My Experience Watching Big Bang Theory Get Filmed

During a trip to California in March of 2014, I was able to participate in a filming of "The Big Bang Theory". Yes it sounds awesome but it's really not all that it's cracked up to be. There's lots of waiting and waiting and oh yes, waiting!

It's pretty obvious that tickets to a filming of Big Bang Theory are in high demand because they're sold out within seconds of being released. So of course my family and I had to do stand by. What stand by means is you need to arrive to the correct gate of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California super early and hope that the people who have tickets and the people you arrived ahead of you don't take up all of the seating area for the audience.

My family and I arrived around noon that day, and there were already 15 people ahead of us in line out in the side parking lot that's beside the parking structure. Luckily there was a sandwich shop nearby so we were able to get something to eat, but we spent a lot of time waiting around. I had brought some books with me to keep me entertained. Around 4pm they moved us into the parking structure seating where we were divided by stand by tickets and priority tickets. They stamped our hands after seeing our IDs (you HAVE to have your ID or else you will not get in. My dad left his ID at our resort and he wasn't allowed to go in and had to wait for us to get out), gave us numbers and then we sat and waited some more. You're not allowed to bring cell phones in or cameras so we had to leave them in the car.

The first people to go across the street onto Warner Brothers property were the VIPS, and then in groups they allowed priority seating to go next. It wasn't until 5pm that they started taking stand by ticket holders in to be an audience member. My mom, brother and I were numbers 16, 17 and 18. Around 5:30pm they finally said we could get in. We were so excited and by this time it's dark and getting kind of cold. We were guided to the back of the lot and went through another set of security measures where we saw a whole crateful of cell phones that people had smuggled in. I shook my head.

Once we were seated I counted 10 more people who waited stand by that also got in to watch the filming. There were at least 25 people who didn't make it into the filming after standing in line and waiting for so long.

Now after waiting all of this time you'd think it would be worth it. You're tired and if you don't get a good seat, well you may not have a good time. My mom, brother and I were put in the far left seating at the top up against the railing and our best view would be to see Penny's apartment, but with our luck no scenes were going to be filmed in there for this episode and Penny's apartment served as a storage unit for props and such.

Warner Brothers has hired this guy to be the entertainment in between filmings and to get our energy up. Well cheering and clapping nonstop from 6pm to 10pm is very exhausting and I wanted to punch that guy in the face by the end of it. He of course gets the best view and randomly throws out candy and completely ignored our section when it came to giving out prizes.

Since you're there till filming is done, which sometimes goes till 11pm (ours was 10pm), they did feed us cold pizza and small bottles of water. It's not the best but it's something.

They start off with showing the episode previous to the one that's about to be filmed so you're able to follow along, it's usually the episode that's going to be aired that week. The filming itself was tedious. The first run through of the lines were fine and it was funny, but it was either the director we had or something else but they ran through lines so many times to get different camera angles, well it just wasn't funny anymore. It's one thing to redo lines because of a mistake, but to repeat lines because you refuse to use more than one camera to get the shot, well, let's just say when the episode aired I didn't laugh during it because I didn't think it was funny anymore.

Overall it was cool to be close to the actors who make one of my favorite shows. It wasn't the greatest of circumstances to be shoved into the corner and pretty much look at the tv screens they provide to watch the scenes get filmed. We did not get to meet the cast and they left as soon as they were done filming after they bowed out. But it's an experience you should be able to experience once in your life.