“Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat” is unlike anything else on television this season. The Prime Video series alternates between scripted and unscripted comedy, creating an elaborate world of actors who immerse one unsuspecting documentary participant (Anthony Norman) in a fake company retreat that gets wildly out of hand.
The premise makes for one of the funniest shows on TV, but it’s a massive lift for the entire creative team. And the process of assembling it was a hot topic at IndieWire’s Craft Roundtables, which featured an appearance from editor Christian Hoffman.
While discussing his craft alongside a panel that also included editors from “Shrinking,” “Beef,” “John Candy: I Like Me,” “The Pitt,” and “Hacks,” Hoffman explained that certain storytelling principles remain constant across genres. Even a project as unorthodox as “Company Retreat” still sees itself as a riff on the classic Hero’s Journey format at the end of the day. All the manufactured chaos on the show has to be filtered through the one person the audience can actually relate to — the unsuspecting protagonist experiencing it alongside us.
“It’s the Hero’s Journey. He’s our hero, so the joke’s never on him, because that’s never funny, pulling a joke on a real guy,” Hoffman said of Norman. “Our lens is always through, ‘What is Anthony thinking? Where is he going? What’s his point of view?’ So what you’re always steering it back to is him. What is his journey, what is his feeling right now?”
This conversation is presented in partnership with Prime Video.
IndieWire’s TV Craft Roundtables is now streaming on @PBSSoCal and the PBS App as well as IndieWire.com and our social channels.
