh, well." " Cut." " Is it clear to them that she's talking about herself and not Ross and Rachel?" "The "Oh, my God" has to be bigger." "Okay." "Also..." "They laughed because they got it." " They laughed so hard on "Oh, my God."" " But they didn't laugh at "Oh, well."" "What if after "Oh, my God," laugh, laugh, "I have to make some calls."" "We're just not very bright, and smart people will get it." "Marta and David run a very democratic show." "There's a question as to whether the implications of a joke are understood." "So, what do they do?" "They put it to a vote." "If you wanna be sure, you ask them." " We can ask them." "All right." " Ask the audience." " Who did not get it?" " Who did not get the fact that Phoebe was married in Vegas?" " From that joke." " She says, "Oh, my God."" " That at some time in the past she was married in Las Vegas." " Yes." " They all got it?" " They got it." "Great." " I'm not lying." " Marker." "Ross, the bottom line here, we cannot stay married." " See, I don't know if that's true..." " But it is." "Okay, what we have here is a difference of opinion." " And when that happens in a marriage..." " Stop saying the word "marriage"!" "Now, Ross, listen." "If you do not get this annulment, I will." "Writer people." "Is there anything funnier than "Stop saying the word 'marriage'"?" ""We're in a drunken mistake"?" "That's funnier." "We're discussing "Stop saying the word 'marriage,' " which actually isn't funny." ""This crazy, drunken mistake."" ""This is the world's worst hangover."" " "This is the world's worst hangover."" " Yeah." "That's great." "And rolling." " When that happens in a marriage..." " Ross, come on!" "This is not a marriage!" "This is the world's worst hangover!" "It's like Mozart." "It just comes to you." "I'm not responsible to get..." "But actually, somebody else..." " It's just like Mozart." " Somebody else had the area, so usually..." "It was someone else's area, actually." "It's just molding it." "Someone, I don't remember who, had pitched something in the area of..." " Of drunkenness." "...drunkenness." " It's just molding it." " Then out of that somebody comes up with the right way to spin it." "But, yeah..." "When you finally..." "And you put it in and they love it and the audience goes crazy, you get applause on a joke..." " That's not a bad feeling." " Very good feeling." " Cut." " Cut!" "That's a wrap." "After 52 takes of 14 scenes and seven rewrites  the more than five miles of exposed film is rushed to the lab  where it will be developed overnight." "The 122nd episode of Friends is officially in the can." "Let's go, guys." "You got 23 more episodes to shoot." "What are you waiting for?" "The next key step in the making of Friends  takes place in Steve Prime's editing room." "This is a difference of opinion." "We run about 30,000 feet of film for all four cameras which is about 12 hours of footage for one half-hour show." "We then sync it up so that all four cameras will be played back on my machine simultaneously and starting on Monday morning, I start cutting the show together." "The hard part of editing is where you have problems and those are the ones where you do the most work." " When that happens in a marriage..." " Ross, come on!" "There's, of course, many different ways I could bring her up." "I could easily change it to this shot which I shied away from because she exited frame." "The impactful way is to be close." "TV is a close-up medium so I could go right from there, and then punch in for a close-up." "So this another option I could do." "Ross, come on!" "This is not a marriage!" "This is the world's worst hangover!" "Very fine way of cutting it." "I opted to just play it all in close-up." "Ross, come on!" "This is not a marriage!" "This is the world's worst hangover!" "Sometimes the audience responds too big." "If I went with the actual laugh..." " if you do not get this annulment, I will." "So that laugh is still going through her next line into his next reaction and that's..." "It's five, six seconds, and in TV land, that's an eternity." "Sometimes we have to put in a laughter that is shorter." "Sometimes we do it to get it over with quicker." "After three days of editing, Kevin Bright and Marta Kauffman  screen the first rough cut." " You fill some form out once in a while..." " ... instead of checking..." " I don't love that joke." " I feel like it's cheap." " Fine." " This doesn 't mean anything, does it?" " No." "Is it funnier to go to that wider shot sooner?" "I thought it was funnier as a reveal, but we'll try it." "Do we have one where she screams when she sees Joey and stays freaked?" "Look." "See, she seems to calm down after she screams." "She..." "And then she calms." "Or get out of it faster or something?" "Kevin now joins Steve to work on the changes." "When he's not on the stage directing an episode  Kevin can always be found in the edit room  where he sees every show through this painstaking phase of postproduction." "Okay." "Let's try this." "Cutting off of this shot in the same place that you did let's try him again..." " Okay." "...and then try coming back to this screen and then end over here with them turning around." "Here is how the scene was finally edited." "Morning." "After making the changes  the big challenge is getting the show down to exact length, 22 minutes." "Ross invited us to watch." "This show was three minutes and 40 seconds over." "That's a lot." "Absolutely." "Okay." "Deep cut." "Steve and I, in surgeon-like manner, cut out of the show but it gets to a point that you're left with the stuff that you really love so how do you keep it all in?" "It's taking us a while." "After editing, the show gets passed on to a number of technical experts  where every frame of film and every second of audio  is carefully examined and polished." "Here, the husband and wife team of Mike and Casey Crabtree add sound effects in a process known as foley." "We're foley artists, and foley was originated in the 1920s by a man named Jack Foley." "Awesome guy." "These are my shoes." "Everybody has their favorite shoe collection." "These are heels that make a very, very, very sharp sound and I use them for hooker heels." "And I even have Spice Girl shoes." "They're hard to walk in." "I'm going to do a scene on Friends now with Phoebe." "She's running." "She's going to go from a cement surface to a carpet surface." "You mirror what's on that screen." "You get into character." "You are that person." "Okay." "Pretty good sync." "I felt comfortable with that." "Come on, Pheebs, hurry!" "Okay!" "Okay!" "The essential tools of the foley artist?" "Props." "Every conceivable object to make sounds." "Okay, Tom." "Take two." "If we don't like it, we'll do it again and again and again until we like it." "It's our final call." "Okay, Tom." "We're gonna do it one more time." "You have to have real good sync." "Worked for me." "Let's listen to the sound." " Foley is really messy." " Yes, it is." " Merelyn." "Hi, honey." " Merelyn." "Music editor Merelyn Davis has come to meet with  associate producer Jamie O 'Connor and co-producer Wendy Knoller." "I do music editorial for television shows." "Specific niche, sitcoms." "They screen the show and determine where music is necessary." "Normal transition is fine." "We don't have to do anything." " Just trail over her?" " Yeah, trail over..." "Each show is not scored." "A bulk of music is given to the editors by the composer every year about four or five new batches a year and those are then, in the parlance of the industry, tracked." " The main title, and I think we're done." " We're done." " Not too bad." "Not too much stuff." " Fabulous." "Thank you." "The next day, in a storefront studio a few miles from the Warner Bros. Lot  Merelyn goes over several versions of composer Michael Skloff's music for the opening of scene one." "Boy, that's a great cue." " Can you shorten it..." " Yeah." "...a little to get the piano...?" "I'd like the piano..." " Move the piano up?" "...to happen while she's still asleep." " I can take out half that second phrase." " Whatever." "Here, we make sure that the music fits both the mood, the situation and fits physically which is really what music editing is." "I mean, editing is cutting to make fit." "It is really amazing how long it takes us to do a show with 20 cues, three seconds each." " Oh, that's great." " That's already cut down." "All right." "Well, that does that." "Yes." "In sitcoms, I mean, it's like boom, boom, boom every week." "And everybody is doing their job, and it all comes together at the mix." "At the mix, all the different sound elements  dialogue, laughs, effects, foley and music  are combined by engineers Charlie McDaniel and Kathy Oldham." "Their job is to set the proper levels for each track  and filter out unwanted noise and hiss." "Okay, there's one I missed." "A frequency that comes in on this edit, so it could have been a different shot." "Put some filters in here, try and knock some of this stuff out." "Kathy and I usually play "guess that frequency," and she's usually right." "Which elevator ding do you wanna use?" "We have two here." " Supposed to get married, there would be a clear-cut sign." " That one." " Okay." " Get married, there would be a clear-cut sign." "I actually think two is better." "I think one sounds like a hospital." "If we were supposed to get married, there would be a clear-cut sign." "We have four hours, or five hours, to complete a half-hour sitcom." "So we're kind of known as the triage of mixing in the half-hour sitcoms." "I don't get to do my 45-second dance." " We're doing 35 now, from now on." " I'm really bummed." " It's hilarious." "It's fast-paced." " We love the characters." "There's always, like, three different little dialogues going on at the same time." "And so it keeps you interested." "It's got a great wit." "When you have so many shows on TV now that are just full of junk and are just stupid and come along and go Friends has stayed over the past five years, and it's been great." "It reminds us of the way we act." "I think you had it." "I think you had..." " Cut." " Cut!" "Jennifer Aniston!" "Courteney Cox!" "Lisa Kudrow!" "I laugh every day." "My life is gonna be longer because of Friends." "Matt LeBlanc!" "Matthew Perry!" "David Schwimmer!" "I feel insanely lucky." "It's a staff that loves all these characters." "When I was home sick from school, I watched The Odd Couple." "When my kids or grandkids are home sick from school they're gonna watch Friends." "That is the coolest thing in the world to me." "It is one of the most fun jobs, I think, you can get paid for." "It's a rare situation where you go to work on a daily basis and actually look forward to seeing every person that works on the show." "To get something that is so creatively satisfying and such a wonderful relationship with the actors..." "Good show, Matt." "All of it came together, and the stars were all aligned." "And everything worked out." "I don't think it gets better than this experience has been."