tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12131981941607839332024-03-13T12:06:11.368+00:00Random jottings from a TV insiderTVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-55091207284853797502010-04-20T15:34:00.003+01:002010-04-20T16:09:06.118+01:00ExecutivesLong time since the last time I spleened my vent on telly and apologies, oh several of you interbloggeteers.<br /><br />I heard that thanks to the volcanic ash "chaos" telly giant RDF had to hire a fishing boat to retrieve twenty executives from the Mipcom TV festival in Cannes. I immediately pitched the format "How Sunk Is My Boat?" to every broadcaster, a reality format where the rabid execs are denied basic rights like Blackberry access and the repeated use of the word 'I', waiting to see which goes mad first and jumps overboard. Will it be Head of International Formats, or Head of Formats (International)?!?!? A must-miss series!!!<br /><br />Err.. where was I?<br /><br />Oh yes, well family was visiting and they had a look around the office where my company is currently housed. Best quote from sister-in-law: "God it's all so complicated - watching your shows... I just thought it'd be simple". My lightning sharp retort: "No, it's not the shows that are simple, it's me!". Much hilarity then ensued.<br /><br />One of the things they asked is about 'the executives', the mysterious people in the clouds who decide on whether we've done Proper Good or Pooey Bad. It's a common question - my role is usually as an exec producer, as I hire Proper Good people to make the show and they tell me to bugger off when I'm being Pooey Bad. As the MD of the company I obviously spend a lot of time doing the money side, contracts, thinking up ideas, trying to win commissions, managing the day-to-day stuff and that, so the current production is usually something I try and add to when I can and leave well alone when running nicely.<br /><br />It's interesting that in UK tv we tend to go up to exec producer and then kinda stop. OK, there are heads of this department and that one in big hundreds-strong indies, and the BBC has a byzantine structure all of its own, but the biggest credit you ever see on a show is exec producer. It's the top of the tree.<br /><br />And what is up there, in the clouds above the mere series, senior, associate, assistant and line producers down below...?<br /><br />In some bigger indies, in the olden days, the execs basically were charged to a show a few days a week for three reasons. Firstly, they'd helped think it up. Secondly, they were big mates - or business associates - with the onscreen talent. Or thirdly, they had a big fat wage and had to be paid somehow.<br /><br />Sometimes they'd do some work on the show, sometimes they hardly ever even watched it - all entirely random to most observers but dependent on their personality, workload or basic brass neck in doing bugger all and being paid £150K per annum for it. Don't get me wrong, some were stunningly bright and could solve what seemed like an impossible problem with a seemingly off-the-cuff remark. Others were better off confined to quarters as they either had no social skills and scared the shite out of the staff, or were the total opposite and would sit and chat away all day to everyone and nothing would get done at all.<br /><br />(One fearsome exec once barked to a Very Famous Bloke Out of EastEnders who'd come in randomly to see me with a programme idea: "You auditioned for (INSERT NAME OF BIGGEST SHOW WE MADE HERE), didn't you? You were the shittest presenter we've ever tried. And that's fuckin' saying something. HA!" and wandered off chuckling. Mr EastEnders sat open-mouthed. Luckily my co-producer - a very posh, well-spoken lady - said "what a c*nt" under her breath and we all howled)<br /><br />In smaller indies, people were put down as execs because they owned a bit of the company. What a combination - completely lacking in any creative skills (apart from cooking the books) and yet being present and throwing ideas in all the time. One genuinely suggested that we replaced the person playing the giant God-like head that appeared in our successful show with Stephen Hawking. That is, a dismembered head of a talking, emoting person was replaced by a man who can't move any of his features on his face. The only thing on screen was a non-moving face. I said we could cut out a photo and use that and got frowned at.<br /><br />In US companies people down on our credits as execs are all SVPs - senior vice presidents. Senior and vice must cancel each other out, surely? But if you just said president people would think you were Obama, I s'pose. That's why the big bosses are CEOs.<br /><br />Anyway, my own interpretation of being an exec is to try and make the people who work on the show feel happy. A bit royal visity sometimes ("what you doing today then, hmm?") but it jollies things along. And, let's be honest, there are much worse jobs in the world than jollying things along.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-89122613840548607512010-03-16T11:45:00.002+00:002010-03-16T12:21:19.157+00:00Development hell part iiOK, so thinking more about development stuff, as I posted yesterday, here are my completely-random-but-I'll-find-some-logic-in-'em list of how to think up a tv show. And I'll try to do one as a go - but a puposely rubbish one so you, dear reader, can't run off and make it.<br /><br />1 TITLE, TITLE, TITLE<br />As Location (x3) proves, title is crucial. [An aside: notice how it's just Relocation, Relocation not x3. Hmm. Discuss] A catchy title is everything or - more importantly nowadays - one that does as it says on the tin. The Boy With Two Heads, for example. Was Hitler Gay? (Answer: no, but it took 52 minutes to get there). <br /><br />So let's think up a title. How Big Is My Pan? Now the pan could be a toilet or a cooking implement, the show about kitchen inspectors, or eating too much, or giant speed-eating competitions or something. We don't care at this stage. <br /><br />2 WHERE & WHEN<br />No use thinking of a great factual series called The World's Dirtiest Perversions if the channel is looking for a 7pm slot. Or, equally, Sell My Shit From The Loft For Some Spurious Reason wouldn't work at 8pm - it's more a daytime show (which already exists, obviously)<br /><br />Channel is important too - Oops, My Fake Boobs Have Exploded! isn't really a BBC One show (although until recently BBC Three might've been the place). Equally ITV1 won't commission A History Of Bathmats, unless it was presented by Sir David Jason.<br /><br />I think How Big Is My Pan? (or HBIMP in tellyterms) is a crossover show, daytime or early peak, 3pm/7pm BBC Two / morning BBC One, daytime ITV 1, not C4, 8pm C5, any time on all the various satellite channels.<br /><br />3 WHO<br />Presenters are key to any show - although interestingly in daytime they're more interchangeable. Look at the various people who've presented Bargain Hunt, or the 152 property shows. Or, indeed, This Morning [another aside: they're spreading This Morning to seven days a week, with hour-long shows at noon on Sat and Sun... er, a show called This MORNING (clue) on in the afternoon: well done ITV!!!!)<br /><br />Finding a new factual presenter is the holy grail to a show like HBIMP? There was some bloke in the Guardian at the weekend who presents a series on eating loads of food in the States. We'll get him, or 'a British equivalent' (ie we'll go round the eating competitions - they do exist - and find someone who can be vaguely articulate as they stuff twelve Big Macs down their neck) But we'll need a non-speed eater too, a pair of presenters. Let's say Steve Jones. He's pretty and competent, looks nice, can read an autocue, has worked live, has lovely teeth, appeals to mums and teen girls, blokes and that, nice hair... note how appearance matters here, specially if the other guy is fat and/or lardy.<br /><br />4 WHAT IS THE BUDGET?<br />Until we know what we've got to spend, we can't decide on the format. No use having HBIMP? in a huge studio like The X Factor if we're on £25K an episode daytime money. <br /><br />5 WHAT'S IN THE SHOW?<br />Finally, format - content - the actual show. You need a structure, building to a climax at the end. If the show is an hour, the lots of recaps, as viewers apparently forget what they're watching and enjoy the same 'highlight' being show 4 times before we get to it at the end. Ahem. <br /><br />HBIMP? is a studio-based gameshow where people compete to cook vast amounts of food for the ENTIRE studio audience, so it shows the difference between making catering quantity portions to normal dinners. Why anyone would care about that, I have no clue, a format issue you could rightly point out... er... well, the audience are entirely owners of restaurants so they'd want to know. And us as viewers all go to restaurants, yeah?<br /><br />Hmm. Either that's actually a good format (and God knows, we need another foodie format on telly ahem) or it's even shitter than I originally envisaged.<br /><br />--<br />Obviously I've done this order to illustrate just why shows on telly might not have the best thought-out format. Some people - good ones - work out a format first then make it fit the first 4 points above. It might involve some shoehorning in, but if you've a strong format idea in the first place it's a help.<br /><br />Not to point any fingers but some formats are just shite on a stick. I mean, did no-one at the BBC ever really acknowledge that Bargain Hunt has the slight format flaw that people are buying at retail prices and selling at wholesale ones? Hence them hardly ever making money. You could argue it destroys the format - I wouldn't, as it just destroys the PRETEND climax. Like those people on Cash In The Attic, they don't need the money for that long-awaited holiday, they really don't, we know it. Or Time Team - "we've three days to excavate an entire site"... why is it just three days? If it's proper interesting real history, they should be able to get longer. Or turn up earlier.<br /><br />If you can write a show with a REAL climax, then you're better than most, I have to say. Even Grand Designs fails when the house isn't finished at the end - after all that we don't see the final result. It's like a porn movie where they are at it for 53 minutes then stop and have a chat about how incredible their climaxes would've been if they'd kept going.<br /><br />Now, where's Steve Jones' number? I can see the HBIMP? logo now, a giant pan.... obviously...TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-24676531581752383902010-03-09T13:34:00.002+00:002010-03-09T14:29:23.424+00:00Thinking up ideas for the televisionWorking in development is either the bestest telly job in the world or the worstest - and I should know, as at various points of my career I've thought both.<br /><br />My first few months as a 'development producer' were some of the best of my telly career. I got to watch telly as research. Then I had time to write up almost anything that came into my head. And I went to meetings with my three bosses where we talked about what each channel or com.ed. wanted, and I designed ideas around them. Or we went to pitch ideas and the com.ed. would steer us in a different direction, and I got to do that.<br /><br />I think the main reason I liked it was that I found it much easier than actually producing a real show. Everything was fictional, from the big-name presenter we assigned (probably not available), the set (it'd be tiny in real life) or location (nah, in a studio mate, on that budget), the contestants involved if it was a gameshow (pretend, usually named after my mates for ease of remembering who was who) to the staff who'd make it (allegedly).<br /><br />There was also the fact I'd got twenty-nine years of watching telly under my belt, and an entire three years of making it, and therefore I was full to bursting of new, original, unique ideas.<br /><br />Well, that's what I thought.<br /><br />Fast-forward a year, through coming up with hundreds of ideas across almost every genre. And a few commissions here and there - pilots, one-offs, even short series, so not a total flop. I got a dab hand at writing a treatment, organising the information in a way that caught the eye of a com.ed. and told them all they needed to know in as few words as possible<br /><br />And I cut out pictures from magazines to make the docs look pretty (before the interweb you see). Nice fonts. Careful layout. Glossy copying.<br /><br />I enjoyed the pitch meetings more than I'd ever expect, realising the com.eds were mere mortals like me - and, for the first time, thinking I could work for a broadcaster too. <br /><br />Being in with proper writers to talk about a drama. Or meeting legendary figures from TV like William G Stewart, to plan one of the first reality gameshows. Making a pilot with Leslie Ash and a sheep giving birth. Writing a sitcom script.<br /><br />It was a lot of fun.<br /><br />But it was also... well, I feel silly complaining, but it was relentless. When you're writing yet another daytime gameshow, or reformatting a factual entertainment show around two of the trendiest presenters of the moment, or trying to work out what new spin to put on pets (I had to do that five times - I believe one segment was called Pet Shop Toys... sigh)<br /><br />Eventually anyone simply runs out of steam, a mixture of "nah, that isn't original, I wrote something like that a month ago", or overloading with too much research TV and accidentally copying something, or one too many times sitting saying "this is a new spin on the dating show" to be told "oh, we've just commissioned a dating show" - it gets incredibly wearing.<br /><br />And anything and everything can be a TV show - well it seems that way, from an article in the Daily Mail to a throwaway title idea on a scrap of paper. <br /><br />I think I reached my nadir when I was writing a show about shopping for someone. It had been specifically requested anyway. I wrote a thing called Shopping Central, a vacuous bland show in a different shopping mall each week, with a 'compare 3p a tin Lidl baked beans to £5 a tin Harrods ones' and... urgh, the rest has faded from my memory.<br /><br />I was pasting John Leslie's head over a magazine pic of a man standing in front of a shopping mall, as - yes - he was our chosen big name presenter (ahem) when it occurred to me that sitting with a stick of Pritt, scalpel and John Leslie's dismembered head wasn't quite what I expected when being promoted to 'Head of Development' for a reasonably sized indie.<br /><br />That's when I applied for the job on the mad cable station where all the ideas had to be twisted and weirdo, not proper and normal, got it and just about saved my sanity.<br /><br />Nowadays I concentrate on other areas of telly but I still can turn out a shiny-floor Saturday night game show in a couple of hours, or a daytime relationship thing in an afternoon. I even quite enjoy it now, as it's not the be-all and end-all of my life.<br /><br />As for the quality of the ideas on telly, well.. they somehow seem more derivative than ever. How many ripoffs of Come Dine With Me is it possible to produce? Harry Hill has fun with the four or five he's covered so far (most of them on ITV channels). We're in dire need of a revolution in ideas, that hopefully the death of the property show will unleash. I think the last new set of interesting formats sprang from Faking It and Wife Swap (Secret Millionaire being the latest here, or Undercover Boss in the US). <br /><br />Me, I'm happy with Antiques Roadshow, The Soup, Glee and Archer. More on the latter soon...TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-2180395629762668372010-02-12T18:02:00.002+00:002010-02-12T18:29:59.367+00:00Worst pitch meetings everOK, just a quick post after laughingly talking through The Past with an old mate... I've been to some terrible pitch meetings, through no fault of my own usually (but not always). Here's the worst.<br /><br />This meeting was for interweb cartoons, raising money for a new business angle making cartoons online. And it was way back in 1999, the height of the first internet bubble. Some background: we'd done what seemed like hundreds of these meetings and were very bored with them, as everyone talked a good game but no money or commitment ever came out of the hours of presenting (and Powerpoint, and spreadsheets and forecasts and business plans etc etc)<br /><br />All these people wanted were stupid huge growth forecasts but always, ALWAYS in different areas we simply had no way of getting into. And almsot everyone we pitched to was a twunt - in Shoreditch, in lofts, stupid haircuts and silly shoes.<br /><br />So this meeting was the third of the day, at some Swedish 'incubator' company who started off new businesses. We'd had a few pints and decided to play a game to relieve the boredom, of trying to insert phrases into our various (well polished) speeches. I had to say 'owning the growth staircase'. My mate had to say 'sit dot com'. Our business blokey had to say 'brussel sprout'. And the senior guy who was helping us do all this had to say something even odder, like 'Heberekie's Puppoon' (a Japanese game on the PC Engine, Obscure Word Fans)<br /><br />Needless to say we were quite drunk. The winner got his drinks bought all night afterwards.<br /><br />We went into this triple height warehouse thing, and met three very nice Scandinavian men and sat in a semi-glazed cube in the centre of an open plan office. On two of the walls, the ceiling and the floor, there was bright green astroturf. We sat around the amusingly sixties-retro table and one of the nice men said, in his lilting Swedish accent, "you can see we're an incubator?". We went 'huh?'. He said "look, our walls are covered in grass, they're green, we're incubating you, yes?". <br /><br />This was apparently a joke.<br /><br />We went "huh?" again.<br /><br />My mate simply yelled "BRUSSEL SPROUT".<br /><br />They looked confused.<br /><br />A couple of our team started to argue it wasn't fair just to shout out the words, they had to be integrated.<br /><br />The Swedes looked on.<br /><br />I said to stop talking now, we need to get onto the business of owning the growth staircase in internet animation. Or cyboons, as we'd called them, CYBer cartOONS. <br /><br />They liked CYBOONS. But all these idiots did, so that wasn't a surprise.<br /><br />They then said the internet wasn't what they were focused on right now.<br /><br />We said 'huh?' again. My senior guy said "why are we here then?"<br /><br />And then the smallest little Swede said they wanted to know our mobile phone strategy.<br /><br />We said nothing.<br /><br />Remember, it's 1999. Phones had little monochrome screens. That one out of the Matrix was just out, which had that nasty WAP internet slow access stuff, but it was pathetic and useless. Even now, cartoons on mobiles aren't exactly mainstream, but back then it was plain odd to think about it.<br /><br />I started to waffle about, well, technology has to develop a little, that once colour screens came in we'd look at it, and-<br /><br />Then I simply gave up. Our senior guy said we didn't have a mobile strategy really, we wanted money to make cartoons for the internet, and if they weren't interested we could go to our next meeting at Hebereckie's Puppoon dot com.<br /><br />And off we went to the pub. I seem to remember buying the booze all night.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-66359530194299966862010-02-08T15:11:00.002+00:002010-02-08T15:35:49.607+00:00Comedy schmomedySo this weekend I had a quiet time and watched the telly a lot. Had a busy week and just fancied chilling out.<br /><br />So, in no order apart from how it plops into my brain:-<br /><br />DAYTIME DIGITAL DOOLALLY<br />Why do they show two eps of Top Gear at 9am ... then the SAME two eps at 2pm? Why not four different ones? What with Dave ja vu I seemed to be getting Anne Robinson driving the Reasonably Priced Car all Sunday. (PS: they all looked fifteen years' younger in those eps, even though it was only five years ago. Hammond looked like his kid son or something)<br /><br />Living has a +2 channel now, so I could watch the same (not that good) Xmas Will and Grace three times in three hours. Parapa-pa-pom.<br /><br />Oh, and it was v rainy and the dish was giving up, with picture pixellising, sound going and things freezing. All this is par for the course - apart from the fact ladies in bikinis were sort-of visible as the picture froze and broke up, as if a naughty porno show was breaking in, pirate TV stylee. Very odd. By the nighttime I'd lost 50% of the channels - and all the major/good ones - so I think our block dish is boogered.<br />--<br /><br />BOXSET-TASTIC<br />On Sky+ I watched 6 eps of 30 Rock and loved every minute of it. Made me think again about how dense a US sitcom is compared to a UK one. Well, it didn't, I was too busy laughing, I thought about it after trying to describe what happened in the ep to someone else and it taking around a third of the actual running time of the show. Try it with a British sitcom and it normally can be efficiently done in 2 mins.<br /><br />Anyway, each ep had some priceless moments. In one we saw the world as Tracey, Jack and Kenneth see it. Tracey saw everyone as him. Jack saw pricetags on everything (including $7 on Kenneth). And Kenneth say everyone else as a proper actual muppet, mainly singing songs. Bestest visual gag ever.<br /><br />Liz realised her gorgeous doctor BF (the one off of Mad Men) was "living in a bubble" as he was so gorgeous he never had to try to do anything properly. Just perfect all the way through.<br /><br />Jack and Liz saying it was the fiftieth episode, what a great time they'd had over the past three years, all the funny things that happened... then pausing... still waiting... thinking... and then the scene continued. Not funny written down but it was so obviously a lead-in for a montage of clips ... and then they didn't show any clips.<br /><br />This exchange from Liz and Jack, after Jack throws everyone out from his 50th birthday party as he realises he'll never be happy enough to vomit again (not explaining that, see the ep)<br /><br /> LIZ<br />(awkwardly, approaching Jack)<br />Oh, sorry Jack, do you want... er.. to hug or something?<br /><br /> JACK<br />(draining whiskey)<br />God no Lemon, this isn't the Italian Parliament.<br /><br />Liz acting in a 1980s ad for a chatline, all shoulderpads, too much lipstick (on her teeth too) and making 'sexy' faces. So funny it makes Jack vomit a bit...<br /><br />Comedy. GENIUS. Gold.<br />--<br /><br />DAVID DIMBLEBY ON A ROPE<br />I channel-hopped and there was the esteemed QT presenter hanging on a rope in front of an old picture. Surely there's no need for that? Isn't he 85 or something?<br />--<br /><br />HARRY HILL'S 'THE K FACTOR'<br />Surreal, wonderful, warm and stupid all at once, perfect British telly. As Paul Daniels - who came out of a plastic sheep's stomach of course - said incredulously, "You ARE watching ITV1"... no-one would've guessed from this show, I guarantee it.<br /><br />ToodlepipTVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-42407306871038901442010-02-02T17:46:00.004+00:002010-02-03T15:45:04.790+00:00Video games on telly[RE-EDIT as posted a bit incomplete]<br /><br />So as you know I've made about a gabillion shows about video games, all for 10p an episode... <br /><br />[ACTUAL FACTUAL MOMENT: researcher: 67 eps over 2 games series; producer 58 eps, 3 series - total 125 eps... not including developing an entire channel full of shows about games, some of which even existed]<br /><br />... and I met up with a guy I used to work with back in 1994, on one of these series...<br /><br />[ACT FACT: he was a researcher and played a newsreader in the show, and got genuine lessons in reading the news off of Crimewatch's Sue Cook. Didn't help him any as I made him not wear trousers for the series, the "hilarious" moment always being when he stood up from a desk and we saw his hairy knees]<br /><br />... and he said why isn't there a good TV show about video games on now. It's something I've talked about before on here but not for a bit. And I've pondered it a little and here are my thoughts.<br /><br />TV Bigwigs say that video games are best played not talked about, that it's not a subject for telly, more for the interweb... that the TV audience in general isn't interested in 'em.<br /><br />Twunty bollocks.<br /><br />If Top Gear can work about an even more obscure subject, why can't we have a telly show about video games on at, say, 8pm on a weeknight on BBC Three/Two/C4?<br /><br />[ACTUAL FACTUAL: I have pitched and sold several shows about games for this kind of slot, and know of many more that were piloted and never hit air - like mine]<br /><br />The answer is suprisingly simple. Top Gear has Clarkson and his producer Willman, and their alliance and passion made the show what it is now. A great TV show - if not quite as unmissable as it once was, in my humble view. <br /><br />Video games has never had someone like Clarkson. [PAUSE WHILST THERE'S A KERFUFFLE AMONGST SOME READERS] No, I mean it. Dominik Diamond was great on Gamesmaster, but blatantly not a games head in the way Clarkson is a petrol head. Dave Perry or Alex Verrey off of Games World, Aleks (now Dr) Krotoski off of Bits (and her nice if not particularly informative series on the interweb just started this week), Violet Berlin... none of them were really quite the unique talent that Clarkson is. And love him or hate him, he is great on camera.<br /><br />[ACTUAL FACTUAL: There are many top producers who worked in video games TV back then like Andy Willman off of Top Gear, most of which have left telly now. I wouldn't dare put myself forward as being as good as him, oh no, but ... er ... well ... yes]<br /><br />Now there is someone. Charlie Brooker. His Gameswipe show was fantastic, and he's superb on camera. And he bloody well knows about games. Imagine a Top Gear-style show presented by him and a couple of others, it'd be champion.<br /><br />[ACTUAL FACTUAL - is this annoying yet? - series 1 of Top Gear had that used car bloke on it, not James May. Watch repeats of early series and it was even more Clarkson's vehicle - hoho - and the other two weren't that good or important. They've grown, just as any half-decent presenters would on a great well-produced format]<br /><br />Maybe we revive the idea of a Gamesmaster-type figure - how about gadget guru and all-round techno fan Lord Stephen of Fry as a cartoon 3D head? Maybe not...<br /><br />It could be popular - Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car becomes Star Playing A Really Old Game (or something)... group tests of similar games... classics... news... I've even got some proper original ideas to cover games differently and make it look as vibrant and exciting as Top Gear but still not just be a 'Top Games'-style spinoff.<br /><br />Sadly, it probably ain't gonna happen. TV still thinks games = nerds / sad / interactive not sit-and-watch / ratings death. Mr Brooker has his own special bit of Endemol and (I think) is exclusive to them so they'd have to make the show, not me. Hence not posting the Brilliant Ideas here. <br /><br />[ACTUAL FACTUAL - bollocks, will write it up anyway. Wish me luck]TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-39119491346785096612010-01-18T13:10:00.004+00:002010-01-18T14:02:17.999+00:00Olden but goldenHappy New Year - sorry it's been a looooong time since I posted, but... er... um... well... no excuse really. I'd like to say I've been Bookfacing or Teetering but I haven't really.<br /><br />Anyhow, I was watching the Magic channel on Sky - by Magic, I don't mean a channel full of David Blaine suspended by his eyelashes above a pit of ravenous leopards, I mean Magic FM: The Easy Listening Radio Station: The TV Version of Aforementioned Thing*<br /><br />I know this makes me officially An Old Man but as I was off with a bad back, was grumpy, cold and dying for a cup of tea, then it does make me an old man. <br /><br />So Magic:TELRS:TTVOA was on and inbetween Curtis Stigers and Living in a Box there was 'One of Us is Lying', an Abba 'choon from the era where every song was about the various couples' marital angsts. And it took me back to a tv show I once worked on (yes, we're finally at the tv bit)<br /><br />It was when I was a development producer, if not quite the head honcho supremo I eventually came. The guy who ran development came up with the idea, and a jolly fine one it was too, original and quirky. And it also had the benefit of selling to C4 instantly, who commissioned some pilot filming and a script. They even stumped up to shoot the pilot on film not tape, which in those pre-digital days meant a lot of money. I went to the shoot and there were dolly grips, camera cranes, best boys and lots of other things that my five years in telly had never exposed me to before.<br /><br />The show was called 'One of Us is Lying', of course, and it built on a couple of other series my company had made. One was a teen problem page re-enactment series for the BBC, which did OK ratings-wise but wasn't that popular inside the Beeb for being a bit downmarket. They'd show teen issues (mainly sex) then have a discussion with Proper Adults after. The re-enactments were filmed on the cheap so it wasn't exactly dripping with production values. This show itself had come from a show from the dawn of C4 where stories were re-enacted with the simple question: True or False, which started off as a segment of ground-breaking Network 7 and was then spun off to a full series. I believe CBBC runs/ran a show called False or True which was very similar. Hey ho.<br /><br />Anyhow, this show told an adult personal dilemma from three different points of view. So, say, Charlie and his girlfriend Magenta are having problems as Magenta has been having an affair with Sebastian but Charlie doesn't know until he walks in on them. You'd see it from Charlie's shocked, offended point-of-view. Then you'd see Magenta's opinion - Charlie's been neglecting her, nasty to her, Sebastian came on to her etc. And finally Sebastian's point of view - Charlie's told him he wants to dump Magenta but is worried she'll go off the deep end, Sebastian has always fancied her etc**<br /><br />And only one of the stories is true, you have to work out which one. Like a whodunnit but without a dead body or a wise old lady asking pertinent questions.<br /><br />So there it is, all shot on lovely film by a director who is now a Very Big Movie Person... well, I think, the filming day I went to was ferociously hot and I had been roped in to play an extra in the background so I was more concerned about not sweating in the wrong way or standing on the wires. So I didn't chat to the director at all as he was on the crane thing. <br /><br />The pilot was just one of the stories as C4 had stumped up for a third of an ep. The other points of view were done as a voiceover on top of some stills, dulcet tones provided by Mr Development Head in his posh-but-camp teasing style. <br /><br />C4 loved it and said let's get some storylines and budget a series. Yays all round.<br /><br />Except...<br /><br />Well, there were a few issues. Issue number one was that Mr Development Head left the company literally days after the pilot was delivered. It was a very acrimonious split involving legal disputes over %ages of shows that had been developed during his tenure and lots of other things I overheard in the corridors but wasn't officially supposed to know.<br /><br />I was then made New Development Head, which I was delighted at... until issue two came along. I realised I'd get no more money (so was therefore a third of the price of my predecessor) and that the company's last commission was ending soon and boy did we need another one ASAP. Oh, and that our major client (not C4) was mightily pissed off as the boss had refused to make another series of the only hit show we produced as the money "was shit". <br /><br />My first task was to rewrite 'Lying' to remove any story or wording done by Previous Development Head, something I was ethically unhappy with but was told in no uncertain terms I had to do.<br /><br />Then I had to write some episodes.<br /><br />Which is where issue three bit me on the arse. It's actually almost impossible to write a threeway story that can appear to be true from three different angles, yet isn't... well, try it. The one with Charlie, Magenta and Sebastian doesn't really work. <br /><br />I took a week of working almost all hours to come up with a few stories but they weren't that good, so I went to see my boss and said I simply couldn't do it, feeling like a flop on my first assignment. She was uncharacteristically cheerful. "Ha!", she shouted, and sprinted out of her office down to the other side of the open-plan floor, to where her partner sat. It was always an odd sight, this six-foot high woman in heels and weirdo meeeeja clothes loping along like a cartoon character.<br /><br />They returned slowly, her partner being more, er, ample and short. I often thought they looked like the number 10 when walking together.<br /><br />They came in, shut the door and said they'd spent months trying to think up some stories themselves and failed, and they thought the only reason Mr Development Head had quit was because he'd sold an unmakeable show. Whether that was the case or not, I subsequently found out that the omens were hideous - C4 had backed away from a series when legal action was threatened by Mr Development Head, the director had quit before the final edit in a strop over something, the bills came in and the pilot was over budget by a factor of two... it was hideous.<br /><br />But, luckily, a stupid idea for a prime time show I'd written six months before had just been green-lit by the BBC, so none of this seemed to matter. It was huge and ambitious and fantastic, and as it was my idea they didn't have to pay me a %age or go to court so they jumped with joy.<br /><br />I was delighted too - I'd writ a show for the mainstream telly like! - slightly less delighted at their revelling in me not getting any money or 'owt.<br /><br />I then spent six long months piloting various parts of the show, watching all the good ideas drift away, the slot change, the format alter beyond all recognition.<br /><br />The show debuted in a shitty slot with a good-if-inappropriate presenter, seemingly tiny budget and did OK-ish. I watched that from afar as I left before it hit air.<br /><br />So the moral is... um... er... mmm... well, don't write a show you can't actually make. It's suprisingly easy - I almost did a few times but just about pulled it off in the end. <br /><br />--<br /><br />* Just thought, it's hard to refer to TV channels of radio stations... do people think you've been staring at a DAB box if you say 'I was watching Magic'. An actual MAGIC channel would probably do quite well. From Paul Daniels to Derren Brown via Ali Bongo. Izzy whizzy let's get busy!<br /><br />** The names of the characters in this pretend story are related to one of the tv shows mentioned within this blog. Can you guess which one? Ooh look, I'm being all interactive. Press your red button now!TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-15644301928705254362009-12-05T14:43:00.000+00:002009-12-05T14:43:47.892+00:00Comedy CapersOK, so the perceived wisdom is that the sitcom is kaput. Finished. Dying. Dead...<br />
<br />
Too costly to make, little chance of success, big risk when reality shit rates better and is much cheaper. <br />
<br />
Yeah?<br />
<br />
Er, well... no, not really. Let's ignore that new sitcom on BBC One about a circus. <PAUSE> What do you mean, you haven't heard of it? It's in that prestigious comedy slot, um... ah... 7:30pm on Wednesday. Up against Corrie or the Eurofooty, so plenty of viewers around wanting a nice, wholesome comedy show about clowns and that.<br />
<br />
Anyhoo, back to my thesis, the one not totally disproved by the paragraph above. There are some great sitcoms on the telly, some of them even British-made.<br />
<br />
Modern Family, screened here on Sky 1, is my favourite of the lot. Get episode one downloadifying or streamerized to your fridge, or wherever people watch tv nowadays (anywhere but on a telly). I'm sure the ABC1 trendy readers of this blog have <NOD, WINK> ways or means to see a show not currently on air. Although, bless Sky, they do repeat it on a loop so it'll be on at some point.<br />
<br />
It's one of the best first eps of any sitcom I've ever seen, seamlessly introducing every (well-drawn) character and actually having a surprise at the end. Try and see this before watching the others. Acting is superb, really superb performances throughout, and a great, proper funny script - it's superb. And it gets better - as sitcoms do, as you get to know the characters. The gay couple are the funniest twosome for a long time on telly. <br />
<br />
OK, so it's done psuedo-documentary style and there's no laugh track, but - hey, sue me - it's still funny ha-ha not funny cringe-no-don't-do-that-oh-that's-so-embarrassing.<br />
<br />
Its on ABC in the States and they've got a couple of other new sitcoms that are apparently really good (and a crap one with Her With The Squarest Head Off of Friends called Cougar Town about old ladies shagging young blokes - shudder). And on NBC, there's...<br />
<br />
30 Rock. Do I need to rave more about this? It can be patchy to be frank, but it never fails to amuse, even if it is just Fat Baldwin mugging away, or Campy Kenneth, or Liz Lemon's rubbishness. The great Elaine Stritch as Jack's mother was utterly superb. And it's about the telly, so how can it fail?<br />
<br />
Looking forward to seeing Community, the new sitcom with Joel McHale Off Of The Soup in it - the clips I've seen look very funny. And apparently Parks & Recreation, which started last year and almost got cancelled for shitness, has reinvented itself and is actually really funny. Thursday night on NBC in the US is back to their old slogan of must see tv, with Community, Parks & Recreation, 30 Rock and The Office in a row. <br />
<br />
(Small note - I'm the only person who works in tv who doesn't say how great the original Office series was. I'm sure a lot of other people, like me, didn't laugh, or got bored with the concept, but no-one admits it now. I just can't do cringey comedy - oddly I can do US stuff like that... I like the US version of The Office a lot. Oh well. End of note)<br />
<br />
And when it comes to UK comedy, there's Misfits, which everyone is raving about, even non-teens. That probably annoys E4 - if anyone over 25 likes it, they've failed or something. I will comment further when I've actually seen more than one ep. I quite liked it but sense it could build a bit, the high concept stuff normally takes a bit of time to get going.<br />
<br />
They're making more IT Crowd, aren't they, and that's even got a laugh track on it. Joy. The blank patch is actually the Beeb at the minute. Name their funny sitcoms. That one with Boycey in it, off of Only Fools? Er, no. My Family? Not my bag. That one on BBC Two about the thirtysomething woman going back to live with her parents? Um, didn't manage to see it - sounded a bit saddo to me. Gavin & Stacey? Passed me by, I'm afraid, I thought it was nice and pleasant and smiley and that, but didn't actually laugh once. And this was on a plane with shedloads of booze. I howled at some dreadful film with Him Off Of The American Office in it, the spy remakey one I can't even remember 'cos was that merry and happy. And then Gavin & Stacey came on, all working class and stuff, and I smiled at 32% or so of the level needed to produce a guffaw. <br />
<br />
Oh, and there was some sketch show on Beeb Three that was one of the oddest things I've ever seen. Several ugly middle-class middle-aged men running a council or something. They sang a song with the studio audience at the end, with a bouncing ball on the lyrics so we could sing along at home. As they say on t'internet WTF?!?!???!?!!1!!!!<br />
<br />
(Look at how lazy I am, not even putting a link in. Tsch. Sure it's on their website or sommit.)<br />
<br />
So with new eps of Family Guy and South Park on my iPhone (watch the one about The Smurfs, where Cartman becomes a right-wing school announcer/DJ, it's got one of the funniest topicalist punchlines ever), stacks of comedies on my Sky+, The Sitcom Is Back: It's Official.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-65602133945570411252009-11-17T14:41:00.000+00:002009-11-17T14:41:35.427+00:00Doctor WhoOk, so I'm two days later than everyone else with any interest in Dr Who, but in my defence I've been... er, well... my schedule is... um... ah, oh, arsebiscuits - here's my view on the latest Who:-<br />
<br />
<b>PLUSES</b><br />
<i>High definition</i> looking mighty fine - apart from the odd 'that looks pasted on' bit in some of the wider CG shots. Not helped by colour choices of, for example, the escape shuttle thing. From a distance it looked like it had a black outline, like the one off of Futurama.<br />
<br />
Still, the colours - often the thing I notice first between standard and high def - were stunning and (SADDO ALERT!) Mr Tennant's Hair was looking good down to the very last be-product-laden strand.<br />
<br />
<i>Music</i> - top notch, less syrupy and obvious than it has been.<br />
<br />
<i>Performances</i> - not a duff one in the lot, even The Aussie One With The Baggy Eyes What Was In Neighbours. Lindsay Duncan was superb as the control freak captain, and the others were somewhat more rounded than the usual cast; compare them to the cast in that bus in the desert one. Enough said. Baftas all round. Mr Tennant's Hair should, obviously, be nominated for an Oscar. The way it drooped in the snow at the end was as moving a performance as I've ever seen. I wept. "Oh the humanity", I cried, "get the man some Su-Su-Studio Line Rock Fix Gel immediately!"<br />
<br />
(Sorry)<br />
<br />
<i>Humour</i> - not as funny as some but some good lines. Bowie Base - brilliant. "Folding Bikes" - yes! The comedy robot (by the way - "gadgetgadget"... doesn't that sound a little like "bideebidee", the robot off of Buck Rogers In the 25th Century"?) "Name, Rank, Intention"... "Doctor... Doctor... er, fun?". Lovely lovely. <br />
<br />
<i>Monsters</i> - good ones, again much better than the last special. Nice prosthetics too.<br />
<br />
Now, he says clearing his throat...<br />
<br />
<b>MINUSES</b><br />
<i>Plot</i>. I don't expect Mr T Davies's's's stories to be watertight (oh punnity pun), even more so after reading how last minute he finishes them. But this one was a bit weak. Er, why surrender to "gagdetgadget" when a quick zzzap with the sonic would surely disable it? When he found out who everyone was and that he couldn't change things - why not save them all and put them on a distant planet somewhere they'd never be found? He mentioned that he's been in the "knowing this has to happen" situation before (Pompeii) but this one really moved him - why? The sudden change to Timelord Victorious - er, somewhat clumsy clunking of gears there, only made at all logical by Mr Tennant's superb performance.<br />
<br />
The bit with the Dalek sparing the young Captain - didn't work at all for me. Why would the Daleks want Earthlings to explore the galaxies? Surely that would peeve them somewhat? I suppose Russell T was slightly handicapped with what stories he could've used from the recent back catalogue to illustrate why Ickle Baby Captain was special, but still...<br />
<br />
Oh, and the end. Why didn't Old Lady Captain just run away, kill her two comrades then herself, so history wasn't altered - she seemed to think it mattered more than old Timelord Victorious about that but didn't try that hard. The change in the web pages was a bit weak too.<br />
<br />
OK, enough. It motored along and was fun and exciting and interesting, but - to be frank - it needed a further writing pass to tighten up and fill these holes. And add a bit more as...<br />
<br />
<i>Pacing</i> - it was slow. If it'd been standard length it probably would've been OK. The bit where Mr Tennant was stood at the door watching people run around with protein boxes - that seemed to last fifteen minutes alone. There was quite a lot of fat in it. Unlike Mr Tennant, looking even more rake-thin than usual.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
OK, I'll stop now. As far as a televisual experience goes, Dr Who still wipes the floor with every other British made drama currently on... or, indeed, on in the last ten years. And as a setup for the Christmas ep, it was marvellous. The Doctor going mad, knowing he's going to die, the Timelord Victorious stuff - that's all new and interesting. Trailing Bernard Cribbins... Catherine Tait... The Master as a Homeless: oh, joy! <br />
<br />
I just hope the end of the Christmas one is (temporarily) nice so I won't sit on Xmas Day being a bit frowny and worried. <br />
<br />
As for the final ep, I'm expecting everyone to come back, from Sarah Jane, K9, and Mickey to Rose, Martha, Cap'n Jack and all.<br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
(One footnote: not to be snide before the event, but I can't imagine The New Doctor Mr Smith giving a performance like Mr Tennant did in this ep. I suggest he needs EXTRAORDINARY hair to distract from the fact he's around nineteen and looks like he's been slapped in the face with a pan)TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-20781259753698495302009-11-11T17:09:00.002+00:002009-11-11T17:11:41.490+00:00July 17th was the last time I posted on here. Eek. Well, I have had the excuse of employing 30 new staff on a big new project. New offices. New equipment. New bosses. New everything.<br />
<br />
Apart from me.<br />
<br />
Can't say I can promise to keep this updated any more, but here are x number of random telly notes:-<br />
<br />
<b>1 FLASHFORWARD</b><br />
Am sort of loving it. Really enjoyable series, great premise, good actors, nicely paced, great effects. But. Butbutbutbutbutbut.<br />
<br />
Er, it's all going to go to shit, isn't it? Lost did, and so will this. A matter of time. It's already quite inconsistent - the end of ep 4 revealed The Blond Dead One Out of Lost and The Tall Deep Voiced One Out Of This Life 'caused' the flashforward. GASP! Then ep 5 didn't mention it and sent everyone to Washington DC. I thought I'd accidentally flashedforward a week and missed an ep out.<br />
<br />
(OK, I didn't, I thought I'd picked the next ep on my Sky+)<br />
<br />
And The One Who's Ralph Fiennes Brother - has he had loads of Botox around his mouth or something? He talks clenching his jaw throughout, even when being nice to his ickle baby child. It's irritating.<br />
<br />
I'll keep with it but I know, am just dreadfully certain, that it's going to have a hokey conclusion that will make me spit with fury at spending 22 hours of my life with pouty Joseph Fiennes and his mates.<br />
<br />
<b>2 ITV NEWS</b><br />
So you all know how much I like the news, or more specifically the titles of the news. And ITV News has redone theirs. I was slightly excited - mainly as ITV News is about as important to me as Supreme Master TV (Sky 835, or suprememastertv.com - and, no, it's not a spoof)<br />
<br />
It's OK, in a low-budget out-of-the-Nineties virtual-reality way. The titles do start and stop three or four times for some reason. And they could've got An Famous to do the voiceover, like they did for CBS News in the States when legendary anchor Walter Kronkite did the v/o announcing (shock, horror - a lady!) "This is the CBS News, with Katie Couric"). They got some PR for that.<br />
<br />
Why didn't they ask Sir Trevor MacDonald? Generic Voice Over Man may be more convenient and cheaper, I suppose, and that summarises TV generally nowadays, and ITV specifically.<br />
<br />
<b>3 X FACTAH</b><br />
I think Simon Cowell's saving of Jedward (God, I've typed that word, I want to kill myself.. quick, calm down, it's in the interests of TV, it's OK.. pant) will be the Jump The Shark moment for X Factor. I'm glad they've got rid of the voting to Sundays as I can watch the remaining monkeys sing on a Saturday, in what is a wonderfully produced and artfully contrived big variety show, without giving any consideration to all da kidz texting in. Of course I'm watching Antiques Roadshow in high def when the results thing is on. It'll just make me angry anyway.<br />
<br />
Tsk tsk Simon, you've really pissed on your chips there.<br />
<br />
<b>4 HIGH DEF</b><br />
Speaking of posh telly pictures, now I've got used to it, it's a bit meh. I notice more when things I like aren't high def (like Flashforward - come on Five, pull yer finger out!) than I do when they are. <br />
<br />
<b>5 GARROW'S LAW (I think it's called that)</b><br />
That new oldene dayes thing about the original defence lawyer, that's high def. And it's the only show that I've ever managed to sit through where people wear hats and bonnets and wigs and other odd headgear - see blogs ad infinitum. Any hatular activity (unless it's sci-fi) sends me diving for the channel change button before the first 'good morrow me lady' is said. <br />
<br />
But it kinda works for me here, as it's primarily a courtroom drama, and they always have wigs. Even Crown Court had wigs. <hums THEME TO CROWN COURT> ... <searches FOR MP3 OF THEME FROM CROWN COURT FOR MOBILE RINGTONE> ... <fails><br />
<br />
I loved Crown Court, ITV's fairly rubbish daytime drama out of the seventies. Dirt cheap to churn out, crap acting, wooden sets, but as I only ever saw it when I was off school ill, so it was a 'treat'. Like pancakes for lunch (mmm sugary) and Lucozade.<br />
<br />
Back to 2009 - Garrow's Law started off as wooden as the New Forest but got me hooked halfway through the first ep. <br />
<br />
<b>THE SOUP</b><br />
Please watch it. It's on E! a hundred times a week and is consistently the funniest thing on telly. Joel McHale is superb, and is now starring in a sitcom so the show comes from NY not LA. My only problem is that the standards division censors everything a little too much, from blanking out the voice of the sponsor of a segment, through blurring title captions and logos, to pixellating the running gag when Joel shoots the little hairy bloke dead most weeks. And blanking out the gunshot. That's just silly.<br />
<br />
Rightyho, there's some random telly guff spewed in your general direction. Hopefully the next vomitous episode will arrive quicker than 4 months' time. Probably next week - it's NEW DOCTOR WHO this weekend. So excited!!!!1!!TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-91114567167208935042009-07-17T10:21:00.002+01:002009-07-17T10:28:51.172+01:00OopsHello. S'been a while. I've been on hols and stupidly busy. And here I am on a Friday and, gulp, I haven't even switched my telly on since Sunday.<br /><br />Maybe I'm regressing to being one of them interweb teens who think tv is boring and pointless, and only watch 30 second videos of dogs falling off swings on Youtube?<br /><br />Alternatively, it's because I've been hugely busy and out/working late every night. <br /><br />There's been plenty of stuff I want to see - that Charlie Brooker quiz (although apparently the 'slebs get in the way of Mr Brooker's patented diatribe. Who Do You Think You Are? is always good value. That drama about the financial crisis.<br /><br />The good news is my Sky+ HD is finally working now, and it's a very nice capable thing. It works fine, the HD picture can be superb (and can be oddly pixelly in the background sometimes), the updated software is functional and quick, and it makes watching and recording anything a doddle.<br /><br />Note my lack of passion there. As I've said before, it's all very well done but there's no spark, passion or cleverness. Unlike, say, Sky's incredibly slick sports coverage, the presentation is good but not special. I s'pose that's what a monopoly does - although I shouldn't complain, for the price it's truly excellent and the box also looks lovely.<br /><br />Maybe I'm missing the little dancing TiVo logo man more than I care to admit... sniff...<br /><br />More telly news as and when I actually watch some telly.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-39270916853567190332009-06-23T14:22:00.002+01:002009-06-23T14:43:22.324+01:00Limited ambitionsAs I'm STILL without any telly at home, here's something from the past. <br /><br />Cue the twanging harps and wibbly dissolve...<br /><br />Picture the scene, Britain, mid-nineties, a typical indie tv production office (cheap furniture and staff in the open plan bits, expensive fittings and execs in the surrounding offices).<br /><br />I was producing my first show, and we were due to shoot a one-off pilot episode to test the concept. It was a mix of factual items and comedy nonsense, all around a reasonably strong formatted idea, and had a tried-and-tested set of people appearing in it. Well, apart from me, moonlighting as a games reviewer. I was (a) free; (b) had seen the games so could comment; (c) free, and (d) looked stupid in the wig they made me wear so gave everyone else a cheap laugh.<br /><br />Speaking of cheap, the show had a TINY budget. Weeny. Infinitesimally small (sp?). We filmed it in a disused old benefits office in Poplar, opposite Kwiksave (now it's an Aldi - is that up or down market?) and a canal full of sludge and broken Kwiksave trollies. The only pub nearby (you can tell I haven't changed much) said that we had to sit in the 'saloon bar' as we had a lady with us. Er, she was a lesbian and more macho than anyone else - but I wasn't going to argue with the man-with-three-teeth behind the bar.<br /><br />Anyhow, the set looked ok and we'd come up with the monitor-point-of-view shot idea that made it just about filmable on the money we had. (Basically, we'd see a wide of a room and the characters enter - we'd then cut to a fixed camera 'within' the big tv in the corner, with a curvy-not-flatscreen-in-them-days effect on it, and use that for the rest of the scene, saving on relighting and moving camera. Most scenes ended with the main character pressing a button on the tv, cutting to footage so it was surprisingly effective)<br /><br />Anyhow (ii) I'd spent three months honing the show, making sure the comedy stuff was easy to film and not too visual, as we couldn't afford props and redressing the set was a no-no. (Although we did a Dickens Xmas past/present/future thing, and the set looked jolly fine covered in Kwiksave Bargain Tinfoil as the future. The characters remarked on how the future looked quite like the present, just covered in tinfoil. Postmodern an' everything, eh?)<br /><br />Anyhow (iii), the exec producer liked the scripts, the actors were happy, the content was good, I was cooking on gas, as we'd say in them days.<br /><br />Until...<br /><br />The boss came in. "I've written the pilot episode", she announced to everyone, "It's much better than your silly scripts". And with that she hurled a script at me.<br /><br />Er... um... this was wrong on SO many levels. The boss had no sense of humour - she admitted as much. She hated the secondary character, the only really good actor and comedian. The Carry On-style innuendo and postmodernism made her cringe. She could write, and write well, but drama not comedy.<br /><br />Her script was incredible. It had a robot supermodel in it, loads of outside scenes and a variety of perplexing remarks I think the boss thought were jokes. But weren't.<br /><br />I went in to see her and said we couldn't film it, it cost too much. She said she'd pay herself for the extra time.<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />So we did it, as written. Every last scene. The robot supermodel, Candy LaBelle - I can and will never forget the character name - was an American actress hired at huuuuge expense for 3 days (£300!). I say actress, but, bless, she couldn't act. She had lots of complex techie lines to say and it took 30+ takes to get anything useable.The final denouement had her blowing up. We used a blow-up doll for that. Somehow.<br /><br />Ooof it was awful. I mean really unfunny, illogical and slow. I cut it together, crying into my Sky-issue plastic coffee. I took it to the boss, gave her the VHS and walked out of the room to hide in the disable toilet. Pretending the Sky coffee had given me the shits.<br /><br />She called me in half an hour later, stony-faced and ashen. I started to try and say that I thought it was a bit wooden, and too long, and-<br /><br />She stopped me.<br /><br />She told me it was awful. Shit. Dreadful. To cut it to pieces to rescue it, somehow, as we couldn't reshoot it and had to use it. But drop in new bits, filmed later. Some jokes perhaps. She'd leave us alone from now on, she knew comedy wasn't her thing but she now realised that you can't be overly ambitious on 10p an episode. That our brand of silly jokes, cheap jibes and implausible campery sort of worked, for no logical reason.<br /><br />I left feeling ten thousand feet high. We made the eps we'd written and they were funny. Damn funny. The show rated really well, everyone in the office thought it was incredible, I was the toast of indie producerville. EP 4 went out - Candy LaBelle - hacked to bits but still not too good. We'd just about rescued it (even if some bits made no sense)<br /><br />And the boss left me alone, for 12 whole episodes, a record in that office. She promoted me to a new show on a big channel, and most of my team came with me. She then had a hissy fit saying we'd ruined the show for the team taking over, that we'd all got the new show on our minds and forgotten the old one (which was wrong as the episodes that she was watching go out had been made long before we'd been promoted, and were the funniest of the lot)<br /><br />I end this anecdote brutally as I've a train to catch. I think we've all learnt something there. I don't know what it is, apart from "leave me be please lady", but there you go.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-58420189624370529392009-06-16T15:05:00.001+01:002009-06-16T15:07:58.920+01:00Catastrophe!Pluses to Sky + HD: stunning picture on both SD and HD, quick channel changes, one box instead of two, one BLACK box matching my Blu-Ray player.<br /><br />Minuses: it only worked for a day, and is broken, saying "no signal". The installers are checking the dish but as everyone else in the block is fine, it's not that, is it? <SOBS> 48 hours without telly... oh, the humanity.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-4381272104424076202009-06-13T15:13:00.003+01:002009-06-13T15:31:36.344+01:00Bye bye old friendWell as I type this a Sky man (as in an engineer from the satellite tv company, not as in someone who with a jetpac or cape) is installing Sky + HD, so my dear old Tivo has been flung into a cupboard.<br /><br />I did sigh slightly as I went to switch it off for the last time, the wee Tivo logo - a little man, improbably, made of those four letters, swaying slightly in the corner of the screen as the cloudy sky background did the familiar-but-still-swishy animated loop it always does.<br /><br />I put the Sky box in last night (without the '+' capabilities of recording and that) and have to say HD is very good indeed. I sat through some right shite just to see it in HD, just like everyone does when there's something new on offer. When Sky first started, I had a dish and proudly showed off the four channels to gawping onlookers. Oddly enough my mates mainly came over after 10pm perusing the German and Italian channels for the legendary gameshows-with-ladies-of-little-clothes. There were a few of them - chin,chin! one of the theme tunes went, as busty presentresses opened their carefully-hinged bras and revealed prize logos stuck to one of their chests. <br /><br />Anyway...<br /><br />I got a stereo telly just before then, a posh Sony with speakers on ears. It was reet fancy, a fully flat screen in 1995 and everything. Hearing music like off of a CD was quite a gimmick... for about five minutes. <br /><br />Before that I can remember when C4 started, a long hot summer holiday as a kid, little to do except watch their endless preview broadcasts, six minutes on the hour, every hour, on the portable TV in my bedroom. I can't remember the change from B&W to colour, not really.<br /><br />Watching Jonathan Ross in HD was... well, the same really, colours brighter, sharper image obviously (boy do most people look older and/or more heavily made-up, including Mr Ross). I did notice how limited the HD range is - I expected more channels really. BBC HD, for example, didn't show the trooping of the colour this morning - surely it's filmed in HD? Not that I approve of such programmes, obviously...<br /><br />Putting on boring old standard def Sky News made me realise just how nice HD is. But then the new Sky box seems to give a much better picture on standard stuff too, so hey ho.<br /><br />The Skyman is finishing up, must catch him before he jets off up into the stratosphere. I have to say Sky's EPG and box are nicely put together, well designed and simple to use, if slightly more functional and basic than the lovely design and intuitive nature of TiVo. But when I press channel up or down, the channel goes up or down INSTANTLY. For us TiVoites, that's astonishing, as it takes around 5 seconds to change anywhere. A cable linked to the Skybox and send '1' then '0' then '1' and then a pause... and then channel would change. Believe me it made channel hopping a nightmare...<br /><br />Comparing Sky+ and TiVo is like comparing a PC - universal, popular, functional - to a Mac - fancy, well-designed but a bit too all-knowing. I say this typing on my week-old MacBook with my iPhone next to me, a dramatic switch to the dark side after 20 years of PCness.<br /><br />Skyman is now on the roof, checking the second feed for the recording thingie. I've even read the instruction book. The bit about how you can only record TWO programmes at once whilst watching another nearly made me fall over. With TiVo it was like early video recorders, you could only record what you were watching. <br /><br />Sadly, I can now watch and record more TV than ever, at high-definition resolution and with brilliant digital sound - just as the tv industry cuts production of anything and everything to save money in a recession-hit world. Oh well.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-43862748913433920612009-05-29T16:09:00.004+01:002009-05-29T16:34:06.910+01:00Hey hey USASo I've been in the States for a bit, and here's a unordered list of What I've Noticed About Yank TV:-<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">1 EVEN SHORTER ATTENTION SPANS</span><br />The evening entertainment magazine shows, from veteran <span style="font-style:italic;">Entertainment Tonight (ET)</span> to new guy <span style="font-style:italic;">TMZ</span> (Tee-Em-Zee of course) by way of <span style="font-style:italic;">Inside Edition</span> and countless others, are now so jump-cutty and frenzied they're impossible to watch.<br /><br />Mary Hart on <span style="font-style:italic;">ET</span>, bless, has been presenting the show forever.. well, since 1989, when Sky Movies started to show it here. She sat alongside John Tesh, a man with a face that looked like it had been hit with a pan - and with a nifty sideline in Richard Clayderman-stylee naff piano music. The two of them read out links and the show was nice to everyone.<br /><br />Not now. John is long gone, some shouting man with no appreciable personality is there. Mary doesn't look any older than she did two decades ago, just tighter and... er, bigger. As in the Botox and surgery to her face, US-TV-Enormo-Hair and fixed grin makes her head look massive. <br /><br />But now each shot lasts a second of two, even when a presenter is talking, the camera constantly cutting and zooming. The reports are even worse - the word 'soundbite' being too long for most clips. They did a 'summer movie preview' and I swear there wasn't a single entire line of dialogue in the whole thing. How are you supposed to judge a film if they cut so fast between clips you've no idea what it looks like?<br /><br />(The answer, oh Blogateers, is - of course - da yung'uns like it, and you look things like that up on the web nowadays. But I don't care. It's like watching bits of broken crockery in a blender - bouncy and noisy and pointless)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">TMZ</span> has the novelty of (a) being based on a website; and (b) pretending to be a documentary, with 'journos' pitching ideas to the 'editor', then clips popping up. Very odd. But everything is still in. Tiny. Lit. Tle. Bits. 'n'. Pieces.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2 EVEN MORE ADS</span><br />If you thought it wasn't possible to cram in more ads on the already saturated American airwaves, you'd be wrong. Branded segments of programs (that's how the US'ers spell it, without the extra 'me', spelling nerds) like a minty chewing gum sponsoring a bit of the somehow-better-when-in-the-US <span style="font-style:italic;">Soup</span> featuring sweary bits of dialogue from reality shows, telling them to clean their dirty mouths... to even more blatant product placement (an ep of some useless drama thing set entirely in a Subway sarnie shop), it's all there.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3 EVEN MORE REPEATS</span><br />Most new shows are on twice a week, an 'encore' showing in primetime some other day, usually low-rated weekends, to boost numbers and save money.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">4 EVEN LONGER SHOWS</span><br />NBC's <span style="font-style:italic;">The Biggest Loser</span> is two hours long now. The <span style="font-style:italic;">American Idol</span> results show, which is basically 5 minutes of 'you've won! you haven't!' is an hour long, sometimes 90 minutes, in addition to the two hour main show. The 'season finale' of <span style="font-style:italic;">Celebrity Apprentice</span> (Joan Rivers AND her daughter!) lasted THREE WHOLE HOURS. <br /><br />Jesus.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">5 EVEN MORE IRRITATING TRAILERS</span><br />Especially, but not exclusively, on cable stations, a box will pop up with clips, animations, teasers, graphics and captions in the corner of the screen after each break, trailing the next show, or the next episode of this show, or some other show altogether. Countdown clocks to new episodes or series also dominate the screen, especially on <span style="font-style:italic;">TLC</span> which seems to specialise in shows about people who have lots of kids. Sextuplets, 14 kids in total, whatever - just screaming children and shouting parents. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">6 EVEN ODDER ADS</span><br />The recession means the ads for Viagra, Cialis and other medication seem to dominate even more, with their comedy list of side effects. A pill to 'reduce gas' has a huge list of problems it could cause including 'anal leakage'. So you don't fart but you shit yourself. Champion.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-7930182508223465312009-05-11T12:00:00.002+01:002009-05-11T12:48:36.816+01:00Founding a tv companySo with all the bad news swirling about, I was talking to a friend who said how lucky I was to run my own company, and have the 'stability' of doing so for years. This is lucky year 13 for my company (sort of) so he might have had a point.<br /><br />But then I thought back to how it all started, and the night it nearly didn't happen.<br /><br />I had cosied up to a senior exec at a big independent producer. It wasn't her job to add to the portfolio of mainly youthy, mainly entertainment shows this company made - and made very well - but she said she could help.<br /><br />I'd got in via a guy who worked for me, who'd gone for a job interview in a period of unemployment, turned up a bit worse for wear but made an impression anyway. So the two of us went to see her, were kept waiting for ages - and we'd been to the pub so were a bit, er, the worse for wear. My mate wanted to walk out, I wanted to wait and see... well, anyway, she turned up, met us, chatted, introduced us to the bosses and we came to a deal to set up a joint venture company.<br /><br />So I meet their head of new business, and we get on well. He works out a deal, we agree terms, and all that needs to happen is that this guy meets my other mate, who I'll be forming the business with.<br /><br />Now this friend was easily my best mate in London, and it's fair to say we got on incredibly well despite being very different characters. We'd worked together well in the last job, despite the inevitable ups and downs of working with friends. And he was as enthused as me at the idea of setting up our own thing.<br /><br />I decide it'd be good to meet in a pub, and off to Victoria Park me and my mate went as it was next to New Business Guy's (NBG for briefness) house. It turns out NBG was a drinker. Oh yes. A VERY big, VERY fast drinker, the sort who drinks half a pint in a sip. I'm quite a drinker, but pints of beer I find hard to drink quickly. My mate, however, is a legend when it comes to boozing, someone who could drink solidly for 36 hours and seem just slightly tired at the end of it. He could drink ANYONE under the table, under the ground or under anything ever.<br /><br />The two of them are getting on OK, but the drinking is accelerating, and it's obvious my mate isn't exactly enamoured by NBG. "Twat" was his one-word judgement when NBG went off for a piss. "Quite an, um, character" was NBG's judgement as my mate went off to pee, rolling his eyes. I don't think tall, posh, clever NBG had ever met a tattooed, long-haired, leather-jacketed, burly bearded biker guy before. He seemed to view my mate - someone crucial to the business we were setting up - as some sort of amusement that would shock the oh-so-trendy types populating the parent company.<br /><br />Things got worse. I tried to keep up and felt very ill. The subject of private lives was brought up, my mate fiercely protective of his... NBG seeminlgly yearning for more danger and edge than his lovely nice safe wife-kid-house-big job life was offering. <br /><br />I was getting sicker and sicker as the two of them got drunker and drunker. They even arm wrestled at one point. I have no idea who won as I went off to vomit copiously. I got back to the table and they were both mute, arms folded, drinking shorts. I said I must've had something bad to eat and would have to go home. Goaded by NBG, my mate stayed and had more shorts. I watched from outside, having managed to grab a life-giving cup of tea from the jellied eel shop next to the pub (hey it was 1997, they still existed in Victoria Park Village)<br /><br />My mate stumbled out on his own as I watched NBG asleep on the pub table. We wandered off, deciding to walk to Stratford where he lived. We walked through what is now the 2012 Olympic site but was then just wasteland with warehouses, barking dogs and skanky drug addicts slumped in corners. Now this I'd have considered scary except (a) my mate could more than handle himself, even when a bit pished; and (b) I was more concerned with him saying over and over again he couldn't work for that... well, insert every rude word ever here.<br /><br />I pleaded and cajoled, seeing my dream slip away of a company I owned a stake in, guaranteed funding for a bit, the excitement of working with one of the biggest and most prestigious indies. But to no avail. We got to his place, ordered pizzas, drank booze and decided that was that.<br /><br />I stumbled into a cab home at 2am, depressed and confused and drunk and ill, the worst night of my career so far.<br /><br />Next morning I had a 10am meeting with NBG and boy did I feel rough. I was expecting exactly the same negative reaction from him, and on my way in I planned a speech saying how I'd decided to stay where I was after all.<br /><br />NBG greeted me with "well, what a night!" and then said how wonderful he thought my mate was, how great things were going to be, and how he was looking forward to another "session" on the booze.<br /><br />Gulp.<br /><br />In my weakened state I nodded feebly, filled in the forms and went off to Stratford.<br /><br />I knocked on my mate's door not sure what to do or say. He greeted me cheerily as he ate a slice of cold pizza. "What a shitty night!", he said, laughing. <br /><br />Er...<br /><br />So I started on my spiel of how NBG seemed fine with everything (a raised eyebrow there) but I know my mate wasn't keen to work with him and I understand that and I-<br /><br />My mate stopped me in my tracks. "As long as I never have to deal with the twat I'm fine. The bastard we work for now is worse."<br /><br />And with that he signed the documents and our company was born. Six months later, my mate - still without ever having dealt with NBG at all - met a lovely American lady, decided to get hitched and emigrate, and we went our separate ways business-wise. <br /><br />My old mate now runs his successful own company Stateside. NBG left the parent company at some point, has surfaced in many different forms in telly and the interweb, and still likes a pint or several drunk at lightning speed.<br /><br />And I don't do lager any more.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-58194553691933738452009-05-07T14:42:00.000+01:002009-05-07T14:43:18.220+01:00Fish News!Let's ignore all the bad news about telly right now, and here's one of my Anecdotages from The Far Far Distant Past, a world where big companies spent lots of money on channels no-one watches.<br /><br />(Like the channel amusingly called Watch today, hoho)<br /><br />Here's when I was in charge of news for a day.<br /><br />So it was the silly cable channel I was Head of Stupid Ideas for. I was in really early, for impress-the-boss-early-on-in-your-contract sort of reasons. I mean, 8am in tellyland, it might as well have been midnight.<br /><br />Boss wanders in, flapping and yacking to Head of Programmes/Programming about random tabloidy things.<br /><br />He sidles up to me and says he's fackin' bored with the noos (always made me smile, how a newspaper man couldn't pronounce news), go on, think up somethin' stooopid to make the nooos more interestin'.<br /><br />I have to say here the news was three minutes of a person reading the news from a foot-pedal operated autocue, rarely with any clips (they cost money) just the occasional still (paid for by the newspaper group wot owned the channel). It was Dullsville Street, Boringtown, Bland County.<br /><br />I can't remember how or why - this was quite a while ago - but I suggested how about the news presented by a goldfish, with thought bubbles popping up with short, snappy captioned comments. I'd like to think this flash of genius (ahem) was spontaneous or off-the-cuff, but it probably wasn't. I remember having a big book of ideas and being a swotty teacher's pet-type, writing things up I thought might work.<br /><br />(Long since ditched that, btw)<br /><br />Anyway, boss said "Bingo. Gerrit on air in an hour", news reader man sitting one desk away from me scowled at me with venom - he was about to be replaced by a 10p pet - and the head of programming/programmes chortled to himself, no doubt thinking about the headlines in the papers the next day.<br /><br />I then got a cab to the local pet shop (not easy to find in the pre-Google days), bought a fish, a bowl, a little shiny arch for the bowl, some gravel and some food (hey, I know how to prepare), and I was back in the office 30 mins later.<br /><br />We didn't hit the hour deadline - we had to type in news for bubbles to pop up, and find a nice bubbly watery sound track, it took time. News reader was pleased to be typing the stuff up; less so when the boss came over and stuck a sticky label to his jacket saying "Executive Producer, Pet Division (Small Fish Dept)"<br /><br />Anyway, 2 hours later, Britain's Wettest News went live for a trial bulletin. It wasn't actually broadcast, something I've just remembered, slightly making this anecdote pointless, but it's a blog typed up LIVE AND DIRECT (insert Sky News whoosh here) so these things happen.<br /><br />And, you know, it was funny. BLUB-BLUB-BLUB - POP! - thought bubble… PING! BLUB-BLUB-BLUB - POP! - another one. The fish behaved itself, the tabloid execs all chortled, and "we're on our way to h'another television triumph" the boss announced, patting me on the back.<br /><br />I went to grab a sandwich, returning as they set up for the bulletin. The boss was even more thrilled when I said we could just film the fish for five minutes and then use the same footage every day, meaning he could flog the camera.<br /><br />Only one small item. Our newsreading star, under the harsh tv lights, had… er, kicked the watery bucket literally minutes before air. Someone - surely Executive Producer, Pet Division (Small Fish Dept) - had forgotten to move it.<br /><br />The boss was mortified. "Get another one, an heir and an spare!", he commanded, and I went to my desk to pick up my pass and the ten poonds for the taxi. Just then head of programming/programmes came over. The cost of the computer stuff to do the captions worked out five times dearer than just filming a bloke on a desk. And the bloke on the desk was the nephew of someone High Up in the company, and somewhat unhappy at his new role. And being replaced by a small creature with a seven-second memory span.<br /><br />The idea was quietly dropped. My boss was soon onto other things, like why we showed the same ads every commercial break (answer: no advertisers) and why the psychic woman always seemed to be talking to the same people every night on her live phone in (answer: only a few viewers, plus most of the calls were the poor staff working on the show, as otherwise it would fall off air).<br /><br />Anyway, thought it might make a change from the current bad news flooding tellyland. (Insert gag about news and flooding here).<br /><br />*Oh, yes, ITV cancels The South Bank Show - well, I saw the one about William Goldman, superb programme and great subject, and there were NO ads in it, just trailers for other ITV shows. It wasn't sponsored by anyone. When it finished and was followed by boxing highlights - way to segway between items, ITV! - there were 7 ads, including one for kebab-flavour Pot Noodle. Lord Melvyn of Bragg's flagship show, ABC1 audience, no ads during, Pot Noodle ad after - ITV SOOO wanted this show dead.<br /><br />**Oh (ii), in Future TV News, the government replied to my email about product placement (see below). Love to say it was a specific, detailed response but alas not. A cut-n-paste jobbie with no ref to my lovely idea of using prod-place money to fund pub-serv progs. Oh well.TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-90782892376327584932009-04-27T12:54:00.002+01:002009-04-27T13:23:30.190+01:00How to save public service broadcasting. Ish.<span style="font-family: verdana;">OK, so I've had an idea. It's probably not that original, but it is workable and could help generate some extra dosh to help the areas of telly that need a bit more investment. Regional news, current affairs, children's telly - with the latter I, as usual, declare my self interest as someone who makes lovely programmes for the wee nippers.<br /><br />It's not rocket science, but it could be implemented quickly, and it has the benefit that the commercial broadcasters have been pushing for it for a while - if not in the form I'm proposing.<br /><br />It's a three step plan:-<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1 ALLOW PRODUCT PLACEMENT ON BRITISH TELLY<br /></span>Just say yes to allowing ITV, C4, Five, Sky and all to have companies pay them to use their brand of product on a show. Watch <span style="font-style: italic;">American Idol</span> clips online - do the Coca-Cola cups and ads behind Ryan Seacrest's tiny head really make the show a disgrace? Just like <span style="font-style: italic;">The X Factor </span>or <span style="font-style: italic;">Britain's Got Talent</span>, this show exists simply to create a star that makes money for Simon Cowell and co., so it's just an exercise in product placement (ie the potential star in our minds) anyway.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2 USE THE SAME RULES AS SPONSORSHIP<br /></span>No product placement on kids' TV, or current affairs, or where there's a conflict with editorial issues/impartiality etc: simple, sensible rules.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3 MAKE THE BROADCASTERS USE THAT MONEY FOR PSB PROGRAMMING<br /></span>Ta-dah! That's it! Any money they raise they've got to spend IN ADDITION TO CURRENT FUNDING on regional stuff, current affairs or kids.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Would you care if Ken Barlow asked for a pint of Boddingtons instead of a jug of Newton & Ridley in the Rovers' Return? It would make <span style="font-style: italic;">Corrie</span> seem more real to me. Well, slightly less surreal - let's face it, that soap has many good qualities, but realism ain't one of 'em.<br /><br />And if a daytime makeover show said "this lovely Ikea kitchen", or "this bedroom suite from John Lewis", would the world collapse?<br /><br />Of course not. And if it could pay for a few original UK-sourced childrens' programmes, some regional current affairs shows and/or news, surely that's a real Billy Bonus? Someone from ITV said (hey, I'm not that good a researcher, obvious innit?) that sponsorship didn't raise much initially but not it's £50m - that's a lot of <span style="font-style: italic;">Spotlight North-Easts</span> I'd think.<br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Obviously there are wrinkles - why would the broadcasters bother to push for this funding if they couldn't use it for what they want? Well, put a limit on the money raised, and say anything under that goes on PSB stuff, anything over can be spent on 'owt: Ant'n'Dec's salaries, executive bathrooms or more episodes of <span style="font-style: italic;">Family Fortunes With Vernon Kay</span>. I'm sure PACT, Save Kids' TV and other bodies can get together and help the government come up with a figure.<br /><br />What if the public hates the fact, say, everyone on an ITV drama series drives a Ford? Limit it to three years, then review it. If the public hate it, scrap it.<br /><br />We'd be like American TV - blantant plugs, nasty ads, yadda blah bleurgh. Hmmm.. really? <span style="font-style: italic;">24 </span>has every car being a Ford for example, Ford even sponsoring entire episodes without ads. <span style="font-style: italic;">Desperate Housewives </span>is apparently packed full of product placement - I don't watch it so can't vouch for it, but a lot of people I know watch it ironically, and clumsy plugs for products would surely spoil that?<br /><br />The only downside is the poor guy who has to pixellate the Coca-Cola cups on ITV2's repeats of <span style="font-style: italic;">American Idol</span> would lose his job. Sad... but surely he's going a bit crazy after putting a circular blur on a cup frame-by-frame for hours and hours and hours. It'd be a kind thing to do really.<br /><br />I've written to Culture Secretary Andy Burnham suggesting all this - hey, there's a productive morning! Now back to writing a show with Adair Bear in it.<br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-2567315435002134732009-04-16T17:14:00.004+01:002009-04-16T17:28:51.733+01:00Telly telly on the wall<span style="font-family:verdana;">So, as per usual, I'm the last person in the world to post my opinion on New Who last weekend. Been snowed under with a billion things - here I am on a Thursday afternoon having already put in forty hours' work this week... and Monday was a Bank Hol...<br /><br />Anyhow, my opinions on <span style="font-style: italic;">Who</span>...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1 HIP HIP HAIR-RAY!<br /></span>Yes, Mr Tennant's hair was as good as always, the desert sun didn't wilt it and it look magnificently coiff'd and gee'd and spike'd. Phew.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2 WHY WHY DUBAI?<br /></span>Did you get any sense they were somewhere exotic or new? It was just some sand. They could've filmed it in a studio and CG'd on something much better. Waste of money.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3 RYAN'S DISASTER*<br /></span>No ta Michelle Ryan, the least convincing 'Lady' since David Walliams put on a frock... worst acting since Ray Alan's Lord Charles**<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>... hated, <span style="font-style: italic;">hated, </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">HATED</span> her. Mind you, didn't like Billie Piper in the first few eps... really hated Catherine Tate in her first Xmas spesh... loved Freema from day one though. Hmmm.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4 EVERYTHING ELSE<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span>The story was a bit poor, not quite as funny as Russell T's usual efforts. The SFX were patchy - sorry, but the flying bus looked awful, HD or no HD. Them fly monsters were proper Olde Skool Who creatures, just a mask and two moving prongs - I liked that in a retro stylee. Lee Evans - meh, doing his usual schtick, although the lines about naming units after himself was funny. Nasty Evil Unit Boss was a good actor I thought, and the bus lot were fine if hardly in it and barely sketched out.<br /><br />BUT BUT BUT...<br /><br />It was New Who! It flew past! Great <span style="font-style: italic;">Mission Impossible</span> opening! Hints of what's to come in the future! Nice end scene telling Porsche Ladeeeh to fack orf! This is what telly is about for me, ideas and jokes and BRITISHNESS and that.<br /><br />Right, back to making the telly instead of writing about it. Although it's all mobile, interweb and movies for me nowadays, with some telly stuff on the side. Weird, huh?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* Ryan's Daughter was a movie so it's sort of a pun on it<br />**Google 'em. Lord Charles was a wooden dummy. Point made.</span><br /></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-84235123055137609962009-04-09T17:38:00.003+01:002009-04-09T17:55:14.914+01:00Spring TV<span style="font-family:verdana;">Sorry for not posting much recently - to be frank I've been a bit busy and, er, um, cough... haven't actually been watching much tv at all. There's a first.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Other random observations:-<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NEW WHO - WOO-HOO!</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sooooo looking forward to NEW DOCTOR WHO!!!1!! over the weekend, how cool is that? Or, rather, how hot is that as it was filmed in Dubai.<br /><br />Questions about it:-<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">With it not being in "the BBC sandpit" (all the Old Who fans are smiling), has it made a difference to the atmosphere of the ep?</span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">A double-decker bus in the desert - is that wise?</span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;">And, most importantly, has the extreme heat of Dubai flattened Mr Tennant's lovely lovely hairdo? His hair is one of the modern wonders of the world. If he ever endorsed a hair gee surely any man would be a fool not to buy it? Or bald like me...</span></li></ul><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">RECESSION-O-VISION<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>Notice how <span style="font-style: italic;">Antiques Roadshow</span> has crept up the schedules from 5:45pm on Sun when I was a kid to a full-on primetime 8pm slot now? (WHISPERS) <whispers>It's cheap and does well...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HIGH DEFINITION UPDATE<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;">South Park </span>is now high def, and it looks different. Whereas <span style="font-style: italic;">The Simpsons </span>improved a bit, <span style="font-style: italic;">SP </span>just looks, er, different. This is the anti-animation cartoon, where they purposely move the characters crudely and make them look like they're cut-outs when the series is actually made on whizzy fast powerful computers. Tidying it up is odd. Not bad, not good, just... different.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Right, off to the pub (obviously) - have got a Tivo full of things to watch, although admittedly mainly episodes of <span style="font-style: italic;">Mad Men</span>. Not that I'm complaining on that score, still such a great series, but the sort of thing I can only watch one of at a time. Maybe it's the smoking. Or the occasional wearing-of-hats (and you all know my hat-o-phobia).<br /><br />I have to clear the Tivo as at some point over the next couple of weeks... <hyperventilates>(GASP)... (PANT) we're having... (SIGH)<almost> Sky+ and... (GULP) <slightly> Sky HD installed. Scream! It means my lovely six-foot-long Italian designer TV unit that I got off the interwebs will merely have a BluRay and a SkyHD+ box and nothing else. Compared to a DVD player, Tivo, Sky box and old VHS recorder that fitted in it perfectly. Tsk.<br /><br />This is a dilemma for a man with a hatred of clutter and ornaments.<br /><br />What to do?<br /><br />Toodlepip.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></slightly></almost></hyperventilates></whispers></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-40220669310684958422009-03-16T08:55:00.002+00:002009-03-16T09:50:23.678+00:00New talent, old clips...<span style="font-family: verdana;">I've just spent a few minutes watching some clips from a comedy show we made in 2001. The fact I watched it is thanks to three things:-<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">New technology - Youtube, interweb, broadband streaming...</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">Old technology - a dusty old VHS copy being found and digistised in...</span></li><li><span style="font-family: verdana;">Not much to do - both for me to sit and watch it, and for the show's producer who did all the digitising heheh.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: verdana;">A bit of background - this show was made after we pitched a topical cartoon sketch show to our late-night bosses at C4. We made interstitials for them for 2 years and were coming to the end of a run, and pitched this as a new idea: a midnight(ish) topical show that could be repeated several times over the 4 nights the 4Later strand ran, and made for buttons.<br /><br />They took a risk and said yes, gave us precisely six buttons and off we went. We spent five buttons on writers, getting in political journos like Simon Hoggart to give us insider info on politicians (interesting, but totally unusable as we'd have been thrown in jail if it had been broadcast) and big grand writers' meetings in an odd Docklands pub we called The Eighties (as it was full of chrome, red piping and alarmingly bad music).<br /><br />Up'n'coming comedians and writers like David Quantick and, er, some other quite famous ones did some bits, we wrote some others, and the C4 lawyers screamed at us for daring to suggest nuclear waste could be dangerous. We then spent one button animating the whole half-hour show.<br /><br />The only issue we ever had with C4 themselves was the title - they hated every one we came up with, so the working title, <span style="font-style: italic;">Pen Monkeys</span>, was used. This was our pet name for the animators, and we did a very literal translation for titles and stings, with monkeys flying around on plane-sized pens. Oh how inventive.<br /><br />The viewing experience was mixed - I'd totally forgotten the sequence about national monuments starting a world war when (then brand-new) President George W Bush accidentally pressed the wrong button. It was quite funny, and I can see why we thought it was just what a cartoon could and should do - a bunch of actors in silly hats couldn't - but God it went on a bit.<br /><br />My producer friend says that when we did this we revelled in the animation being a bit shit, and as the telly didn't have any crap animation on, we were new and shiny and bold. Unlike today, when the internet is crammed full of low-quality 'toons. Hmmm. Not too sure about that myself, I'd have loved the animation to have been better, but we had no time, no money and (frankly) not that much ability to make nice proper cartoonery back then.<br /><br /><insert><br /><br />A sketch about killing Mrs Thatcher was less successful, but included to please our com.eds. if I remember correctly (ie I'm not making it up on purpose but my brain does have a tendency to do that to me). We shouldn't have been making 'topical' comedy about a PM who'd left office a decade before...<br /><br />The show did what it needed to do - C4 liked it, commissioned a second one targeted more at their audience (ie less politics, more celebs), and made us stick to one animation style (<span style="font-style: italic;">Pen Monkeys</span> used anything and everything, from 2D, 3D, hand-drawn, B&W, stills, cut outs...)<br /><br />That second show was well-received, but it mattered not as the late-night original-content risky-business era was ending. The money went elsewhere and our show wasn't commissioned. Shortly afterwards <span style="font-style: italic;">2DTV </span>hit the air - twenty times our budget, primetime yet looking rather similar - and that was that, the market for 'topical animated comedy' was taken.<br /><br />Oh well.<br /><br />Anyhow, the reason for saying all this (eventually, he gets to the point) is that there doesn't seem to be any opportunity to do something as frankly barking mad as ask some blokes in a corridor with no comedy track record to make a topical satirical half-hour tv cartoon sketch show for the price of a Ford Mondeo. You can get lots of money to make comedy if you've got that track record. Or, it seems today, if you're the fat one off of <span style="font-style: italic;">Gavin & Stacey</span>. Ahem.<br /><br />But the opportunities we were offered don't exist any more. "Oh yes they do", you cry, "on the internets!". Well, yes, ish. With no money instead of tiny amounts of money, so only loners-in-bedrooms, rich people or big established comedians/companies "experimenting" can afford to do anything. Hence the distinct lack of any original comedic material on the web, and huge amount of digitised clips off of the telly.<br /><br />We didn't quite succeed with either of our two sketch shows, either visually or comedically, but it was great that Big Important Channel 4 gave it a shot. I think with comedy you need to take risks - not necessarily expensive risks but creative ones. "No shit Sherlock", you shout annoyingly, but my view is that it's better to make ten comedy pilots of small amounts of dosh than one episode of, say, <span style="font-style: italic;">Horne & Corden</span>. I'm picking that show out not because it's bad (TURNS TO CAMERA TWO LIKE HARRY HILL DOES OCCASIONALLY, RAISES EYEBROW SARCASTICALLY, TURNS BACK TO CAMERA ONE) but because it costs a lot of buttons.<br /><br />Oh, and here's a link to the thing we did. Glacially slow, the worst mouth animation in the history of television, but at least there's weirdness and humour there. Somewhere.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hmnG-WPGMw&eurl=http://john-higgs.blogspot.com/2009/03/pen-monkeys.html&feature=player_embedded">LINKY-CLICKY-COMEDY</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-75031139685743432562009-03-04T09:24:00.004+00:002009-03-04T09:46:23.804+00:00Tellynotes<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">So tv is in crisis - ITV laying off another 600 staff, Five getting rid of 20% or so of their workforce, the BBC... er, well, the licence fee isn't affected by THE DOWNTURN (as BBC News calls it, complete with naff sinking arrow on a red background)... C4 is being pressganged into merging with either Five, ITV and Five, BBC Worldwide or BT Vision - depending on which website you glance at... </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It's even affecting some of the smaller digital channels. I note The Business Channel went bust on January 1st. Insert your own joke here about why watch their business advice shows when they didn't follow it themselves.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The reason I noticed was I was hungover on New Year's Day, hopping around tv trying to find something OK to watch. Literally no-one else did - it was a small news story in Broadcast magazine in late January. It comes to something when even broadcast professionals don't notice a channel closing.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">I think the next digital trend will be getting rid of the smaller +1 channels that cost zilch to produce but must cost a bit to broadcast. The bigger channels now get a fairly reasonable slice of their ratings from +1s but I can't imagine Living 2 +1 does. (Great name there, from the people who brought you Dave, Watch and now Blighty)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Dave counts as a bigger channel, in this kerrrr-azy age, and I suppose their +1 channel is safe now it's called Dave Ja Vu. Ho, and indeed, ho.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">The reason I mention all this turmoil is twofold. Firstly, you wouldn't particularly notice things being much worse on air. There are still good sitcoms (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Free Agents, Moving Wallpaper</span>), Saturday night shiny floor shows (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Saturday Takeaway</span>), comedy (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Harry Hill</span>), panel shows (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">QI</span>), drama (one of C4's rare excursions, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Red Riding</span>, starts tomorrow), as well as plenty of great imports airing now (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">30 Rock</span> with Carrie Fisher! <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Mad Men</span> back again!). And, in a rare lapse of scheduling, there are hardly any big 'sleb reality vehicles on. I don't include <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Dancing on Ice</span> because no-one on it is vaguely famous, and how they can pretend it is about skill at skating when dead Mark Fowler off of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">EastEnders</span> could hardly stand up on the rink never mind skate I don't know...</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Just the odd programme here or there seems a bit cheap. ITV1 running police chasey car crashy things at 9pm, where drama used to be. Primetime repeats of shows already broadcast in primetime the same week - I think Harry Hill is on three times a week on ITV1 now. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">It's going to get worse. A lot worse. I'm no fan of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Heartbeat </span>and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Royal</span> but that's lots of hours of drama just scrubbed from the schedule. To be replaced with<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> Coronation Street's Most Hilarious Rovers Return Moments With Pip Scofield On A Stool On The Set And Twenty Nine Clips, Including Some In Black And White. </span>Or other such quality items.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Small pockets of hope? Well, Sky 1 getting Stuart Murphy as boss might mean more original stuff on that channel. Original stuff not involving Shane Ritchie singing, or Noel Edmonds haranging councillors that is... I can only hope. And channels like Dave and Blighty slowly moving to originating content here and there - much as I adore <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">QI </span>and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Top Gear </span>there's only so many times anyone can watch the same episode, and their supplies of new material are small (15 or so eps of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">TG</span> a year, 8-12 of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">QI </span>considering both shows are on 600+ times a year)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">Right, I'm off to download an episode of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">House</span> to watch on my iPhone at the gym later. I'm thoroughly modern, me.</span></div>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-65530619825828469782009-02-20T11:43:00.002+00:002009-02-20T12:00:43.630+00:00Television about television<span style="font-family: verdana;">A slight theme to today's post, after the last ragbag of stuff.<br /><br />I watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Tne Money Programme</span> last night. Well, I did and and I didn't. I watched a show recorded by my Tivo at 10:30pm, made by <span style="font-style: italic;">The Money Programme </span>team, presented by Max Flint who does most <span style="font-style: italic;">TMP</span> duties, with the iconic theme tune and titles, in the 7:30pm slot where <span style="font-style: italic;">TMP </span>usually goes. But it was called <span style="font-style: italic;">Tomorrow's TV</span> in the schedules, hence my DVR wouldn't have recorded it as you can't set a season pass for a one-off show. The fact it did was because I'm sad enough to go through the TV bits of the papers on a Sunday hunting out good content, and set it manually.<br /><br />Blinkin' BBC types, thinking that the phrase 'money' will put off people from watching. Really? Nowadays? When money and finance is so in the news? And the target audience, up against <span style="font-style: italic;">EastEnders</span>, isn't exactly a big one? Like me, they DO want to watch sensible serious programmes. And their DVRs are probably set to record EVERY <span style="font-style: italic;">Money Programme</span>, yet they'll have missed this one.<br /><br />The Beeb did this a while back, then reverted to calling the show by it's actual title so those of us with Sky+ or other DVRs can record it<br /><br />And why was it on a Thursday too? It's usually on Fridays? And-<br /><br />OK, I'll stop there. Check it out on iPlayer or <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7897212.stm">here</a><br /><br />It was good telly about telly - well made, great talking heads - as in proper experts and big names in the tv world - and a good analysis of why telly is in such a state. Seeing the Macedonian version of <span style="font-style: italic;">Millionaire</span> was funny too (it's even sold to Iraq, 109 countries or something now), and the fact that 53% of ALL tv formats worldwide are originated in the UK. That made my Union Jack waistcoated-chest swell with patriotic pride.<br /><br />But we're all deep in the shit; as someone said, the model for funding telly is the same as it ever was, yet 25% of all ad money has switched to the internet, leaving a big hole. Even though people watch more telly than ever.<br /><br />Grrrrr, boo, hiss, come on Ofcom / the Government / someone - sort it out!<br /><br />And, on the theme of telly about telly, my fave sitcom is back on air. And it's on Five. <pause><br /><br />It's <span style="font-style: italic;">30 Rock</span> and it's proper good funny boom-boom sitcom fare. No laugh track but still way better than almost any other sitcom on tv. It's set in NBC's HQ - 30 Rockerfeller Plaza, hence the title - and stars Tina Fey as the producer of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Girlie Show</span> (I kid you not), a sketch show that doesn't seem that girlie at all, to be frank.<br /><br />But it's hardly about telly at all, it's a simple workplace comedy about nutnuts who work together. Alec Baldwin is superb as the mad boss, and the show specialises in digs at NBC and GE, General Electric, who own the network. The Baldwin character is head of East Coast programming, comedy and microwave ovens, for example, and gets huffed when the latter is taken off him.<br /><br />One day Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) comes into his office and the GE logo just has an E. Jack (Baldwin) says he's sold off the G. The first episode of season 2 has Jack using new technology to digitally insert Jerry Seinfeld into every NBC show, using old footage from, er, <span style="font-style: italic;">Seinfeld</span>. But Jerry isn't best pleased - hence his guest-starring role in the ep...<br /><br />I'll stop blethering and just say please watch it. Good on Five for buying it - even it's up to season 4 in the US and they're just starting season 2 here - and it's repeated in blocks on FiveUSA too, so no excuse for missing it. A sitcom with actual jokes, funny characters, a real 'sit' and some great performances. Kenneth the page is hilarious, Tracey Jordan (a man), the 'star' of the show less so but still funny, and the rest of the team (sad writers, nice guy who fancies Liz but she'll not touch him, great cameos and guest stars) perfect.<br /><br />Toodlepip!<br /><br /></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-51823707455543499352009-02-16T16:48:00.002+00:002009-02-16T17:09:35.747+00:00Even more random jottings than normal<span style="font-family: verdana;">Look I've even put in links for once. That's like journalism and everything.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZGz1Ajg7QU">New Simpsons Titles in HD</a> <br />Yes, they're remade the classic title sequence for high-def. It's brilliant, as ever, with some of the long gone/dead/unused characters replaced by newer ones (Apu's kids!) as well as more visual references than you can shake a stick at... and all in super-duper Expensive-O-Mation more like the movie than the TV series.<br /><br />But... well, twenty years of seeing the same titles (with different sofa bit, agreed) means it's a big change. The sofa gag on this one was a bit poo as well. Love the plasma screen falling off the wall at the end though. I suppose they could either do a frame-by-frame remake, a bit pointless, or try something new. Two-and-a-half cheers for the latter.<br /><br />Note that the new HD titles were introduced only when US HD/digital tx was supposed to be compulsory, ie now, and analogue telly switched off. Obama has delayed that until the summer because of the recession. Britain plods along until 2012 with bits'n'pieces changing over. Sigh.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/16/itv-share-price-job-losses">ITV in even more trouble </a><br />Not surprising in some ways, worrying in others. Talk of an 'emergency schedule' of soaps and repeats? Makes it sound like the three-day week in the seventies, or wartime, not as if they're just somewhat strapped for cash. I also can't help but thinking that if, as this article states, <span style="font-style: italic;">The X Factor</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Britain's Got Talent</span> really cost £1million an hour, that ITV is being charged an awful lot of money from Talkback Thames for what are, essentially, shiny floor shows. The former surely is cheaper than that overall, what with endless weeks of cheapo auditions?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/blue-peter-a-sinking-ship-1622339.html">Blue Peter sinking<br /></a>100,000 viewers? Eeek, that's bad. The article mentions it was eight million way back when, but that was without any cabsat, C4 or Five...repeats on BBC2 and more kids on ITV. I produced a show for CiTV when <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue Peter </span>moved to three nights a week, and between the two of us we had ten million viewers. Although the offical ratings were much smaller, as they were supposed to only look at 15 and unders.<br /><br />Still, it looks like shuffling all the children's programmes forward to accomodate the stunning innovation of moving <span style="font-style: italic;">Weakest Link</span> from Beeb 2 to 1 hasn't worked for the very fragile kids' audience. Won't grind my axe again here (too much), just say that hopefully something will be done to help CBBC/BBC One audiences, as well as lovely BRITISH telly producers making lovely BRITISH programmes for lovely BRITISH kiddiewinkies.<br /><br />Thanking you.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213198194160783933.post-53739586818866305102009-02-09T11:46:00.003+00:002009-02-09T12:11:38.379+00:00Televisio Espagnol<span style="font-family: verdana;">So I was in Barcelona for the weekend and watched some Spanish TV. Indigenous, local television, like AXN, Fox and, er, Sony Television Entertainment.<br /><br />They show programmes in English then have Spanish ads and idents. Que? But in the trailers, all the shows are dubbed into Spanish. I was a bit confused then remembered the olden days before Digiboxes, when the lovely Amstrad satellite box had an audio button you pressed on each channel to get different languages (if available).<br /><br />Sometimes on German channels you got undubbed versions of US or UK shows, at very low volume. Often with the American content this was before it was on UK tv, so somewhat useful for episodes of, er <span style="font-style: italic;">Murphy Brown </span>or <span style="font-style: italic;">21 Jump Street</span>, two particular favourites of mine. Google the first one, it caused a presidential stir...<br /><br />Anyhoo, so I assume Spanish TV is doing that same thing when supplying hotels like the one I was in. I got to watch a <span style="font-style: italic;">CSI</span>, not something I've managed to sit through before - OK in a flashy way - and <span style="font-style: italic;">Brothers and Sisters</span>, which was full of very good-looking people either shouting or having sex with each other. With the most awful effects between each scene, the picture sliding off with a comedy sound effect, like out of 1980s sitcoms like <span style="font-style: italic;">Parker Lewis Must Die</span>. Again, Google is your friend if my ancient US references are too much for you. Think <span style="font-style: italic;">Ferris Bueller</span>, but more like the movie than the dreadful TV series, and on Sky before digital happened.<br /><br />But the oddest thing are the commercial breaks, sometimes twenty solid minutes of ads in a block, and then nothing for an hour. Why? After fifteen ads they all blur together. Even BBC World News did it - every channel at the same time shows a block of ads. I s'pose it means you can't channel hop but it was so tedious. The German MTV clone showed the same ringtone ad SEVEN WHOLE TIMES in one break.<br /><br />Err, otherwise there wasn't much new - except as I was in Catalonia, there were two soaps going on different channels at the same time, one in Catalan and one in Spanish. The only reason I mention that is they both had a plot with a lady in a green deep-pore-cleanser-type facial mask, where the green wouldn't come off. Maybe they've two soaps with the same scripts but different locations and actors for no reason - apart from to employ extra people. The Catalan one, by the way, had ugly actors, dreadful sets and laughable music. The Spanish one was merely shit.<br /><br />And that was my adventure in Spanish telly. I thank you.<br /></span>TVSecrethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11192251258140649550noreply@blogger.com0