The TV Producer

Sarah has emailed me asking about my experience. Many thanks for dropping by Sarah.

I’ve done pretty much a bit of everything from major entertainment series that sold round the world to the first babe chat channel. An area where I’ve got quite a bit of experience is daytime chat shows. One of the most popular themes we covered was “DNA – the test results.” These programmes were all about finding out who the father was of some poor baby, a baby that would have been far better off being adopted as soon as it was born rather than stay with any of the parties involved. On any subject, the guests had usually fallen out of the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down and were dressed in various forms of casual wear fashioned from man-made shiny fibres. When they did actually make an attempt not to look like they were on the rob, it was as though Stevie Wonder had dressed them. Another thing they nearly all had in common was a morbid fear of the dentist, it seemed as though they’d grown their teeth in Coca-Cola. It was fair to say that I wasn’t really proud of exploiting these morons for ratings but I needed the money.

Another speciality is medical programmes which is amazing considering I’m incredibly squeamish, a fact never divulged to the various production companies that employed me. The first time I viewed orthopaedic surgery, I threw up in the edit suite rubbish bin. I was haunted for weeks by images of the surgeon using a circular saw on a thigh bone while wearing something akin to a welders mask to stop bits of bone getting embedded in his face. Then there was what looked like a hammer and chisel being used on a hip joint where each bang of the mallet from the surgeon sent judders through the patient’s unconscious body. It was not for the faint-hearted, neither were operations on eyes or testicles but I had to watch them all at length and repeatedly.

Although these programmes were torture for me, I did get some helpful tips while getting paralytic with the doctors and nurses. For example, a consultant cardiologist told me ‘My dear boy, never go into hospital in the months of August and February. August is when all of us consultants bugger off on holiday and leave the juniors to man the pumps. February’s not good either because that’s when we have a fresh intake of newbies and all the other juniors are rotated. Unless you’ve been run over by a bus, avoid those two months like you would a hooker with a cold sore!’ Valuable advice indeed.

I’ve had a rant about Top Gear before but after watching it last night, I can’t resist again.

Clarkson is moving out of Earth’s atmosphere in terms of believing his own press. He thinks his opinion really really matters and that everyone is on tenderhooks waiting for his next missive. Of course many viewers are but that doesn’t get away from the fact that he’s a tit of the highest order.  Teamed with Hamster, the local radio DJ and May, the affected poseur we have a smorgasborg of shites so smug, they’re drowning in it.

The supposed ‘challenges’ are fake enough now to totally stretch the bounds of credibility, a classic case of the producers treating the audience like children ‘They’ll never know’ 

The voice over as the celebs were about to be cast all alone onto the streets said with extreme gravitas. ‘As soon as they leave the van, they’re on their own for three nights’.  No they weren’t. There was a cameraman with them most of the time and at night, they even had the light on the top of the camera at full blast. There was a wonderful moment as James was ejected from the van. He walked past a hen do queuing to get into a club and they reacted in the way many pissed-up lasses on a hen-night do – leering and shouting at he camera and we just missed one of them flashing. Amazing the way James just slipped into the background – ‘all alone’. Nearly every moment of begging by the subjects was also done under the watchful eye of the camera. Hardly incognito.

Having dealt with them all, I can categorically tell you that there is no way any ‘celeb’, celeb’s agent, broadcaster or insurance company would allow these guys to do this without a very burly bloke with a few stories to tell   ready to pounce in a dangerous situation. Many a time I’ve worked with these guys protecting the talent and they all have had one thing in common. Despite being really very nice to me and the production team,  unless you had a fascination with going to hospital, you wouldn’t mess with them at all. I promise you that nearest Annabel actually cam to a knife in the frightening ‘knife incident’ was as they would have her whisked out of there in flash

A great deal of what his programme told the viewer was is in fact untrue. If you’ve read some of my posts, you would know that I don’t think there is anything wrong in this. Producers have to do things to make sure a programme is actually watchable and they are in fact things the viewer doesn’t need to know about as long as they like the programme.

New series of Top Gear with presenters that have become caricatures of themselves. Hamster looking and sounding like some local radio Dj from the eighties. That complete poseur with affected Englishman image who is one very lucky man to have the job he does.

Then, the ringmaster, Clarkson. I met both Jeremy Clarkson and Gordon ‘Foul Mouth’ Ramsay one night at a charity event. One was charming, funny and great company and the other was a rude arrogant tosser. Clarkson was the latter. 

The Stig was unveiled as Schumacher. While this may be true for this new series I can tell you that in all the past series there were in fact numerous stigs who would be used in different situations.

While on holiday I missed quite a bit of TV. Apologies if this is old news but it’s been while since I posted so I’m playing catch up.

Big Brother is back – oh joy of joys. New exec producers have been brought in and they have cleared out all the staff that usually return year after year, around 200 of them. They wanted a new start with fresh ideas. The first achievement has been taking the level of mental illness in the contestants to new levels. I won’t go through them all because I’ll throw up on my keyboard but suffice to say, they definitely are the saddest and most killable bunch of no-mark losers we have ever seen in the house. 

Divina’s also back, private jetting in from her mansion on the South of France just to do the sow, at her gurning bad clothes wearing worst. There’s the usual crap attached with the freak show, such as BBLB, where presenters are not much better than the SOBs in the house.

It’s car crash stuff but it still creates a level of fascination that will always keep people watching. I know the BB commissioning editor and I was reliably informed that Channel 4 do not give a rats arse about the so-called low viewer numbers as long as it pulls in 2m viewers – which it does. So love or hate, it’s here to stay for quite a long time.

Have a look at some of my other posts for  more on the reality TV ’stars’.

Davina McCall is getting another chat show, this time a daytime one on either FIVE or SKY. She says she doesn’t want to do This Morning because as a presenter on TM, ‘you are produced’ and she wants more control than that.

Does this woman have any idea about how little talent she has and how much she needs to be produced? On Big Brother she spends the whole time auditioning for the National Gurning Championships. A monkey could present that show just as well and the viewer numbers would be the same, it’s not her they’re tuning in to see.  I’d rather have my eyes gouged out with a hot poker than watch one of her excruciatingly bad interviews. The viewers agreed with me last time she attempted a chat show, disappearing quicker than a train load of passengers after a Mexican wearing a mask sneezes.

She wants to be like Oprah and she feels more at home interviewing ‘real’ people rather than celebs. A perfect example of when the talent starts to believe their own press because I know five year olds who have a better interview technique than her. Celebs or Joe public – the result will be the same – car-crash TV.

I pity any of the production staff working on that show with her. I’ve worked with many presenters who took ‘control’ of the production of programmes. It wasn’t nice and ended in tears nearly every time because they become so full of shit and their self-importance grows to nuclear levels.

I really hope this story is just to get publicity so her new agents (the people who look after Ant & Dec) can justify their fees.

Yesterday I had lunch at the Ivy Club with a senior channel exec. He’s…. 

Well Jordan and Peter are getting divorced. If you watched any of this :

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article2424864.ece , it will not surprise you that their fairytale marriage is over. It must have seemed like such a good idea when they got out of the jungle for this publicity-hungry pair (no not her breasts) to fall so deeply in love and want to spend the rest of their lives in the public gaze.

Their TV series mercilessly followed them everywhere and when that sort of intrusion becomes natural, then everything you do becomes unnatural. It would have been a joy to actually produce this show because although I’d have had to deal with them (her) all their genuine feelings and emotions are grossly exaggerated for the cameras. This makes for great TV - my job.

Another producer I know had them on his chatshow, he said Peter was actually very nice, a little thick and completely deluded as to his talent and she was calculating and rude. There was no doubt who wore the trousers. Jordan has the ability to milk the proverbial cash cow for everything she can and this episode will be no different. Although I never ever begrudge anyone making money, good luck to them if stupid people want to buy into ‘the dream’, if I hear ‘it’s so sad’ from another person today, I will have to punch them – or even worse submit them to one of the Andre’s thumping tracks.

To use an old cliché, I do feel sorry for the kids but don’t be too surprised if in a month’s time they announce a joyous reconciliation, of course in front of the cameras.

This is not a normal post (about TV) but I’ve been compelled to comment.

Whilst it is of course a tragedy that people have suffered and died (our thoughts and prayers are with their families and loved ones) Swine Flu is not the killer everyone is panicking about.

Did you know that in the U.S. alone, about 36,000 people die every year from your common or garden flu. That’s 36,000. The WHO (not the band) finally have something to do and that’s put the fear of God into people.  At least it takes our minds of the recession.

Most countries are equipped with enough anti-virals and flu vaccines to be able to deal with this. Yes the virus has mutated to one that’s not a normal influenza virus but we should still be able to deal with it, even if there is a pandemic. Our first cases here in the UK, a couple who had been to Mexico    on their honeymoon, have been released from hospital after only a few days treatment. Says something doesn’t it? I feel sorry for them because their social life is screwed, who the hell will want to meet up with them for a drink at the moment. They won’t even be able to stay in and have a takeaway because no one will even deliver to their door.

By the way, if you are wearing a surgical mask to protect yourself then I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. Those masks are solely designed to stop the wearer (usually a surgeon hence the name) passing on any infection to their patients. As any immunologist will tell you, only very expensive respirators will actually stop you being infected by this virus and even then it’s not guaranteed.

So please, if someone sneezes on the subway or coughs on a plane, do not look at them as if they’re a leper or the spreader of a biological weapon, they may just have a cold or an itchy throat.

Look at this shower of shites and tell me you don’t want to shout at the screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tkEplx0DF8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KA2Tg4D2bE

Tim Lovejoy. Someone who worked on Soccer AM told me he would refer to himself in the third person. The production team had to put up with ‘Tim doesn’t do that’ or ‘Tim thinks this is the way it should be done’. Really believing his own press.

He was actually quite good on Soccer AM because that relaxed ‘oh shit we’ve got a lot of time to fill’ attitude is the nature of the show. It works and I like Soccer AM but Tim’s smug touching-face ‘wow can I really be bothered’ style definitely doesn’t work on any other programme. If you need to punch something just watch him and Simon Rimmer talking about football while Simon teaches Tim to cook. I’m getting angry just writing this.

Speaking of Simon Rimmer, unfortunate surname and makes every single dish he cooks look as though he’s just picked it out of the bin.

Amanda Hamilton, why do all nutritionalists look as though they need to take their own advice? 

This piss poor Sunday tosh is still on because it’s in a slot where there is truly nothing else on so execs think that people like it when really they’re just hungover with no other choice. A good example of how to do this type of programme is Saturday Kitchen, even if James Martin can’t do links to save his life.

If you want something that sums up Something for the Weekend, it’s the ‘just for fun’ competition where they show a clip and ask us to guess when the programme it’s taken from was first shown on TV. I’m just off to have my teeth drilled.