A Single Scene Drained $250,000 From The Office's Budget
At the time season 5 of the Office was filmed, the average budget per episode for a popular TV sitcom was in the region of $250,000 to $400,000.
And yet, one moment in "Weight Loss", the first episode of the new season of The Office that aired in 2005, cost $250,000!
Ok, so it was an iconic scene – but still, that's one hell of a spend on a single moment in the show.
The staggering cost was revealed by Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly) and Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin) on the Office Ladies podcast.
The scene, of course, was the proposal. Set in a humble gas station and lasting just 52 seconds, it might seem strange that this one scene cost so much money. But the truth is, it wasn't set in a gas station at all – and it wasn't raining.
In fact, the production crew used Google Earth to identify the right gas station aesthetic. Having gone in at Street View, they then painstakingly recreated the scene in a Best Buy parking lot.
And for added effect, they hired huge machines that were used to add the obligatory rain that so often accompanies the inevitable climax to an on-screen romance.
Spiderman, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Enchanted have all deployed this technique on the big screen – not to mention the OG, Singin' in the Rain.
And given the way in which Jim and Pam's romance had developed, this trope seems perfectly apt – even with it putting such a huge dent in the budget.
Aside from recreating the actual setting in such accurate detail, the producers also paid attention to the rest of the action in the scene.
It was important to them that the proposal should play out against the backdrop of the world just continuing around the pair in its usual mundane way.
Behind them, there are people milling about in the store. While in the foreground of the shot, traffic passes by in both directions. To do so, 35 precision drivers were brought in to ensure the flow of traffic was exactly what the shot required.
These details helped ground the moment in reality. Everybody could recognise this typical everyday scene. And there in the middle of it, a life-changing moment was happening to two popular characters in a show that was itself grounded in normality.
It was so recognisable that nobody could have guessed that so much thought – and cash – had been invested in it. But that's the genius of great TV.