The Rest Is Entertainment - Trade Secrets Of Countdown

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

What constitutes a true story? Was You've Been Framed the gateway to TikTok? And, essential followups about retrieving props plus how Countdown works. All the important questions you asked answered by Richard and Marina on this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment. Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Introducing Tim's new savory pinwheels, the perfect flaky and flavorful snack for those on the go, like me, who's recording this while snacking. Delicious. Try the roasted red pepper and Swiss or caramelized onion and parmesan pinwheels only at Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rest Is Entertainment, the Questions edition. Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Richard Osmond, you are? Marina, hi. Lovely to see you. Very nice to see you Richard. We're back in the same studio where your legs don't reach the floor. Well yeah, my legs are still swinging like a small child on the swing. I've got some great any other

business to begin with. You remember last week we talked about what happens if somebody throws a prop into the sea or the river. Okay, well Mel Thompson's written in, she says, I'm a freelance TV art director so I've often dealt with props being thrown into rivers. Marina's correct with her info but now we're more environmentally conscious. A new solution has been found, water soluble dummy props. A friend was organizing a scene involving a scuffle on a party boat on the Thames and there was concern about the prop gun being dropped into the water. To solve this problem, a prop maker made a replica gun which would dissolve if dropped into the river. I've since

used this solution on two shows where mobile phones were scripted to be thrown or dropped into the water. These replicas are strong enough to be handled and can withstand some water e.g. rain. Wow, I wonder if you could smuggle one onto a plane. A soluble gun? It's really sad that you've taken something that's really amazing and creative and resourceful and just thought about doing a hijack with it. That's what I do with everything. I had so many other business but which I won't go into Jim Watson, thank you ever so much. I talked a couple of weeks ago about the Saudi Arabian snooker tournament where they have

a golden ball at the end which means you can get a one six seven break and he's gone into the physics for me of how hard you would have to hit a ball made of solid gold to make it go into the pocket. It's fascinating stuff but you know probably not for today. Is it measured in newtons? I don't want to, you're right, why am I getting involved? It's certainly measured in something. Yeah. Shall we get on to today's first question? This is one for you I think Marina. Alex Elliott, thank you Alex. Can you explain the difference between based on or this is a true story at the start of dramas? Okay, and there are many different variations of this now.

I recently watched the British film Wicked Little Letters and at the start it says more of this is true than you'd think and there are many different variations of this. But in that case, it's something that happened in the 1920s and everyone in that was dead. And as I don't know, but maybe our listeners know, you cannot libel the dead. So you can say what you like about someone who is deceased. We were almost going to call the podcast that. Yeah, you can't libel the dead. You cannot libel the dead. Yeah, I know. That would be a good one.

You know what? I'm going to have a good old go. Yeah. So I've got a few things to say about Frank Sinatra. You honestly can't libel the dead. You can't libel the dead. Now, another thing that's quite interesting and related to this is that no individual holds the legal right to the story of their own life. So as long as you've obtained the information lawfully and without any sort of subterfuge then you are free to make a story about anything. However, as someone who's sort of been

involved in various of these things before you, there are competing rights and the chief one is that you have the right not to have your reputation ruined or to be defamed. That is tricky. So what you'll find dramas which are based on a true story, for instance, ITV's Mr Bates versus the Post Office, I remember saying to somebody when they were writing it, how have they done all that? Because that's really just quite complicated and so many of those people had obviously been through the absolute wringer. What they'd done is they bought a lot of them up as we put it. You pay someone the rights and sometimes people, a friend of mine made a movie about someone who her true story was being told, but she had to have sort of poetic license explained to her to some degree. We have to make it like this for a reason. And so there is a certain amount of give and take.

What writers often will end up doing in a complicated story like that is create a composite character. Someone who serves the purpose of a number of different people. So it's not so bitty because real life is much more messy of course. There are people who are not happy with the ways their stories have been told. I mean there's an old saying in Hollywood where there's a hit there's a writ. Well there was that inventing Anna about the fraudster. The Vanity Fair photo edit has sued Netflix over her portrayal in that saying that they made it look like a sort of horrible snobby idiot. The Queen's Gambit, that chess player, is still suing Netflix for saying she never faced men within that drama because she felt

oh that actually undermines my achievement, I faced men, I beat men, but they left that out because they thought it made the story better. You don't want to get sued by a chess player. No, you don't want to get sued by a chess player. No, you don't want to get sued by a chess player. And actually they've tried to have it struck out. That is still ongoing and a judge refused to strike it out. So I think that one will go, that will happen in that case. They have very good defense. Yeah.

Pam and Tommy, the drama about their sort of sex tape and their marriage, all they did, those people, was option a 2014 Vanity Fair article about how the sex tape came into public domain. Pamela Anderson was really upset about that, hated the series and made it very clear that she hated the series but she didn't have any sort of legal recourse. She's doing her own one now. Yeah, but essentially because they optioned the article then all the kind of legal requirements was on the article.

I don't think, I mean in our country as we talked before about libel in this country you would have a lot harder time. In the US there's a lot of First Amendment stuff and it's quite difficult to see for libel, slander, whatever. She's actually going to make a rival thing about her own story. There was something that I was asked to write and I still really want to write it actually. The Paul Chuckles story. I can't talk about it because it's such a good idea that I dent, I should say it wasn't my idea but it was someone else's idea. It is the Paul Chuckles story.

But I felt like this is the way to do it. But it is only real life characters in it. And some of them, funny enough, some of them were tabloid journalists, a few of them. And I thought, you know, the one thing I can tell you is that those journalists would be the ones to sue. Journalists love to be talked about, they're so thin-skinned, I mean really genuinely they would probably be the bigger nightmare than all the people who the drama was actually about who were much more sort of significant. But if you portrayed someone in a way they didn't like and they were a tabloid journalist in so many work cases they would sue it's absolutely ridiculous even though they moan about legal all the time.

So that thing at the beginning based on a true story or this is a true story it's sort of a legal disclaimer. Yes. And the more stark it is, like this is a true story, the more either A, it's about dead people or B, it's a very accurate reflection of what happened. And they've probably been brought up by the company because otherwise you are open to a number of different legal actions. Yeah, and this is based on a true story, gives you a little bit of wiggle room. And quite often they will say certain characters have been invented, certain scenes have been imagined, which as you say

normal life is too complicated for an ITV drama. By and large you do have to sort of have composites of people. We once did a drama about Snooker called The Rack Pack, which Sean Pye and Alan Connor wrote about Higgins and Davis and it's brilliant. I think it's still on iPlayer and Jimmy White was in it and so they had to, as you say, they had to go and talk to Jimmy White and say that you're being represented and make sure this was okay. And they said, we're doing the bit where it's in the 1985 Goya Masters. And Jimmy said, yeah, I didn't play in the 1985 Goya Masters. And they had to go, Jimmy, you won it. But Jimmy White, as you can imagine

was an absolute delight and was very happy you know to sort of give his say so. But yeah you have to be very very careful with real people. Do you not? And they you know people do have recourse. Oh that's nice that they sort of bought up the stories on Mr. Base. So they're making good money. You really have to. You have to buy people out. And there might be various different pieces of source material. Say a celebrity has written a kind of early one of her first autobiographies, you might buy that. There's various different things and really you want to get them on side or at least not have sort of complete enmity as clearly what happened with Pamela Anderson in that documentary.

Because saying that documentary, not sorry, that drama, that drama was sort of about how exploited she was by the whole situation and clearly if she's out there the whole time saying I'm being exploited all over again effectively. She didn't say those exact words but that's sort of what happened. She didn't get paid anything for it. It's not really great for your message of your big drama. No one's listening anymore because they're all thinking what's the project that you want to do. Well, hopefully it'll come to light one of these days. Oh, Richard, this is so one for you. Names in show titles. Chris Reed asks, why does Alan Carr have his name in the title of all his shows?

Is this a branding thing he's deciding gets negotiated into every show he does? I've also just remembered the full title of House of Games, Richard Osmond's House of Games, so I'm most definitely not passing judgement here. Again, it's sort of like the true story one. It differs in each case. Now, Richard Osmond's House of Games is called Again, it's sort of like the true story one. It differs in each case. Now Richard Osmond's House of Games is called Richard Osmond's House of Games because when we registered it,

there was a show in Sweden or something called House of Games. So we couldn't call it House of Games. So they had to call it Richard Osmond's House of Games. So it wasn't an ego thing on my part. But that said, when your name is in the title, it's, you know, that's good for branding and it's in the radio times and people are having to say your name out loud

and it brings a sort of personalization to it. So it's not unhelpful to have your name in the title. It's sort of, it has some prestige to it. With Alan Carr, again, his name would be in the title because he often does remakes of other people's shows and you know, just lots of great game shows and his name has great recognition. He's a cache, it's a draw, yeah.

Cache, so he did a show called Picture Slam. Now when you're looking at the EPG on your television, the electronic program guide so you see what's on and you can usually only see the first three or four words of a program. Now if that says Picture S picture slam then you scroll past it right because you think well I've never heard of it so you go down to something you've heard of. If it says Alan Carr's picture slam then it essentially says Alan Carr's, well it would

probably say Alan Carr's P but it would say Alan Carr's P but you see the name Alan Carr oh you think oh well I really like Alan Carr so I'm going to watch that. So quite often these days if you've got you know a who people like, you put their name first because on the EPG you just see that. Other people have it contractually. Bob Monkhouse used to have lots of Bob's Full House and all sorts of things like that. And that I think is just a branding thing. I think he thought that was a good way to bring everything in house and again people liked him. Lots of the documentary guys, or maybe some ladies, have their names in the title, you know, whether it's Ross Kemp on This or That or Danny Dyer, you know, they're sort of brand strands in themselves. Brand strands. Brand strands, sorry, I think I'm on a tautology there, but you know what I mean. And again, that is because, simply because that is the format. There isn't a format other than Ross

Kemp going, you know, to the front line or Danny Dyer visiting you know football's hardest gangs or you know Britain's hardest bouncers so that their very presence is that format. In the game show world I honestly I've never heard of somebody saying I want this to be called my name and then the name of the show there's not a negotiation I've ever had with anybody or an agent who said we want to do it but it has to be Vernon Kay's All-Star Family Fortunes. It's a deal breaker. You know, it's just not something that happens.

So if it's useful for the show sometimes they'll put the name on. As I say, in my case with Richard Osman's House of Games, which by the way I never called it ever, although it's whenever you get... In conversation that is true to say I can confirm you will refer to it as House of Games rather than saying your own name. Although the acronym, like all TV shows have acronyms like have I got news for you, I used to work on was always Hignafy, would I lie to you was Wilty and House of Games is Roehog because of Richard Osmond's House of Games so we always call it Roehog. But yeah, by and large, it's just something

useful for the channel to have people's names in the title. I think that Dale Winton, the wonderful Dale Winton who's sadly no longer with us, when he started Supermarket Sweep and he wasn't particularly known, Dale, at that time, and said to all of the contestants, would you call me Dale at the end of each of your sentences? Did he? Yeah. So on that show, a lot of the time they go go, yes I'm from Winchester, Dale, or oh I'd probably spend the money on a new extension, Dale. And it got his name out there so quickly and it's such a smart thing to do, but that's

not necessarily an ego thing because if you're a producer you want that as well. You're taking a chance on a new presenter who you love because you've seen them do the pilots and what have you, But you want that name recognition. And so for you having them say Dale at the end of every sentence is also incredibly useful. So it's one of those things that brings people closer to it. But yeah, I've never, I genuinely, and I'm trying to, I'm honestly trying to think, I cannot think of a single occasion where it's been an ego thing that someone says, I'll do it, but it has to have my name on it. But yeah, House of Games, it was because we weren't allowed

to call it House of Games. Okay, good one. Next question on Marina hides the rest is entertainment. This is from Connor Marlborough, and actually it's off the back of the props thrown into water during filming. He asked, when shooting on location in terrain such as sand, snow, mud, how do productions deal

with footprints left by cast and crew members between takes? Are people on the shoot simply banned from stepping on the untouched ground prior to the first take? So the actors footprints are the only ones visible in shot. I recently watched Dennis Villeneuve's excellent Dune sequel, which is only slightly marred by the constant thought of how much of a nightmare masking all those footprints must have been. Broom or rake? Fix it in post? Connor has all sorts of suggestions but again, if a good question, what do we do about footprints? Okay, normally there would be someone on set of course with a broom or a rake and they have to get it back to normal as best as possible.

Like a golf caddy? Yeah, pretty much. And there are many different surfaces and some things people have to wear the blue shoes, you know, the blue overshoes on lots of sets anyway, because lots of sets have got great kind of nice carpets, whatever, so most of the crew will wear those shoes. I'm working on something at the moment that's got one set which is very beautiful and very shiny and someone is constantly mopping that between each, you know, polishing it between each tape so it looks beautiful. Like the Olympic curling. Yeah, yes. On something like June 2, they would have taken a lot of it out in post because you've

got quite a lot of money and you can do that with VFX. Having said that, given how spectacular it is, and it is incredibly spectacular, it's made for 190 million dollars. Obviously a huge amount of money, but not compared to what a lot of the big franchise movies may spend another 50% on top of that easily. So you don't want to take too much out in post, although footprints are a lot easier and there's a lot of software now. I've spoken to somebody about this and they said oh there's lots of software now that even if you're doing your own movies you can take it out. They call it the Kate Middleton suite. I spoke to a photographer who was interesting about this who said, work out as soon as you

sort of get out of your vehicle where you're going to be photographing because you're not going to be able to clean it up and make it look as beautiful as it was before. And he said, I've done things like that where I thought, right, the place I'm standing is the bit that would have looked best in the picture. So then it will have footprints. And I think you can only sort of use it for one of those terrible trite Instagram captions that says the longest journey starts with a simple step and you've got some footprints in the sand or something like that. Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints. The perfect one, obviously. Okay, so that sort of thing.

But in movies they do take them out and somebody is carefully raking between shots, but there will still be disturbance to it and they will probably fix that in post, but it's not the most expensive thing to fix in post. It's one of those extraordinary things about any type of filming is there are people's jobs you would literally not believe. The most extraordinary tiny lot of things that have to be done all day every day we've been making TV, film or anything and one of the great things about TV and film is the infinite capacity to take pains to make something look as real as possible and never take people out of the story. And it's, they're just people whose job and they're so professional and brilliant at it is to make everything look perfect at all times, which is why people

love it when they're, you know, like a coffee cup is left on down to heavy because they go, finally, I get what if we just left this to just, you know, if we just left this randomly, you know, this is how it would be all the time. And it's amazing the incredible attention to detail that people have. And often when you see really bad effects and stuff like Marvel movies, it's because they call it the crunch. They have no time and they've tried to fix everything in post and these VF, it's a big part of why VFX laborers are trying to unionize now because it is an absolute nightmare and they're working like 18 hours days and they can't fix everything in post and it's become the sort of thing like don't worry we'll deal with that we'll deal with that

we'll deal with that and in the end it's like am i making the whole movie on a computer view at the end and it's just not possible in the time frames and these VFX houses are completely maxed out and the workers are exhausted and they are all trying to unionize now. Yeah and please sweep up your own footsteps. Yeah can you please at least not tread all over the site. Let us now go to a break Richard. Welcome back everybody to other questions and answers edition of Someone Was Furious last week because you said questions and answers. I know.

And they say you have to absolutely stick to your guns. I have to make the same mistake every week. It's not a mistake, it's just a disagreement. I think it probably was the first time, but it's become a thing. Okay, I really like this question from Jonathan Gare. I've always wondered if Suzy Dent plays along while filming Countdown or does she have a computer to help? They always ask Suzy if the contestants could have done any better and she always has an

answer. I was in Dictionary Corner recently and I'd never done it before but it's hosted by Colin Murray now and I've worked with Colin before, I've worked with Susie and Rachel before as well so I said yes because it's a fun thing to do and I've always watched Countdown and my grandparents used to watch it, I just remember my granddad sitting there with his pad and pen and writing down the answers so I was delighted to go and do it the way it works is The producer on that was a guy called Damien Edie who's a former countdown champion One of the greatest countdown champions of all time and he's One of the greatest career arcs of all time

Yes exactly Now runs the show He now runs that entire show and The letters all come up and I'm trying to work out what the answer is. Susie's also doing it as well and kind of looking things up. So in the gallery, so Susie and Damien are both playing it just like they'd be playing because they happen to be incredibly good at countdown. Obviously I'm playing it as well and you know.

I don't think you'd be too shabby if I'm honest. But slightly worse than Susie and a lot worse than Damien Eaddy know, I don't think you'd be too shabby if I'm honest. But slightly worse than Susie and a lot worse than Damien Eady. Now, I don't think I ever got to the stage, you can hear Damien in your ear, he always gets the biggest ones because he's just, that's his thing. There's a computer that can back it up if you need it,

but by and large Damien is the computer and by and large Susie would have had it anyway. When you use the computer as if there's a very unusual word in there, again, someone like Damien will always get because they know all the words, but a word that needs explaining or a word that Susie wouldn't necessarily have at the front of her brain. So she's got a computer for that and she's got an earpiece for that. But the fun of making that show, they couldn't have made that show for so long if they're not playing along, is the truth. So Colin is playing along, Susie's playing

along, Rachel is playing along. And when you're in D for so long if they're not playing along. No. It's the truth. So Colin is playing along, Susie's playing along, Rachel is playing along. And when you're in dictionary corner, you're also playing along. And sometimes Susie will very kindly write things down for you. Oh, Susie Dankribschie, I'd quite like that for life. This is here, that's here. And I always make a thing of it, if Susie came up with that, I always say, Susie just told me. Sometimes I watch it and there's people on there who sort of haven't got an answer and they go, yes, I've got a diminuoid, which I think Susie, sorry, is that, I think it's something, they think, oh, she just told you that.

But yeah, that show, because they've done so many thousands of episodes, I think it would drive them mad if they weren't playing along. Yeah, and you'd sense that there'd be real niggle between the audience who would also know that they're doing it and there'd be a real, I think there'd be a foireur, attention within the countdown studio, which I don't think any of us ever wishes to see. None of us. Of all places.

That's a very happy crew on that show at the moment. Colin and Rachel and Susie, I think they've got it how they like it. I recently made the argument, which I stick by, that Susie, I think they've got it how they like it. I recently made the argument which I stick by that Susie Dent is the longest running host in British television history. People often say, oh, it's Magnus Magnusson or it's Sue Barker, but it's Susie Dent in terms of the amount of shows she's done. And with Pointless, they always said, oh, I did 2000 episodes. And I say, well, I'm a co-host on that. So Susie does the same job. And so she's the longest running host on British television. But it's fun. It's fun to do countdown. But it's fun to record because you play along.

And so if someone is a fan of countdown, it's an absolute joy. Cat's Countdown is fun to record as well, but in a very different way. Because the first time I went on Cat's Countdown, which is a show I used to produce, it's funny and Joe Wilkinson's mucking about and everyone's brilliant, but a bit of you is going, yeah, just get onto the letters because I want to. I've never played, the first time I ever did Countdown was Cats Countdown. I was like, I just want to play though. Yeah. So just let me, yeah. And the numbers, I'm like, it's all very well Jimmy, you're driving around in a tiny little car with Joe Wilkinson in a sumo suit on your back, but I'm really trying to work out this sum, so just bear with me but yeah dictionary corner is is as lovely as you would imagine it

to be thank you for lifting the curtain on it and not it not being something hideous behind it oh my god can you imagine yeah if it was an extra snake bit yeah vicious it is cut your legs off it is yeah it is annoyingly genuinely as lovely as it seems but things you know you can see that on screamer shows I think sometimes definitely I always think on house of games We have such fun recording it and that takes away an awful lot of the producing because just the very fact of people enjoying themselves Really sees you through and I think there have been eras in countdown history where they haven't enjoyed it so much I was going to say in a similarly euphemistic way. I think there have been eras in countdown history where they haven't.

Yeah, those eras are now over. They are. Yeah, or that era is now over. But you know, by and large, it's been it's been fun from start to finish with the odd blip. A question from Andrew Shearer. He asked, I don't think there's an answer to this, but I think it'd be a very good subject for a PhD.

He asked, read your discussion of social media, short clips and dopamine. I wanted to ask, was you've been framed our gateway drug? Oh my god, that's like, I feel like that's a sort of 15,000 word deep dive that I would 100% read. Yeah, it was like YouTube before YouTube, wasn't it? Because it's been going so, I'm going to get this wrong, for three, it will be close to four four decades maybe say 35 issues if I've got that wrong please write in and tell me that I'm wrong right back at the start of that by the way how expensive would video cameras have been they were quite a it was quite a sort of thing if you got these things and lost some of them began as perhaps TV bloopers from other

countries almost yeah well all the clips were from America by and large. We once, 20 odd years ago, I think we had Channel 5, they had bought an archive of Russian home video clips and said could we do something with them and a lot of them, by the way, you couldn't. But there are a few we did, yeah, and we made a show called Lights Camera Accident and it was all based, they bought this archive. The Proudful Trauma Zone, the Adam Curtis documentary where Adam Curtis, amazing, he made these incredible films which you can still see as all his amazing work on BBC iPlayer where he was given the entire archive of every single piece of news footage shot in the BBC during, in sort of former Soviet Union.

He told the story of the collapse of communism and then effectively the sort of collapse in some ways of capitalism giving way to gangster capitalism that's trauma zone but you can see it on iPlayer but that sounds to me like the pratfall trauma zone where you got all the lights camera accident was like that but classier yeah yeah yeah exactly um yeah so essentially companies started in the edges they built up huge libraries of these clips they would just buy clips and it wouldn't cost them a huge amount and everyone would go oh my god i could make 250 quid yeah if sell this. Yeah, it was 250 wasn't it? Yeah. Someone's built this enormous empire off the back of these clips. And they failed to build YouTube. Why didn't they just build YouTube? The original producers must have gone, do you know what, we are the cleverest

guys in the whole world. We're making money out of 15 second clips. We are making an hour of ITV content every week. We're making nearly seven or eight grand a week out of these clips. We are making nearly seven or eight grand a week out of these clips. We are the greatest geniuses. But it's true. Silicon Wally's. Nice. Is that the new series you're doing? I want to apologize for that. So please don't write in because I'm apologizing having just made the joke. I used to absolutely love You've Been Framed. Again, because it is laughs per second. I remember once there was a best of You've Been Framed and I remember, I can't remember who was talking to me. Well, that's gotta be the best program ever made

because You've Been Framed is the best program ever. And this is the best of the best program ever. That's the best program of all time. But you know, tends not to win all the BAFTAs. But when Harry Hill used to do it, I used to watch it with my kids when Harry Hill was doing the VO on it as well. He is a peerless.

Yeah. They've made a brilliant show even better, but now there's so many millions and millions of clips. And it's funny that that show doesn't really exist anymore because the whole of our culture is that show. It's like five hours of people's day is watching short clips immediately, anything in their pocket. It's a good question. So the answer is- As I say, please can someone someone point in the direction of a 15,000 word deep dive on it because I would 100% read. Yeah, I knew it the moment. I saw Jeremy Beadle I knew it. I saw the future once again

It's a precursor. Yeah the harbinger Beadle was the harbinger. Yeah That's all we have time for today. That was a lot of fun. That was much fun Um, thank you so much as always for listening or for watching if you're watching on YouTube. Keep sending in your questions to therestisentertainment at gmail.com and if you want to continue on that deep dive down with props, I don't know where this will take us, by the end we'll be like okay we can't have any more props questions but it's very interesting. Yeah when people wear hats they do actually, anytime you wear any costume

they take a photo of you don't they so they can see exactly the angle of everything but listen. Yes, continuity is fascinating. It doesn't sound a bit as it actually is. We'll do that alongside our four part Scrappy Doo series that we're planning to do. Thanks for listening everyone, we'll see you next Tuesday. We will do. Bye.

Bye bye. The End