The Rest Is Entertainment - The Secrets Of Undercover Reporting

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

What does it really mean when a reporter goes undercover?Are on-screen bodies ever achievable without the aid of certain “supplements”?Are your favourite TV shows scheduled so they deliberately clash?Just some of the questions Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer in this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.comThe Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Requires relevant Sky TV and third party subscription(s). Broadband recommended min speed: 30 mbps. 18+. UK, CI, IoM only. To find out more and for full terms and conditions please visit Sky.comFor more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.comAssistant Producer: Aaliyah AkudeVideo Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry SwanProducer: Joey McCarthySenior Producer: Neil FearnHead of Content: Tom WhiterExec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Some things were just made to be together. Salt of Vinegar, Holmes and Watson, Tommy Shelby and a Taylor who asked no questions, preferably while pouring the whiskey. Oh, salt and vinegar, definitely. Now, you can add to the list of those dynamic duos, Sky and Netflix.

Now together on the Sky Essential TV package for just £15 a month. One place, one bill, one less thing to think about. Two entertainment heavyweights under one roof with shows like The Last of Us, gangs of London and Squid Game, plus Sky Atlantic, Discovery Plus and over 90 other channels. It's your evening neatly stacked by someone with impeccable taste.

You. Serious value for a front row pass to the shows everyone's talking about. Lined up, turning your sofa into the hottest ticket in town, minus the dress code. Get Sky TV and Netflix for £15 a month, the best entertainment in one place, ready whenever you are. Visit sky.com to start. Requires relevant Sky TV and third-party subscriptions. Sky Central TV includes a selection of Sky Channel channels, 18 plus UK, Channel Islands and I Love Man only. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment, Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman.

Hello, how are you? I'm very, very well. We have lots of questions. Should we start one with you straight away? No nonsense. No nonsense. Just get to it. Just get to it. People just want to hear the first question. You don't want to hear us, rabbit in on. Stop rabbiting and hit me with it. And hit you with it, exactly.

That said, no. Eric Morley Smith has a question. He says, hi Marina, Richard. Long time, first time. That's good. Long time listener, first time, questioner. Oh, really? Is that what it meant?

First time in. Wow. Wow. Do you know what? Sometimes, wow. Yeah, that sass is unacceptable. That's a level of sass you don't want at the top of the show. Listen, I can get that at home.

Yeah. I don't need to come to work and get it. Eric, it is your first time question, and it is being read out. So, well done. His question is this. In Conclave, the Pope is dead from the start. Spoiler! He's there from the start.

It's absolutely from the beginning. Yeah, the title is also Conclave, so arguably, the spoiler's in the title. Oh, he's supposed to say. That's like war and peace. Yeah. You're like, I'm reading about the war, but I don't know what's going to happen. Anyway, sorry, Eric. In Conclave, the Pope is dead from the start.

So how much would an actor expect to be paid if, if they never actually act. Okay, great question. He is playing dead, and that's the thing. There's a whole phrase for it. But first of all, it depends what, is this a SAG, is this a SAG, is this a union production? Because then there are specific rates. You're paid as a supporting actor, by the way, which is a other one I sometimes called background extras, whatever, if you are a corpse.

And the standard rate for that, I think at the moment is $224. a day. Now listen, if you have to do a photo of yourself, you know, we talked about this, like being photos of dead people in productions or whatever. If you have to do that, you get more for that. You're going to bump that up. So if there's a picture of the Pope somewhere in Conclave, which there must be, surely. I wonder if you sat for a sort of Vatican portrait, whether that counts. Either way, maybe you'll get a bit more, but you don't get much more, by the way. You don't even get much more if you've got to like lie in shallow water. If you're the corpse who else to do that, or you've got, there's a lot of makeup. You might only get

like $20 more. I'm not saying that this is what the person who played the Pope, because that was a slightly different thing in such a big film as that. If you've got a line before your death, just like one line, then you're featured extra and you're in a whole different financial bracket. And as we always know, it's amazing how few words you can say and how much it bumps your money up. There was a guy, oh my God, there was a guy who doesn't do it anymore. Do you know about this guy? He was called Dead Body Guy. He had his own website and everything. He's a guy called Chuck Lamb. He was a computer programmer. He were made a computer program and he still is one.

I think he's in his 60s. So it's not a full-time job? No, he sort of worked kind of freelance as it were and he thought, oh, I'd like to do this. And he just had a real talent for playing corpses. You've got to be able to do the short breaths and you've got to be able to not blink. Well, you've got to be able to do no breaths, presumably.

Yeah, but you can't actually just hold your breath with the whole scene. So you've just got to do the short breath. But also, the weight and the blink thing. The no blinking is really hard. But then shut your eyes. Okay, but if they've talked, yes, obviously they will have, If you've been directed, Richard, I'm sure you would.

I'm sure you'd have a load of views about the kind of corpse you'd like to play, and maybe that's not what people want in a supporting actor. Eyes closed courts. I don't want you to say, I would do it this way. Okay. They want you to just do it the way you're being told. Anyway. For so many reasons.

So Chuck Lamb, and he, so then he started, because he was a computer programming it, and he was like good at the internet. He had a little website, like a really lo-fi thing called deadbodygey.com or something like that. And he was to just take a daily photo of him in various dead situations around his house. else. And it was just like really stupid stuff. Like, you know, you'd find him, he'd have, like, he would just be lying on some concrete outside of his house with, like, and you could just see the bits of a parachute thing kind of disappearing behind him.

That's what, that's what, um, Reesier Smith and Steve Pemberton do to each other every morning in their, in their writers, when they, they kill that, they, they set themselves up as corpses before the other one comes in, in more and more elaborate ways. That's so cool. I, yeah, okay, I love that. Yeah, so he used to do that. And someone sort of found it, and it just went nuts. And they thought, like, how many times you played a corpse?

And he's like, oh, no, I'm really good at it, because I could. In fact, he's had to retire because he's got back problems, and he can't quite be as still as he could. Oh, no. Yeah, I know. God, your back's got to be really bad when you can't even be dead. I know. Well, yeah, you've just, you're moving around a little bit,

and he wanted, he wanted someone to take it over. He wasn't sort of precious about the domain name. He wanted someone to take it over. But I was talking to someone, a friend of mine who does makeup, and she was saying, oh, yeah, there's something that's got a sort of palette, a really grey palette. And sometimes people call it the wheel of death for making up corpse. Corps is like that sort of awful thing.

But lots of people, famous people have played corpses which I think is always quite interesting like some of their first Samuel Jackson was a corpse I think Tom Hanks was going to be a corpse and then he got a reprieve

from the director in like really early on it was like an early horror film thing I think the most famous person who went on to become famous who played a corpse although he wasn't hard

just to play a corpse is Kevin Costner in the big chill Kevin Costner is the guy who Alex who's suicide brings the whole kind of gang of college friends the sort of scattered friendship back together and he was originally in lots of scenes

and they were going to have lots of flashbacks but in the end I think Lawrence Kazdan who was the director cut lots of them and so actually what you see you see the morticians sort of moving him around all the autopsies and you can see the slashed wrists and that's but that is Kevin Costner and he did actually do much more

but that is a you know he is 100% probably the most famous corpse but he wasn't intended If ever you see someone very famous dying very early in a film, you're like, oh, we got flashbacks coming or they're not really dead because there's no, there's an episode of Pokerface where Justin Thoreau very early on gets killed, you're thinking, no, they're not getting Justin Thru through for that part. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to see more of him. I was speaking to Jen Todd is one of the producers of Thursday Murder Club, because we have a character in Thursday Murder Club who is in a coma throughout the film Penny Gray. And so I asked her about it as well.

She said it's actually a featured background artist, which means which bump me. the money up even more. Oh, that's good. But they did, yeah, extensive casting for that. You know, you know, everyone's across it choosing who the person who's just lying there is going to be. Yeah. And so, our Penny Gray, who was lying in bed throughout, Susan Kirkby, thank you, Susan.

She sort of just lies there while, with her eyes shut while Helen Mirren and Ben Kingsley and Paul Freeman talk around her. Yeah. Apparently she did okay. This one is for you from Daryl Hughes, Richard. Given how the music industry has evolved with streaming, roughly how successful doesn't act need to be to live off their music earnings. I'm thinking about bands that are popular playing decent festival, slots and larger venues.

I'd imagine a band like Fontaine's DC are making decent money. But what about further down the ladder of success? At what point can a band member quit their day job? Yeah, I mean, in the old days, you're quitting quite early. These days are almost impossible. I mean, Darrell's sort of right. If you're in the top two or three on a festival bill regularly, If you're Fontaine's DC, for example, you are making good money because touring money is where all the money is now.

In the 90s, you toured as a lost leader for people to buy your album, which is where your money came from. And now you release albums as a lost leader for people to go and see you on tour, because that's where all the money is. And that's why tickets are so expensive. But obviously, if you're playing Glastonbury and your fifth on the bill, then you're not seeing an awful lot of that Glastonbury money because most of it's going to those first three. So there's lots and lots of bands now who people have heard of who have day jobs. I was reading that there's a great piece in The Guardian written by Dave Simpson, the great music journalist, talking about Himalayas. And the guy who literally gets the singer of the Himalayas just gets a text through while he's working at Starbucks saying, oh, by the way, you're supporting the food fighters at the Prince of Patti Stadium.

And, you know, he's working in a coffee shop. Wow. So it's very, very hard to make a living until you can use. you know, have like a proper size tour. And to do a proper size tour, you either are releasing records for quite a long time, which is costing you a lot of money or you're touring smaller venues, smaller venue, smaller.

And, you know, there's a, there's sort of a subsection of bands people like the Sherlock's who, largely northern indie bands who just tour, tour, tour and make money. But a lot of the bands you'd have heard on a lot of your favourite bands are not making money. There's a really interesting one recently. There's a great north-east band called Field Music, who had proper musos.

They've done like nine albums or something. and they came out and said we are for real we're forming a doors tribute band and people like what do you mean you're forming a doors tribute band he said well we we're not making any money he said you know we're musicians we've done this since we started our career and we used to make a bit of money but you know we're selling fewer records you know we can't set out these big venues whereas if we play as the doors we send out and so you know once a month twice a month and they're called fire doors and they're if you see footage of them they're incredible I mean this band are

incredible musicians. And they said, we are going to do this. Zero shame at all. We love the doors. We're great musicians. We love entertaining people. And we cannot afford to keep being in a band

if we don't do this. So they have a sort of band double life, right? Yeah, exactly. So that's sort of funding their original material. And the support they got was amazing for their original stuff and also for this incredible tribute act as well. I feel like it's a good background premise

for a show or some sort of fictional drama, a comedy murder mystery thing i don't know it's a murder mystery thing yeah well maybe yeah i wasn't interested in to be said murder mystery so it's very very hard if you're starting out now to actually make money you know in the old days you would start out you know record company would sign you you'd get given a bit of money you'd earn that back out through your albums and then you know you sell more records and you're making money but all of that has completely gone i was very early on in her career i was friends with one of the managers of rebecca lucy taylor who's self-esteem So Rebecca was in the band Slow Club

And they were making no money And there's two of them in the band One of them was from a slightly more comfortable background And he was comfortable doing what he did And they're great band Rebecca was not from her comfortable background And needed money And the whole time she said, I don't know what to do

I'm not making any money And she's just nice to go solo And the struggle that she had And I saw every step of it The amount of time she almost gave up She said I can't live I can't even during COVID She said, I was, she almost gave it up and was going to become a, like, a fitness instructor.

Yeah. You know, because there was no money. And there's no family money or anything like that. And there's generations of these musicians. She has a particular personality type and also a particular talent that meant, A, she stuck it out and B, when she went over the top. Everyone went, oh, my gosh, she's unbelievable. But the amount of Rebecca Lucy Taylor's and self-esteem we have lost along the way because there is no money for these bands. So what can you do at home?

Go and support people. when they play live. Definitely go and see people's live music. Pre-order albums. Don't think that some of your favorite bands are rolling in money because a lot of them have got side jobs. The Ankeress, who I love who sings with the Manix and does great solo albums as well.

You know, she's a lecturer. And she said I was there and one of my students was saying, I saw you on strictly with simple minds yesterday. She goes, yeah, I know. That's sort of the other part of my job. But there is not a living to be made anymore. We did some ransom numbers. And a lot of that is because of streaming.

So for Spotify streaming, you will get 0.0.0.3.5 of a pence. So we did some sums, which is how many monthly streams would you have to get as an artist in order to earn minimum wage? And this is without any other costs at all. You would have to have 567,000 streams a month in order to make minimum wage. We tried to find someone with exactly 567,000 streams, just to show. show what sort of level of artist you'd have to be. And we found them. And it's Alison Moyet.

Oh my God. So Alison Moyet, if all she relied on in her life was streams from Spotify, which is how people are listening to most of her music would make minimum wage. Now, the good news if you're Alison Moyet is firstly she made a lot of money in the 80s solo and with Yazoo. She can tour so she can make plenty of money toys. So Alison Moyet is okay. I don't want anyone worrying about Alison Moyet.

She's doing all right. But if you imagine the amount of stream. You'd have to have to make any sort of living at all. It is a very, very small amount. So touring, you can make money. Sink, you can make money. What sync is, is essentially, it's the name for the industry where you will sell your songs to video games or to movies or to music.

And there's good money to be made in that, or adverts, which is why lots of, you know, license their stuff. So you can make money through that, but you're not really in control of that. You know, you might just, someone at a production company, might wake up one morning and hear your song and go, all that would work well in episode three of this new HBO thing we're doing and suddenly you don't have to worry for a couple of years but you are not in control of it at all so it is very very very hard to make money

you have to be absolutely at the top of heritage acts are all fine because they can tour forever but yeah new young bands coming along if they are if there's ever anything on their website if you like them there's ever anything that says can you support us can you do this can you buy merchandise is incredibly useful all of that stuff that's the way that can make the difference between a band having to give up and a band carrying on. And, you know, you might say, well, if they're not enough people who are listening, then, you know, they're not good enough.

But remember Rebecca Lucy Taylor, who was very, very, very close to giving up. And if you didn't have a certain personality type, would have done. So you'd miss out on that stuff. You'd miss out on some amazing music. So if you love your music and you can afford to support artists, I say that's the best way to do it. Marina, a question for you from Matt Buckler. Because I'm watching a panorama documentary about rogue estate agents. Oh, I didn't see that. I would love that. That's absolutely up my street.

Roga state agents. Yes, please. That's another novel I'd like to write. That makes you, whenever people say, where do you get ideas for books from? As soon as someone says, rogue estate agents, I'm like, there, come on. There's some good stuff there, isn't there? In the program, the reporter has gone undercover as an employee. I'm curious, does the undercover reporter receive a salary from the company they're infiltrating, in addition to payment for their work on the documentary? More broadly, how does remuneration typically work for undercover journalists producing content? Obviously, it's different depending on who does it. Some would regard, in fact, most people doing these sort of things, if they have the luxury of it,

might regard keeping the money as compromising from the company or infiltrating. But it's just not as cut and dried as that. Because for some outlets, now lots of kind of small outlets and freelancers who do these long operations and they're not being paid if it comes off and the investigation is successful then they might be paid and as we know investigations are very very expensive

and so some freelancers I spoke to a couple who would say if I'm trying to do something like this I will keep the money because I've done the work you are working for the company otherwise you're not you've got to be a rogue estate agent it's all right being for the BBC

you don't need to keep the money and in that case they wouldn't keep the money and I'll explain how that works in a minute but as I say investigations are very expensive So some outlets would use it, would offset it against the cost of the investigation because you have to stick around doing it for a long time. But I spoke to Simon Goodley from The Guardian. He's infiltrated lots of companies from us.

Oh, my God. There's a chicken processing factory, which he did eight years ago. He still will not go anywhere near supermarket chicken. Really? Yeah. He was the only one at minimum wage level. He could be English in the slaughterhouse foreman said to him in the first day, Sorry, have you just got out of prison?

Because there's no possible explanation. Otherwise, right, he would be there. Anyway, that's a particularly good one. You can go back and see all Simon's greatest hits. But he says to me that he's always given all the wages away. He said, otherwise there could be an argument that you would tame the money dishonestly. And it's just not worth having to fight that when you've done this painstaking investigation. So he said, normally after I finish working in the warehouse or the factory or whatever,

we approach the company and we invite them to comment on our findings. And then we state we have net wages that we will, either reimbursed to them or we will donate them to charity. And he says in every case he's been involved with the company who's opted for charity, but also I think it's quite difficult to receive the money back. Yes, yeah, yeah. Anyway, he gave some to a specific charity. One firm said, can you give it to this particular charity?

Which he gave, now Simon gets all these emails all the time, saying, you were so generous before. Would you consider donating again? To save the chickens. Yeah. So that tends to be what happens. You don't get paid twice and you probably wouldn't want to. If you're in the luxurious position of having a backer that pays you anyway.

But if you're a freelancer, there's plenty of reasons why you might end up keeping the money or using it to offset the cost. But if you're a rogue estate agent and just on day three, you sell like a house for a quarter of a million pound and you're on 2% of it. I think the deal is you probably are not being another rogue. A real estate. You don't just go in Richard as co-le. you know, this is not a buddy movie. You're probably the secretary or you're probably just working in the office watching, you know, you're writing down the deals.

Here's me. Here's me going into an estate agency day one. Oh my God, you'd be brilliant at Undercover. You're so undistinctive. I know. Yeah. It's a really lost calling. Yeah.

How many, can I just firstly, here's your desk. Secondly, how many episodes of House of Games do you do in a day? How does that work? No, I reckon I could sell a house pretty quickly if I went undercover. I believe that you could sell a house quite quickly. If it was short-staffed, which you would hope that you'd assume a rogue estate agency would be. Would you? Have you been to an estate agent? I have, yeah.

I never feel they're very short-staffed or short-staffed or short of rogues in many ways. Wow. Is there anyone else you don't want to upset this week? We know what people think of us. Yeah. Yeah, I reckon I could set a house pretty quickly. Oh, I do, too. No, I don't think I could, but I think you could. And then I've got like five and a half grand, and I'm going to give that back to the Guardian.

Yeah. We all know what they'll spend it on. Again, I just feel that you've just mentioned two jobs you wouldn't be brilliantly seen as well. Guardian journalist and Rogue State Day Journalist. I'd be a bad Guardian journalist. I don't say you be bad at it. I just think it, I don't think it would be the perfect fit.

I don't think, yeah. I don't think it would be the perfect fit. I can see that. Anyhow. So that's the answer to that one. Actually, undercover work is really interesting in how they do it all, but we'll talk about that. Someone will ask another question about that,

and we'll talk about how you do undercover work and how you run one of those another time. But you don't take your fees, you give it back to the company or they can... Unless you're a freelancer and it's very... You know, if you're mounting your own investigation, then you've done the work. Don't forget you've done the work. All right, I think that probably takes us to a break, doesn't it? I think so.

This episode is brought to you by Sky, home of Atomic, the new Sky original series. Max, a free-spirited drug smuggler is forced into an unlikely partnership with JJ, an enigmatic fugitive, seemingly allergic to eye contact. They're involuntarily trafficking, life-threatening uranium. If it ends up in the wrong hands, the fallout will be nuclear. They're being tracked by covote operatives, led by Cassie, a highly skilled scientist, an undercover CIA officer who will do everything in her power to stop a potential Armageddon. Thanks Cassie.

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She says, I've just... Cat Homes? Yeah, Cat Homes. Where did she live, Battersea? Very, very good. Because she must have heard that so many times. But maybe not that quickly, Cat. Yeah, that was without a bead.

I tell you what she's just been doing just literally contemporaneously to now she has just watched the narrow road to the deep north on BBC I play an incredible albeit harrowing watch throughout the series the prisoners of war lost enormous amounts of weight and I was wondering if the actors would have had to lose that weight themselves which seems appallingly dangerous

or if they can achieve that look through CGI there's lots of different tricks to do there's all sorts of movies you see where people either are much skinnier or much more overweight than they normally are And there's lots of movies where they go on that journey during the movie as well. And it tends to happen in lots of different ways. So honestly, the usual question, especially these days, if you're either losing wait for a role or gaining weight for a role. Is am I going to get an Oscar for this?

Yes. But a lot of it can be done these days with needles either way. Losing or gaining it, different needles. But that can be done. But listen, I'm sure that's not the way it's mostly done. But that would be the easiest way of doing it. There's a few examples where films do digitally slimmed down actors. That's much more usual these days than it used to be.

So the Martian, Captain America, they both used like body doubles and head replacements for scenes in which Matt Damon and Chris Evans appear malnourished. So there was no physical, they're not losing or gaining there. It's literally that's manipulated in the edit, which is much easier to do these days than it used to be. So you can hide things much more easily. Something like a film where people lose weight incredibly quickly. So castaway would be a good example. So cast away, Tom Hanks lands on the island.

And over the period of that film, he loses 50 pounds in weight. So by the end, he's incredibly malnourished. And the way they did that, there's no trickery in that at all. Other than he lost all the weight beforehand. So Tom Hanks lost 50 pounds before he started filming that. And then they filmed it in reverse order. Yeah, Orlando Bloom's got a film coming out where he's still going. He's got film coming out where he's done the same.

same thing. Yeah. So the very, very first scene of castaway when he's at full fighting weight is actually the last scene that they did. So he was able to cross that film, something a lot of fun. He was able to put on 50 pounds during the filming. Gradually feeling less insane as you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Come out of starvation mode. Which probably neatly fitted how the film actually worked. Lots of notorious examples of which actors have lost a lot of weight. It's usually quite grim how, you know, especially method actors. Jim Bale, I think when he was losing weight for the machinist, he had 200 calories a day

for four months, not recommended for anybody. But as you say, Oscar Bait. For women, it was the other way. You had to put on the weight for the Oscar. You've got to do a Shollies. Isn't she brave? You're so brave that you've made us have. Isn't this beautiful woman looks slightly less beautiful than she normally does? Isn't she brave? Let's give her a statuette. But now there's a, there's a, A slightly more undercover industry in Hollywood, which they call beauty work. And there's absolutely all covered by NDAs. But it's sort of slightly starts, not really, but Benjamin Button,

there's an awful lot of CGI work going on there with Brad Pitt, you know, because he's having to, these, many, many different ages. And weirdly, the bit where he's a baby is not the hardest thing. And the hardest bit, the hardest bit of that film is making him look like a fresh-faced 20-year-old. but they had all sorts of techniques on that the agent started going wait a minute how did you do that thing with Brad and they go we can't really say

yeah but I've got a client I would like you to do that for my client and they say what yeah we can't tell you well how about if we give you some money could you tell us oh yeah we could tell you then so from that has sort of sprung an industry where there's all sorts of ways of modifying bodies and shapes and looks and stuff so these days

there are many many different ways of doing it but you want that thing of that kind of castaway thing of that's how they used to make movies all of that is going to go forever now isn't it because so much stuff you can either do by CGI or you can do at the end of a needle or all of those things but it's some very well to me the thing that always fascinates me is just how many how many trainers are now on the interview circuit and part of the big promotion for a marvel movie or a bond movie or anything like that is that you will have a certain amount of interviews with the star in question trainer and they will literally give interviews and they'll be put out by the film company as a sort of, and particularly makes me not believe it.

You're particularly like, oh my God, you were just having so many steroids for this movie, weren't you? And I have heard stories about people, I've heard stories about very famous actors who are just so unmanageable to deal with as the longer the shooting goes on because they know they're going to have to do these scenes where they've got their, you know, their top off or else they're, you know, they're sort of an action star and they're, and they're, you know, by this day taking so many stars that they're so aggressive and impossible to deal with. And by the way, I'm sure there are some people who get an incredible shape by having great training

and eaten right. Listen, we're not accusing anyone. We're not accusing anyone of anything. But it's, yeah, I mean, it's all out there on the screen. It's unnatural. If you look at someone's body and just go, oh my God, I wish I could get like that. Well, you can. But I'm afraid. You unfortunately can't have a cinematic career at the same time. So you can't do both things. You can't be shooting a movie and spend that long in the gym. So something else is helping. Yeah. What could it be? What could it be? Question for you, Marina. We move on to Love is Blind. One of my happy places.

Hazel How, it's quite a specific question. I'll say that, but that's what we like. Hazel Harrison asks, why on Love is Blind and Love Island do they always have the brushed gold opaque cups when drinking alcohol? Is this because they aren't able to show alcohol on the show, or is it just trendy? There is a big argument that people will say, oh, they're always plying people with alcohol on these reality shows. that's not the reason. The reason is quite simple, but it's become something bigger. It's for continuity.

And the shows, you mentioned Love Island, but Love is Blind, all of those sort of Chris Colon shit. By the way, we should 100% do a special on him at some point because I think he's in... Chris Coulin is the sort of producer

who's behind. Love is blind, perfect match, married at first sight, the ultimate... I mean, he is the absolute king of modern romance reality. Yeah, really interesting. They do it for continuity,

Because in any scene like that where you're editing in a kind of non-lit, potentially a non-linear way, we don't know. Because you're editing conversations so much at the time. And editing conversations is hard because we really can't sit through lots of people, especially when they have been given alcohol. So you need to make it tight. And the levels of drink going up and down and, well, they shouldn't be going up and down, but they may well be because of... So if you're having to put something that someone said a minute ago after something you just said then, because it makes more sense of the conversation

that's easier for it. Suddenly you go, hold on, you had an inch of red wine in there and now you've got two inches of red wine. And I've got a foot. And this is like, you know,

30 seconds later. Yeah. And it's surprising how many films have made these mistakes in the past. Like there's the Deer Hunter in the wedding scene,

they've definitely got one of that cocktail, which is about drink. Well, it's not really about drink, is it? It's not about drinks. It's a classic Tom Cruise 80s movie. Yeah, it's about a guy

who has to grow up. About a brash, And it turns out he never did have to. Yeah, he never, ever had to. But he, yes, and they've got different levels. So the gold cups were invented for that reason because you can't see through them, obviously. But Chris Colon said he actually really loves the gold cups now

because they've sort of, if you look at love is blind and it's so interesting because it's quite a sort of relaxed format in lots of different ways. And it goes, you know, you follow them to different places. You follow all these different conversations. you follow them out of, you know, they're out of the same locations. So there is, he calls it a sort of connective tissue. They do always have a gold cup in their hand.

So it's quite helpful across things like that. But they've become iconic, the gold cups. They're one of the items that are the biggest sellers in the Netflix store. Oh, really? Yeah, the Netflix store is actually quite interesting. And I was, having a look well, I was thinking, oh, I'll have a look what else they've got on. Because I'm always fascinated with things like Megan's Jam, supposedly for selling the Netflix store. They didn't even have a tab for her show.

Really? Yeah. Because she's gone into a supposedly a product partnership with them, but I'm afraid that will just sort of peter out. But, yeah, they sell really well the Gold Cups. One of the things is interesting is that that's what people are saying about K-pop Demon Hunters is like, oh, if only Netflix had known that it was going to be this mega hit, you would have a toy line.

They do have stuff like, of course they've got T-shirts, all the stuff you would sort of slightly expect, mouse mats, things that are easy and quick to produce. Yeah, we should do some Thursday Metal Club stuff like Lufers and stuff like that. But a toy line, and specifically figurines, dolls, you need a much bigger lead in time, but they are the big sellers. And with all of those sorts of things, and particularly kind of Korean stuff, but also, as we know, Marvel things, whatever, and toy movies in general,

the toys themselves are, you make unbelievable money for merchandising. So that has been a rare K-pop Demon Hunters-related miss because you just can't get a toy line on stream that quickly. so you can't get dolls into, believe me, this is now going to be a huge franchise that spins off in millions ways and you're going to be able to get the K-pop Demon Hunters. You're going to be able to get your Huntrix dolls eventually. But you couldn't at the start.

But that Netflix shop makes a lot of money and the gold cups are big, big sellers in the Netflix shops. Again, another example of turning a negative into a positive. How do we get over this problem of continuity with when people are drinking? Oh, well, that's so stupid like gold glasses. And they goes, oh my God, I love the gold glasses. Yeah.

Same with every, this is why every TV show has their own mugs. Yeah. Because mugs, you can't see what's in them. And so that can go up and down. Any panel show in the world, the one thing you'll never see is a clear glass of water on anyone's desk at any point. But they're all drinking water all the way through, so. Okay, question for you from Russell Yates about shows clashing with each other. Are programs such as Destination X and Fortune Hotel intentionally scheduled to clash with each other?

And if so, what's the reason for this? Surely scheduling them at the same time is at a disadvantage to both fewer ships? Yeah, and so it's always been the case as well. I think, well, certainly these days are much less important because ketchup is such a bigger deal. But so much of a TV company schedule is already taken up with the stuff that's on all year round. You know, you know exactly what's on, you know, you know, when your news is on, you know when Coronation Street is on or EastEnders is on. So actually, when you look at the real estate of television, yeah, the quizzes that are on all year round, when you look at the actual real estate of television, it's actually quite. small. There aren't that many slots and a lot of things are an hour long and so it's you know the junctions all tend to come at roughly the same place as well because you know ITB are not showing a 15

minute show before Fortune Hotel and neither of the BBC so you know your junctions are 7, 730 8, 9 10 you know 1035 after the news or whatever it is so it is just one of those things that when you have a show like that you will put it in one of the five slots that it could possibly go in and often that is the same one of the same

five slots that the BBC have got for their new show and you kind of try to let them sink or swim. If you get to the point where you've got two hit shows, BBC and ITV kind of learn each other's schedules about six weeks in advance, something like that. And sometimes they'll try and avoid things and sometimes they will deliberately place things against other things because they think we can kill someone else's show at birth with a show that's similar to it. But with Destination X Fortune Hotel, that's one of those things. It's not a huge advantage for either of those channels to place their show against that other show. Because Fortune Hotel hadn't done so crazily well that they were going to bring it back and, you know, blow Destination X out

of the water. Destination X. People didn't know if it was going to do. Actually, it has done rather well. Yes. By the end, so I suspect that's coming back. So that one, I think, is slightly coincidental. But a lot of it comes from either it is deliberate because you're trying to block a new show or it is coincidental because the actual real estate of television is actually a very small group of slots that things can go in and so and you know you have to put it somewhere very good i think that about wraps us up although it is not the end of the week because for our members we have a very special bonus we do transfer deadline day was monday and jerry our producer spent the entire day day he's been down there for about 18 hours looking behind the scenes

how they put it together talking to everybody at sky sports news sky sports news exactly and it's the center of the universe on monday it is an incredible production And Joey's got every single secret from behind the scenes there. So that is for our members, which you can join the membership club at the rest of entertainment.com. We've just teamed up with the National Theatre to give VIP and AAA members 50% off the first two months of national theatre at home, which is their very own streaming service. You see them, that incredible bits of British theatre. You can just see it at home. So if you want to become a member, lots of good reasons, that'll be one of them.

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