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When Gameshows Go Horribly Wrong

3 Hours of Mishaps (May 2017)

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GE
thegeek Founding member
There was a long video (15 minutes +) that some members here shared from Talking Telephone Numbers showing the producer in the booth. They apparently had a large meltdown with the VT among other errors. It was quite comical to watch.

DE
deejay
Now this IS when gameshows go horribly wrong. Heart stopping. And I feel so sorry for that poor PA who is bar counting a music item when pres come across the talkback to ask what's going on...
Last edited by deejay on 20 May 2017 8:26am - 2 times in total
ukpetey, DE88 and bilky asko gave kudos
IS
Inspector Sands
There was much discussion and dissection of the Talking Telephone Numbers clip in the YouTube Gold thread, starting here:
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/mediawebsites/youtube-gold-24162/page-152
WH
Whataday Founding member
Yes, how did we get through five pages without mentioning that beauty.

I've seen a clip of Bradley Walsh's Wheel Of Fortune where a contestant spins the wheel the wrong way, completely buggering the mechanism and writing off the rest of that day's filming.
JA
james-2001
I wonder how they could even do that to be honest, surely they'd have been told to spin it clockwise, and everyone else was spinning it that way.
RD
RDJ
Yes, how did we get through five pages without mentioning that beauty.

I've seen a clip of Bradley Walsh's Wheel Of Fortune where a contestant spins the wheel the wrong way, completely buggering the mechanism and writing off the rest of that day's filming.


I think that was on 'It Shouldn't happen to a Gameshow host'.
I remember the wheel making a big clunk noise and stopping very quickly. Then you see men lying underneath the wheel as they fix it.

I do hope someone uploads the 'It Shouldn't happen....' series on to YouTube. It was repeated many times and the only one on Youtube is the Newsreader episode.
RK
Rkolsen
There was a long video (15 minutes +) that some members here shared from Talking Telephone Numbers showing the producer in the booth. They apparently had a large meltdown with the VT among other errors. It was quite comical to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgFyDwz8m_4


Thank you!

There was much discussion and dissection of the Talking Telephone Numbers clip in the YouTube Gold thread, starting here:
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/mediawebsites/youtube-gold-24162/page-152

Apologies I didn't see the post in the YouTube Gold thread. As I mentioned I only saw it on Twitter posts by fellow members.

Forgive me if this thread got off topic. At first it seemed to talk about a specific program "When Gameshows Go Horribly Wring" but morphed not a general thread of grameshow breakdown.
CN
CNash
Now this IS when gameshows go horribly wrong. Heart stopping. And I feel so sorry for that poor PA who is bar counting a music item when pres come across the talkback to ask what's going on...


Forgive my lack of knowledge, but why was she counting bars like that?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
As I understand it, the camera script uses the bar numbers to identify when things are going to happen, so the PA calls the bar numbers to cue the various camera moves and cuts between cameras.
IS
Inspector Sands

Apologies I didn't see the post in the YouTube Gold thread. As I mentioned I only saw it on Twitter posts by fellow members.

No problem, I was just linking to the previous conversation to save having the same one again. It's a fine clip and well worth including here
DE
deejay
Yup. Bar counting is a fairly British thing though it is used elsewhere sometimes.

The director gets a script of the lyrics with beats and bars notated when there's just instrumentals. They mark up the script with camera instructions worked out from a floor plan.

The PA then takes that script and retypes it, so that each shot is numbered, described, and the duration for that shot is given in beats or bars and beats.

It depends on how fast the shots are and the tempo, but when the song is performed the PA calls:
Shot Number
Next camera number
Then counts through the bars and beats left on the shot

So in a 4/4 time signature bit of music where shot 1 lasts 5 bars and it's camera 5 next, the PA would say:

"Shot 1, 5 next, 2 of 5,
3 (on the 3rd bar),
4 (on the 4th bar),
5, 2, 3, 4
Shot 2 .."
And so on.

A good camera crew used to doing music will be able to follow their camera cards and the PA count, to know how to time each camera move they're responsible for (and how long they've got to get ready for their next shot)

There's more bar counting BBC style 2'40" in this clip, Top of the Pops and afterwards on Wogan (where the PA trips up a bit)


Incidentally while music has been traditionally beat counted in the uk some places did it by timing shots in seconds. Many places with no knowledge or history of bar counting are moving to automated vision mixing using systems like Cue Pilot which has mixed many of the most recent Eurovision Song Contests.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
I guess timing to the second only works if the musicians have a click track in headphones or something to keep the tempo as planned?

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