Flat3 TV Series

Flat3 is a web series created by and starring JJ Fong, Perlina Lau and Ally Xue, with co-creator Roseanne Liang serving as writer and director. Inspired by the real-life casting room frustrations of Fong, Lau and Xue, the series achieved global popularity before spawning three follow-up series, Friday Night Bites (2016–18), Unboxed (2017) and Creamerie (2021–23).

Flat3 was developed as a vehicle for Fong, Lau and Xue to star in and, contrary to their experience as auditioning actors, dictate creatively. “They’re three very different Asian women, but often they’re lumped together,” Liang recalled of their situation in a 2021 interview. “They came to me because I was a writer and they said, ‘Can you write a show that we devise so we can kind of control our narrative a little bit more as practitioners, as storytellers?’”

The three actors met on a theatre show, The Secret of Dongting Lake, and became friends before approaching Liang, describing their collaboration as “taking matters into our hands” after being “weirded out in the audition rooms of Auckland”:

In the audition room, we’d get a little insight into how the majority of screenwriters viewed people of our ilk. We were asked politely to dress like prostitutes, act more inscrutable, pretend we knew how to speak six languages. It was strange, fulfilling someone else’s reflection of yourself. But a job’s a job, and we did it to the best of our abilities.

Fong, Lau, Liang and Xue devised the story of three 20-something Chinese New Zealand flatmates living in Auckland who, over the course of 19 episodes (ranging from seven to 16 minutes in length), explore their friendship, career choices, relationships and sex lives. Publicity for the series pitched it as “a lo-fi local take on comedies like Sex and the City and HBO’s Girls – a hilarious snapshot of life as a girl, as a young person, and as an Asian in cosmopolitan NZ.”

While Flat3 incorporates screen industry anecdotes similar to those satirised in Take 3 alongside behind-the-scenes storylines featuring film and television personalities – and touches on Asian stereotypes in both settings – the creators set out to produce a relatable comedy based on everyday encounters. “We wanted to make something that was funny, not necessarily reliant on the ‘Asian-ness’ of our characters but something that people could relate to no matter where they were from,” Liang stated between the making of seasons one and two. “We wanted to have the importance on being funny rather than on being Asian.”

The first six episodes, released between February and March 2013, were self-financed by Fong, Lau, Liang and Xue for only $1,000. Praise included the NZ Listener calling it “funny, warm and weird” and The Big Idea singling out its use of “cliché and stereotypes, of all kinds, to build depth into every webisode.” Based on initial popularity, the creators were able to crowdfund nearly $10,000 for a second season of six episodes, which were completed in October of the same year. A third and final season was funded by NZ On Air, increasing the budget to $100,000 for seven episodes. “It sounds like a fortune, compared to what we had before,” said Liang in an interview following the season’s launch in September 2014. “But it’s about one-fifth what would be spent on an hour of scripted television.”

All episodes were made available for free on YouTube and Vimeo.

Watch Flat3

Flat3 Productions

Flat3 at NZ On Screen

‘Flat3: Web series success for comedy trio’ — NZ Herald

2014, 2015 — Raindance Web Fest, UK

2014 — Melbourne Web Series Festival

2014 — New York City Web Fest