Samurai meets Top Knot Detective

SBS recently released the fifth pilot as part of its Comedy Runway initiative, developing Australia’s next generation of comedy talent.

12 finalists have each received $20,000 to create a five minute web pilot, with at least one pilot planned to be produced as a five episode web series.

The fifth pilot Top Knot Detective is described as a Japanese detective series from the 1990s, created by a failed celebrity. It is the work of Perth-based Writer / Director team Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce, and Producer Lauren Brunswick.

It tells the story of Sheimasu Tantei, ‘an Edo era police officer turned ronin/private detective on a never-ending road to vengeance after being framed for the murder of his Master. Along the way he would fight ninjas, samurai, yakuza and aliens, monsters, more ninjas, demons, robots, time traveling baseball players and the occasional go-go dancer.’

Director Aaron McCann said: “We’re excited and thrilled to finally get Top Knot Detective out of our heads, on to paper, into a budget spreadsheet, through the camera lenses, back into a non-linear editing system, transferred to VHS, then redubbed again onto VHS to destroy the quality, captured back into the computer and then streamed via the magical wonders of the internet right into your homes and onto your mobile devices.

“We really couldn’t have done it without the creative freedom that SBS entrusted upon us and the trust they had in us to create something as wild and as crazy as this.”

You can check it out at  SBS Comedy.