Ocean Beach residents needed for filming of sitcom’s concert crowd 

OCEAN BEACH – The makers behind a new sitcom about an Ocean Beach band are holding a free concert at Winstons on Sept. 11. Locals are invited to fill out a cheering crowd in a few camera shots before being treated to a live performance. 

The original songs in the concert double as the soundtrack for the TV show “End of the 8,” a sitcom about life in Ocean Beach. 

The concert will kick off around 9:30 or 10 p.m., because members of Band of Gringos will be coming straight from another gig at Humphreys, in a classic band-trying-to-make-it scenario. 

“The goal is to get as many OBceans and legends that people know about around the town to be here for that night, to join the music and then to also be in that final frame where we can freeze frame and everybody and their uncle can look at it afterwards,” said show creator Daniel Dyer.

He envisions a “Where’s Waldo” moment of picking through the photo to find the characters of Ocean Beach. 

Show stars Kat Hall, Spence Noble and Jane Crispin (musician Crispy J), along with other musicians featured in the episode, will perform for a hometown audience as the fictional band End of the 8. Casting for the passion project pulled from friend groups. 

“We’re trying to basically cast that net of getting everyone that we know and we appreciate their work, and giving them a chance to act and do a little bit of a different thing,” Dyer said. “But everyone’s so multi-talented that they do that really well also.”

The concert crowd shots are the last things to be filmed for the pilot episode. 

“All our priorities are focused on right now is really just making this episode as funny, as awesome as possible and then releasing that screening,” Dyer said. 

Already, the volunteer cast and crew have filmed scenes at hot spots like Hodad’s, Humble Heart Thrift Shop, OB Beans, Raglan Public House and more. 

Life in OB inspired the show, from its weekly post-farmers market drum circle to first dates with crystal-wielding women cleaning meat chakras at OB Sushi. To the show creators, the people are the funniest part of the funky neighborhood. 

“They all land here at the end of the 8,” said John Christini, a co-creator for the sitcom, “Some people find a life, some people party and you’ve got everything in between.” 

Dyer describes the sitcom as a love letter to Ocean Beach with a satirical edge locals will appreciate. “We can make fun of ourselves and laugh at ourselves, just as much as like celebrate how we’re all so weird and out there and accepting of how we are just so bizarre, but beautifully,” he said. 

Clips from the sitcom show cast dryly poking fun at Ocean Beach’s hippie-centric culture. A surfer, played by David Pozay as himself, interrupts a hangout on the beach to demand late rent with the quip, “The waves are crashing harder than Kasey on my couch.”  

Once wrapped, the 25-minute pilot will be screened in the neighborhood. Dyer has ideas for a six or eight-episode season he will shop to production studios in Los Angeles if it takes off. 

Dyer looks forward to “getting to laugh at our community and also realize just how awesome it is.”