Editing tricks, stopping leaks and how do you pitch shows?

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1:25Hello and welcome to another edition of the Rester's Entertainment Questions edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osman. Welcome to the Questions and Answers podcast. And Answers. It's so crucial. Every week there will be answers. Last week we did an emergency podcast, didn't we? No. You loved calling it that. No, we did a special bonus episode. I was saying the only way I'll ever get you to do an emergency podcast is if there's a massive hit show on Netflix called Emergency that everyone's talking about. Then you'll be forced to. I will have to find a way around it because it will never happen.

1:54Now, let me kick off for you, Richard, with a question from Thomas Lane. I want to know this as well. How do TV shows that film in advance stop their contestants from giving away anything on social media? Examples like Bake Off, MasterChef, The Professionals, Traitors. It would be really easy for one contestant to give away the ending accidentally or on purpose. It's a really, really good question. And finally, when I looked at the question, I was thinking, do you know what? It's quite tricky to give the answer. So different shows do different things, but by and large, you're actually relying on goodwill.

2:23With the traitors, Harry is obviously not getting paid until the show goes out. So it's in his interest to not give that away. So you have contracts saying you can't give something away, but you can't enforce a contract. What are you going to do? Fine, Andrew. He said he actually broke the rules and told his dad and his girlfriend. And it was about 5am. I thought, oh yeah, you've gone out and had a big night and just thought, oops. And his dad opened a bottle of Prosecco at five in the morning. Oh, wow. Harry's dad, probably 10 years younger than both of us. Yes. With someone like Harry, it's easy because he doesn't want to break that contract with other contestants.

2:58Some shows will give a little runner's up prize that's not mentioned on air, which only gets paid as and when you get through. There would be situations where lots of people go on these shows. Apprentice would be a good example for exposure. Yeah. And, you know, to get some sort of contract with various people. and they need quite a lot of goodwill from the production company and the channel for that to happen. So, you know, if you've been on The Apprentice and you want to work on the BBC and you give away the ending of The Apprentice, then you're not going to get that job. The Apprentice actually, I don't think they still do this, but they always used to film two endings where he hired both of them.

3:35So even the people who won did not know they'd won until they watched the episode. So, you know, which is a good way of keeping things secret. I also don't know this, but I know how newspapers and things work. which is that if they did know who won it, they would keep it totally secret because there's no better way of pissing off your readers than to spoil the show. So you kind of, it's a little bit safe on that side too. But even, it's not just contestants. So Bake Off, when you do the spin-off show, you could tell by the Traders when they did the spin-off show or anything with an audience, there's a whole studio audience who know what's happened and they don't give it away either.

4:09So they will all sign a thing saying, I'm not able to give this away, but I mean, what are you going to do? Once it's given away, it's given away. But people don't. So Strictly, usually, if you really want to search for it, don't search for it because it will ruin everything. There's a spoiler before the Sunday night show because someone in the audience on the Saturday or someone somewhere around the show on the Saturday will be able to tell you who got kicked out. The lovely news about it is because I think whoever was doing the Strictly Spoiler was monetizing it somehow, that everyone started doing their own Strictly Spoiler website.

4:38So actually, it's sort of impossible to find out which is the real Strictly Spoiler, which is quite good news. that's one of the rare occasions where disinformation is incredibly useful. But by and large you're relying on goodwill. If you do a quiz show, if you do Pointless, anything like that if you do House of Games, don't put anything on social media until the show goes out If you're ever watching, if there's ever a big celebrity show on and you want to know who wins just go on Twitter and see whose tweet is saying yeah I'm on Dancing on Ice tonight I hope you guys can catch it because they're only saying that if they won.

5:06But by and large honestly usually it's just sort of goodwill and everyone plays the game and plays fair and if you look after people properly on shows and if they've enjoyed themselves, then they will do that. But it's a great question. That's quite heartwarming. I have a question for you, Marina. Very good. Kathy Clugston says, Radio is a form of entertainment that is often left out of discussions. That is very true. Its demise has often been predicted, but it somehow survives. I wondered what your thoughts were on the future of linear radio, given the podcast explosion. The podcast explosion.

5:39The podcast explosion. The emergency podcast explosion. Well, this is very interesting. because linear radio is far from dead. People don't want it to be dead for a start. 12 % of the BBC's entire consumption happens in cars. Wow. It's extraordinary. People are listening to the radio in cars. Funnily enough, 85 % of BBC TV consumption is completely linear, which is, again, like one of the mistakes people often make when they're talking about media is to imagine that they are representative. And just because you like to get lots of podcasts or you like to watch everything on catch up, most people don't.

6:11But we're talking about radio. So to go back to that, people actually want what's called a sort of lean back experience. People like turning on their radio in the car. A podcast is an act of choice. And you may think, right, I'm going to go and walk the dog. I want to listen to a specific podcast. Please make it this one. But the great rest is stable. To be fair, if anyone heard that, they are. They're maybe already doing it. They already did. They are maybe already doing it. The worst people to advertise to are people who are already enjoying your product. Yes, I must get the hang of this, mustn't I, Richard?

6:41but people want to sort of lean back and they want to be able to turn on the radio in the kitchen and something happened linear radio is what happens when you're doing something else it happens in the background if you're doing something else and people have a lot of time in their lives when they are sort of having to do other things and they'd quite like to just be able to switch something on and a channel or whatever to be happening so what you've got then your issue is the devices and the devices in this case are technically the car which is the device which is delivering this thing to you or what used to be people's kitchen radios and are increasingly becoming smart speakers which are owned by amazon google whoever now what unfortunately is happening is that there is no incentive for volkswagen or for google to make radio front and center in the dashboard of the car because they can't monetize it they're not interested in radio because they can't monetize it they can maybe do deals with spotify or things like that so they they're not it's not in their interest exactly the same with the smart speakers now smart speakers are coming into the market far quicker.

7:35Cars take a long time to wash through. You don't get rid of your car, you know, you don't keep your car for a long time. And so radio is front and centre in most dashboards still. But that might change. So yet again, radio is a really big battleground and it's a battleground against, in my view, some of the sort of pretty awful companies. And it's all via the devices. So it's... So when you say that might change, you mean that car companies would start producing cars without an inbuilt radio and so you weren't able to access. Well, they might do a deal themselves. They're not going to do a deal with the BBC, obviously, but they might well do a deal with Amazon, Spotify, all these different, which allows them to put their things front and centre and easily, most easy to select.

8:17But people don't want that. But it might be what they're given. But people don't want linear radio to die at all. It is literally the tech companies, and it will become the car companies, who are the battleground on this. this is something I would take to the barricades for if you can't get the radio I mean radio to me, linear radio comes down to this, would I put on Ready to Go by Republica probably not, if it comes on the radio am I like yes that's the world of curation for you, once again the world of curation we need to start lobbying the car companies to say keep Vernon Kay in my car, please please keep Lisa Tarbuck in my car this is the hill I will die on, exactly Richard we have had so many questions about Dragon's Den TV fakery that I'm just going to sort of amalgamate them in one.

9:01Just to sort of recap this, there was a contestant who, please stop me if I'm getting this wrong, Richard, she was selling something called a 30-pound Accu ear seed. It's a gold-plated ear seed that she says cured her ME. Now, this has been quite a big scandal. This is sort of, people are saying it's snake oil. And I think all six dragons tried to invest in it. And she went with Stephen Bartlett because I think she said that someone had told her she was going to meet an important man called Stephen. Ding dong, that's the warning sign. Anyway, I believe the BBC have now had to take this off iPlayer because there have been obviously a lot of snake oil claims about it.

9:39They've actually put it back on iPlayer now, but with a tiny edit and also a caption on the screen saying there is no evidence at all that these earbuds work, these earpods work. Ear seeds. Ear seeds, of course. Gold plated. What am I talking about? I'm an idiot. Of course it's ear seeds. Yeah, it's interesting that because obviously there are huge, huge, huge amounts of money to be made in alternative health remedies. And of course, if you're an investor, you would be investing in some of those. And of course, certain things do work for certain people and the placebo effect works on certain people.

10:11So that isn't a multi-billion, billion, billion dollar industry wellness. And there's always something. And if you want to invest in it, if it makes people feel happy, then all well and good. There's obviously a side of that which is my machine cures cancer, which is illegal and you should go to prison. So it's sort of a world in which people would be investing. And the interesting thing about Dragon's Den has always come out of an entertainment department. It's always an entertainment show. But it does have a genuine truth to it somewhere, which is there is a world in which people are looking for investors.

10:44These people, the dragons, are genuine investors. It's their money. They're not getting paid by production to sort of put money in. And they do really invest, you know, after the show, of course, there's more due diligence. And there's lots of deals break down, but lots of deals also go through. So it has an awful lot of reality to it. There's a lot of people have been using the phrase TV fakery, which is something we haven't heard for a while. But it was a big scandal for a time back then. It does take you back. Because people were saying, oh, well, she was approached to take part. Now, I don't think that is TV fakery.

11:12No, it's not. And that's always how Dragon's Den has worked. You'll always get people applying to come on the show with ideas. But you're making a TV show. You want to make the best TV show possible. So, you know, you will often, if you're a researcher on that show, a producer on that show, you'll be looking around for young, interesting businesses who maybe have not thought about approaching Dragon's Den. You approach them. You say, look, would you be interested in coming on the show? Are you looking for investment? At what sort of level? You have conversations with them. Most of them will say, this is not for us.

11:38But some of them will say, actually, you know, yeah, this is. You know, you could go through like a Whole Foods market and you see there's a marshmallow brand. And you think, oh, give them a ring. That's an interesting thing. So yeah, it's not TV fakery. Lots of people do apply, but equally you wouldn't be doing your job properly if you weren't looking for interesting businesses. No one is coming along with a fake business that doesn't exist. No one is coming along and trying to con people. All the businesses there are real people, real entrepreneurs, and they're pitching to real people. So I've never had a problem with that.

12:10I did a few documentaries about Dragon's Den, about the sort of biggest successes they'd ever have. And it was genuinely such a heartwarming experience. You're talking to the entrepreneurs who had real businesses, real stories, and the money had really, really helped them grow. Talking to the dragons who took it very, very, very seriously. And so, yeah, I think it's a pretty solid show, Dragon's Den. As to whether they should have these ear seeds, it's tricky. Because definitely people making ear seeds are going out looking for investment. That's for sure. And Dragon's Den is a show that hopefully shows what real investment is like.

12:47But I do think the BBC probably has to... Get out of the ear seed game. I think probably it does. And listen, when all the peer-reviewed papers are in and ear seeds are proven, then of course do them. Leave it to Gwyneth Paltrow. I just think there shouldn't be a crossover. I think so. I think if something's on the BBC, it does give it a certain veneer of respectability. This is one thing in however many shows. This is not. It's interesting talking about telefakery in general because that seems like such a tame scandal looking back on it. This is back in the sort of around 2010. The Blue Peter Cat was the big one about.

13:22Oh, my God. Blair Grylls goes in a hotel. And it seems like we've dined out on these stories for weeks. And then it's now like after the sort of political shocks of 2016, you now feel like saying, yeah, but wait, the guy who presents US Apprentice, right? He becomes president. So you go back and you look at all these really tame stories and think, I mean, do I really care? But because of that, you will notice that in the UK version of the traitors, you have to see them leaving the castle in these black land rovers every night and then driving back in in the morning. In the US version of the show, which is shot in the exact same castle with the same crew and everything, they just pretend they sleep in the castle.

13:53But because we've had this scandal, we have to show that they're not actually sleeping there. Otherwise, there would be a great big story in the Daily Mail saying they don't even sleep in the castle. Oh, God, don't. it's like Homes Under the Hammer where you used to sort of pretend you just follow people back from the auction and now it's like no, every bit of TV is like, oh my God, this is like Edpol, which is editorial policy. It always has its hand on almost any format these days. So I think, yeah, I think probably it was unwise that for all the people asking, but I think Dragon's Den is pretty robust and Gary Neville was on that episode as well, which was great.

14:29someone had like a cinema pod and he was saying I'm going to give you all the money but only if you can turn it into social housing you sure Gary? the big scandal it never really came out was that on blind date when they used to when you get the choice of holiday at the end the two envelopes same thing in both envelopes you know but you know it's like it's TV isn't it? I'm shocked same thing right? retrospectively I'm going to make a massive complaint and you believe it and then Cilla Black became president yeah can you believe it same hairdo actually ok on that blind date bombshell let's move on to our next question Sophie Fisher asks my question is why are films made for Netflix etc so long what is the benefit to streaming services to produce longer shows is it with a view to introducing ad breaks which we talked about a little on Tuesday I don't think it's to do with introducing ad breaks this is a very good question first of all they want to keep you on the platform they also think you're watching it at home So you can probably get through a three and a half hour movie over three nights or you can stop and make cups of tea and all those things.

15:32But actually, genuinely, the main reason is because they needed to attract creators to the platform and they just told them they could do whatever they wanted. And if they'd made it for a different studio, would have been told to get their movie down under two hours or two hours, 10 tops. We're suddenly making three hours and 10 minutes. and I'm I mean I was actually speaking to someone who'd spoken to Mike Lee about he'd done Peter Lou for them said this is fantastic you can do whatever you want they've let me do whatever I want well I don't know if you've seen it but it is much too long and it could have benefited from someone saying this should be shorter and people creators who all thought you know always think they know best but actually part of the whole ecosystem in which they work is someone editing and saying I actually think we need to get this under a certain thing it's not commercial at this length it's not you know it's too long there's too many woolly bits i know you love it but you need to be told someone needs to tell you well for a long time at places like netflix or maybe even amazon they didn't tell them no one told them they needed the creators to come to their platforms because they were suspicious of the streamers they wanted to stay with old studios so part of the creative offer was like basically you can do what you want and you make it as long as you want and there's very few creatives who are if they were given two hours or three hours would take two hours yeah and an impressively short answer as well marina we've curtailed ourselves exactly this we have a little imagine if we'd gone on for 15 minutes yeah about that the problem with creatives is they keep going going and going um let's have an advert this episode is brought to you by state farm checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling and when it comes to checking off coverage a state farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you whether you prefer talking in person on the phone or using the award-winning app it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs.

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18:23Welcome back. Now, straight into a really good one and a matter of mass annoyance for people. Leanne Rhodes says, why do so many programs have a preview of what's coming up before the start of the show and coming up after the break? It infuriates me. Likewise, Leanne. sometimes they show up so much I don't even need to watch the program and I turn over Leanne thank you for me thank you from everybody for asking that question it drives me absolutely up the wall those shows where the first minute is this is what you're about to see in the next bit and then even then like halfway through that bit there'll be like another bit coming up it'll be the one good line in the whole show by the way and you've by the time it comes like you've heard it three times you've heard it at the beginning you've heard it halfway through you've heard it just after the advert break as well they do it on property renovation shows that's the thing the only reason I'm watching your show is you're showing me a run down farmhouse and at the end I want to see what it looks like and you are showing me in this coming up what it looks like they cannibalise their own content I just do not understand is the audience regarded as having such a short attention span that unless you tell them what they're going to see they're going to wander off presumably yes but what is the evidence for that I don't know any evidence other than it's a sort of very 15 years ago thing of let's hook people in in the first five minutes you think that's because otherwise they'll switch over you think that's those days are gone come on give us a little bit of extra content dragon's den which we just talked about the apprentice they have these the beginnings of the show that go on for so long there can't be anybody who's not just fast-forwarding through that yeah on iplay they go uh imagine the four dragons walking to the den we know we know right it's like series 40 we know who they are we know they've gone into the den honestly just start with the first pitch you know and in the apprentice we have to do there's that whole you know beginning of the show this is the series where you're also showing us things from later in the series where we can see contestants who've got through they're very usually very careful about not showing you stuff like that but you can see it and then it's this is what happened last time and then it's the titles of the show and then we're into the show you think i can't do this three minutes of stuff.

20:30It undermines the show and it insults the audience. So I wish they would stop doing it and I don't actually believe there's any evidence that it hooks people in and makes them hang around longer. If anything, it takes away the drama and the, you know, reveals. Exactly that. Watch YouTube. They're straight into that stuff. They're not kind of going, on the last episode, let's see what happened. Now on this episode coming up, this is what's going to happen. Now let's see it happening. Oh my God, that's such a good question. Leanne, I'm sorry I don't have a technical answer for why it is that people...

21:00I don't believe one exists. I think it's laziness. Also, it's a sort of way of making sort of filler, really. It takes down your 30 minutes or however long your programme is. You can take four minutes of it with this nonsense. I mean, it's possible, and this is a possibility. If you're the BBC, when they're sending abroad and shows have to be slightly shorter because they're on ad-funded channels, it's a kit of parts and you can say, here's four minutes you can cut out. That's possible. That would be a good reason. But I suspect it's the horse leading the cart now and people think they have to do these things.

21:30Honestly, I'm already invested. Stop telling us something crazy is going to happen. And also, oh my God, this is the thing that drives me mad. And actually, there's another question about it, so maybe we'll get onto it. This is the pet peeves edition of the Q &A. Which is, they do it on Dragon's Den all the time, which is someone will say something from a pitch. They will then cut to a reaction from a completely different pitch to make it look like something absolutely nuts has happened. I think, no, that's not the story of your show. So quit that. Yeah, very good. That's such a good question.

21:59Thank you, Liam. Okay, well, let's talk about reactions because someone else has asked a question about reactions. Bill Craddock. He says, please settle a running argument between me and my wife. Always, Bill. And it doesn't have to be about television or anything to do with entertainment. Just get in touch with us. Dishwasher. Yeah. Do you know what, Bill? She's in the right. I'm so sorry. On a TV show when The Thing happens, the camera cuts to a presenter, fellow contestant, audience member, et cetera, to get their reaction. Is this a true reaction or is someone editing the footage to splice in reactions from other incidents, even in the case of the presenter, kind of stock reactions on a held tape, you know, a tape that you might already have?

22:34Anything with Greg Wollison is the pinnacle of this, suggests Bill. Anything with Greg Wollison is the pinnacle of anything. It's a really good question. By and large, you try and avoid that. As I was just saying, on the start of Dragon's Den, when they're sort of, you know, giving you an idea of what's going to happen, they constantly do it. It's different bits from different episodes and that drives me mad. if you're doing something like a panel show so in a panel shows millions of edits because you know someone's talking someone else is talking you know you've got cameras on everybody so you know in the edit you've got all the different you've got the feeds from all the different cameras we call it a quad split we probably don't anymore so what a quad a quad split so you have four things which is what a vision mixer would usually use and someone does a joke and you want to come out there and come in slightly later so they do that joke you then have to do a sound edit and someone says something directly after so you haven't got the the immediate reaction of someone laughing you you might then find that same person laughing in a similar way from later in the show and edit that in to cover that edit so you might you you might do that what you wouldn't do is do a joke that lands flat and then edit in someone laughing hilariously who didn't laugh in the first place.

23:47You want to be emotionally true to it. You would find the equivalent shot. We did a show years ago where the host would never laugh at anybody. Okay, so everyone would do jokes and the host would just never laugh. And it was a proper issue very early on in the edit. But then you realise during the pickups of the show where everyone's a bit more relaxed, the host was really laughing. You know, suddenly there was... And so very early in that show, you'd have to just go to the pickups to find shots of the host. Because it looked weird if the host wasn't laughing. It was just nerves, I think, was the thing.

24:22But so you had to sort of put that in. I think the host watched it a few times and go, oh, I love it when I laugh. Yeah, I should do more of that. From that moment on, always laugh. Do you remember, that's the plot of broadcast news. Do you remember when one of the newsreaders, he looks like he's crying in an interview with a rape victim or something. And in fact, she was like, and then Holly Hunter works out that they only had one camera there that day. So it wasn't possible for him to have got that reaction. and it destroys her view of him. It's regarded as this kind of huge emotional moment because he's faked his two shot and in fact he sort of went back and made himself cry afterwards.

24:53Oh, clever. But yeah, so it's available to people. In reality shows it's done a fair bit. By and large producers would not do it in a way that's not emotionally true or to stitch people up because that can come back on you. But you have a lot of reactions and sometimes you do have to replace the reaction with a reaction that's similar. I don't know whether we've come down on the side of you or your wife in that particular answer, Bill. Bill's wife. Yeah. What does Bill say? It's not clear. So I hope that the... Yeah, come on, Bill. Bill and his wife are, you know, that is the answer. Anyway, let's move on.

25:32I'm team Bill's wife. Yes. I have a question for you, Marina. I suspect you'll know this. Swylie Botton writes in. Thank you, Swylie. She says, This week Sky announced a major new upcoming drama about Lockerbie starring Colin Firth six months after Netflix and the BBC announced their own upcoming Lockerbie drama. Gillian Anderson is playing Emily Maitlis in Netflix's drama about the Panorama Prince Andrew thing and Amazon are also doing their own version. So why do broadcasters continue to produce shows about the same subject that are being made elsewhere? Surely audiences aren't going to watch both.

26:02For example, she says, which is a good one, would you watch another post office scandal drama? There were quite a few that people were talking about it because it became an issue about three years ago, say something like The Post Office, where people actually suddenly, it started finally getting a small purchase in people's imagination. People thought, we must do something about this. But in this case, because I think ITV had bought up Alan Bates and bought up his story and paid for the rights of that, and also many of the characters involved, the others fell away because they simply couldn't compete with that bought up content.