Take A Break Fiction Feast's AI Fake Mistake

0:00The Rest is Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy.

0:04Richard Osman:Now we're going to be talking about an expression which I hadn't heard till seven seconds ago, which is someone getting their flowers. Can you tell me what that means? Well, it means like you've been around a long time, but people suddenly think, hang on a second, you're amazing and you should be recognised. So you're finally getting your due. You're getting your flowers. And you're being garlanded. Now I would say someone like this is someone like Jean Smart, who plays the lead in Hacks. She plays Deborah Vance. Okay, Jean Smart is extraordinary. She did a huge amount of TV and stage work. And there was a sense that she was sort of always brilliant.

0:35But then this one role came along, Deborah Vance in Hacks. They literally just give her the Emmy every year now. She gets her flowers every year. She gets her Emmy every year. As we always talk about Octopus's customer service, your accounts run by about 10 or 12 people. You've got a small team. They know who you are. Yes. And they are permitted to send flowers every week to a customer who might just be going through something, whatever it is. So they can recognize it's not an apology. It's just because someone was going through something and you get your flowers.

1:02Richard Osman:Another example of they seem to do business in a very interesting and customer-focused way. Imagine if Jean Smart is an octopus customer, might get her flowers twice. Yeah, every week. Hey, Chicago. Class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today.

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2:06Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

2:11Richard Osman:And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm all right. Hello, listeners. How are you? Okay, good to hear. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Shall we start straight away with a question? As you know, I always like a question asker with a good name. And Stefan Rocket has stepped up to the plate. Thank you, Stefan Rocket. And Stefan says, I was watching Coronation Street and they were having a breakfast of Choccy Crocodile cereal and Wollumstow's bread. Are these fake brands and packaging made up just for the scene or do they have a warehouse full of different brands for use as and when they need them?

2:42This is called graphic prop design, this whole section of things. There are so many of these and they're all really good. Corey's got a lot because, you know, it's about everyday life and so they've always had like Dempsey's crisps, the beers, Newton Riddle, obviously. Kenner's Chocolate, because, you know, they've got the cabin, so, you know, it's like a newsagent you have to go in. Although, funnily enough, Ken Barlow always used to go in and say, Guardian, please, Rita. And Fresh Co., the supermarket. In fact, we've got all these things. They have Hire magazine, you know, instead of Hello magazine.

3:13Simpsons have Duff Beer. You'll often see things on computers, like a pear instead of an apple. Sometimes people are moving out from beyond, Corey, in graphics design, because, I mean, I saw once on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, someone ordering a goober. Right, okay. Sometimes they just make it just a little, it's like it's so phoned in, you know, the hotel's called the Five Seasons. I just, when they do that, I find it a little bit not so great.

3:40Richard Osman:I'm staying at the Hilt Off. Yeah. But it can be the most incredible art. And there's someone who I'm absolutely obsessed with called Annie Atkins, who is a graphic prop artist. You know, I've said, I know I've said it before, if I haven't done what I've done, I would love to have worked in props, I find it. and I would have loved to have done graphic props, particularly. There's still time. There's still time. We all need a side hustle. I know there is. But she is the Diane of this, Aniak, and she's a graphic designer and so many shows have a graphic designer working on them. And she started on the Tudors, which is Showtime's big kind of prestige series about the Tudors, and she didn't really know anything about the period.

4:19And so you're being given these jobs like he wants his wife's head cut off and that would have had to have happened on, you know, there would have to be some sort of warrant or royal order. And she said, I just had to think, what on earth would that look like? You know, and obviously you're staining all the paper and the tea and all this. She's worked with Spielberg, but where she's had the most kind of epic collaboration, I think, is with Wes Anderson. So if you look at something like the Grand Budapest Hotel, which is sort of like a masterpiece of all of this stuff, there are so many graphic props in that.

4:48And, you know, the idea of the cake boxes and all the things that are supposed to create this world. Corrie would look so weird if they were eating out of plain packaging. But you need to create things that suggest, like a supermarket, suggest...

5:04Richard Osman:And by the way, you have to do that because you are not allowed, in British TV at least, to use the actual real brands. That's called undue prominence. And you can't, say for example, you can't have them eating Cocoa Pops without saying it's ad-funded. So that's why they have to have Choccy Crocodile cereal. So you have to have brands because it gives the truth of a situation, but you're not allowed real brands. I always, like on TV, constantly use someone to do a joke about Toblerone. And the lawyers will go, no, sorry, you have to take that out. You think, well, the joke, Toblerone is part of the punchline to that joke.

5:37Richard Osman:It doesn't work. I completely agree. Kind of triangle-shaped Swiss chocolate. Or like whenever you're watching Bake Off and they say, and you're using yeast extract in this. They use in Mermaid. Honestly, it's okay. It's fine to say. But you're not allowed to say that's why they have to replace all these things, for legal reasons. But creating these sort of fictional ephemera, it needs to look like it comes from that world exactly, in a way. And it takes you out of the world. Like it really, you know, if someone orders a goober, you're like, oh, come on, that's so stupid. Like, just do something else.

6:08Just, you know, lift Lee or something. Call it anything else. But in order to create these incredibly immersive words, you have to. And so much of it actually is done by lettering, which is why so many of these people started off as graphic and particularly font and calligraphy designers. And it is so interesting. I mean, Annie Atkins has done books about how she builds these worlds. And it's amazing how much of our world is lettering and packaging. And if you're making a new world, however fictional, that world must have its own lettering and packaging.

6:40Richard Osman:If something looks off, it looks off to all of us. We all get the language of the thing. And that's why, you know, with these choccy crocodile cereal, if it looks 5 % off, it completely takes you out of the scene. That's an amazing job, Steve. I would absolutely love to look at this. And yet, and still, and we talked about it before, they still can't get newspapers right. No, they always get newspapers wrong. There's masses of white space, so the headlines don't scan and they just look really, yeah, they never seem to be able to get it right. Which, by the way, I never think it's that hard not to be, not to kind of de-romanticise that trade, but I don't think it's that hard so I never understand why they but that takes people out of things a lot it really does you'll be watching the best drama and suddenly a front page of a newspaper which would never ever ever happen you're like oh no now I'm watching some actors which is the last thing I want to do anyway look up Annie Atkins look up all there's so much online about her worlds and how she's created it and how she did it it's all done by hand it's absolutely just like an absolute artist honestly and by the way I literally just said there plain packaging would be like East Germany.

7:44Richard Osman:And I remembered that I bought a book of East German packaging. And it's so brilliant. Oh my God, can I borrow it? I think it's a Fiden book or something like that. But just, you know, all the kind of packaging and it's really, really great. Oh my God, I might buy that myself. I would love that. So I take it back because they actually had amazing packaging. Okay. Although at the time it must have felt very utilitarian, but now it looks great. Yes, it's a vibe. Yeah, it's a vibe. It certainly is a vibe. Okay, this is another brilliant name. Myrtle McDonald. That is good. She says, I work in the film industry and I've just been invited to my first actual premiere.

8:16I obviously said yes straight away, but I realised I don't really know what it entails. Is there lots of hanging about? Should I dress up? Bring my own snacks? Any advice appreciated?

8:26Richard Osman:God, that's a great question. It is, God, it's like one of those, like sort of running a marathon, going to a film premiere. It's like, Myrtle is right. If you're invited to one, you sort of, there's no way you can't not go. but yeah our view of film premieres is very much we see the edited highlights of just the the big stars on the red carpet and what have you well that's fun to watch oh yeah absolutely yeah it's like to stand a bit back and watch them doing it and you really can and you're inside the the barriers as it were when you walk along that red carpet myrtle it's it's it's sort of it's got kind of two tracks there's the track for the people who are going to have their photo taken and be interviewed by the papers.

9:08Richard Osman:And then there's the other track. The trick is you can walk as slowly as you want along that other track. You don't have to, you know, A, you'll be in the back of lots of shots. B, you will see all the stars walk past. But the key thing is do not speed through that little bit because once you're inside, you're in for a big disappointment. That's roughly what I would say. Once you're inside, you'll be shepherded into various places. Sometimes in premieres, if they're in one of the big kind of multiplexes, there will be two or three different screens all showing it all the different audiences and those audiences will be kind of you know you'll have the people who are in the film will be in one and then there'll be like the influences in another and then there'll be like an overspill thing oh no we've invited fans to this one uh so you'll be in different places yes definitely bring your own snacks if you can i mean occasionally they will have like you know if the film is if it's Wonka you will definitely have a bar of Wonka chocolate on your chair.

10:05They will often give you popcorn and a drink I have to say.

10:08Richard Osman:They will often give you popcorn and a drink I remember when we see the Alan Partridge Alpha Papa Premier you had a shock damaged chocolate orange was on your seat so there will be stuff but you can't absolutely rely on it I would say that and sometimes it will be some sort of they'll have done a deal so the popcorn is actually just some new artisan popcorn from a company, some venture capitalists would put some money into it. And you're like kind of halfway through, you're like, well, this isn't proper popcorn at all. So I would bring my own snacks. So the thing is, yeah, it is, you will be shepherded about a lot because the PRs are trying to run the day.

10:46Richard Osman:All they really want is those photos, right? That's all they really want. And they want people to feel like they've had a good time and post afterwards about how great the film is. That's the influences. The stars are having their photos taken. If you are there, I would say just slow down the walk stay outside they never hurry you along they just care about those people at the front if you want to gawp at them I realised when I went to the Devil Wears Prada 2 premiere recently just a couple of months ago that I've just become something that I would have hated when I was younger I'm not interested in any of these stars my friend said to me that's so and so she runs the parks for Disney in Europe I want to speak to someone from parks I'm really interested I want to know everything about the Churros economics, every single thing about this.

11:30I was less interested in the stars than Disney's kind of like arcane corporate hierarchy. And I really wanted to know more about the parks.

11:37Richard Osman:But my main piece of advice is stay outside for as long as you possibly can. There will be people, because it's absolutely their job, who will be trying to shepherd you through to various different rooms. You can just say, oh, no, I'm OK. I'm OK, thank you. Watch it as a spectacle of everybody performing their little jobs and getting what they need out of it. Yeah. And bring your own snacks. But as you say, sometimes they're great snacks, but you can't rely on it. That's what I'm saying. You can't depend on it for sure. So lovely big top hat with a bit of pick and mix inside it. That'd do you.

12:10Richard Osman:We must do something, by the way, at some point about the new popcorn bucket industry in the States. If anyone wants to ask a question about that, about popcorn buckets, for next week, we will deal with that because it's fascinating. Sarah Baker has a question for you, Marina. you know oh my god sarah you're so right what's with the trend where footage of interviewees sitting down and chatting with a crew gets included as part of the intro it happens on netflix all the time but i'm pretty sure it also got used on once upon a time in northern ireland it's become a meme on tiktok and instagram so i'm not the only one who has noticed you're certainly not definitely not it's a thing it is my god you know that if in case you're not totally sure what sarah is talking about it's like when people are sort of just getting settled and like you know putting their mic on before are we rolling it's like you know we're rolling because i'm watching this right also by the way you're fiddling with your mic and yet we're hearing you with perfect sound yeah which is not it's literally not possible but it's interesting okay so we have for this we have to go back into the whole history of sort of talking heads on documentaries for a long time you couldn't really have them because sound was really tricky so you had that sort of voice of god but then in the 60s there were sort of two movements in documentary making there's like direct cinema, which kind of grows out of the US, and that's observational.

13:22You're capturing real life on the wall. They don't have interviews. They thought that was a sort of form of artifice. Then in Cinema Verite, which grows out of France, there is lots of interaction between the filmmaker and the subject, and you hear on-camera conversations. And both of those, even at the time, were a sort of discussion about authenticity. The direct cinema bunch thought that, you know, asking people to explain events afterwards changed the truth, and it wasn't real unless you were sort of watching it happen. But Cinema Verite, the people who sort of subscribed to that felt it for emotional context and reflection that went deeper considering everyone knew you were actually sitting in front of a documentary.

13:59So let's be honest.

14:00Richard Osman:I knew this would come back to Cinema Verite. I knew it. I just knew it. Okay, but the seated interview, the thing that you're talking about, which we see a lot now, that became very popular in the 70s because it's really good for exposition. You know, you see it tons on the BBC or PBS or whatever it is. because telling a story just through your own footage or through archive actually quite difficult as if kapadi does it amazingly all his documentaries are just archive but the second you go oh i could have someone just telling the next bit of the story here and someone who was involved in it as well it becomes incredibly useful concert with the b-roll so you can see then it's very so you know and then they change the style of these things and they kind of made a much more shallow depth of feel they make it more cinematic they change the lighting sometimes they put the eyeline off camera whatever it is.

14:44But the thing you're talking about...

14:46Richard Osman:They sit you at the front of a warehouse and you shoot all the way to the back. Oh my God, so often. I've seen James Holland in a lot of warehouses talking about wars. The thing you're talking about comes back in the prestige documentaries of the 2010s, okay? So things like The Jinx. I don't know if you... My God, that's a documentary if you've never seen that. That's a sort of true crime thing. OJ Made in America. Right up to sort of Tiger King, which, as you know, was a big thing in the pandemic. The stuff that's the bit before the camera gets rolling. It takes longer for something to become a cliche than you would think, but it's now been rolled out everywhere.

15:16For me, part of why they have rolled it out everywhere is that there are obviously so many documentaries and it gives a flash of authenticity, but there's something undone and deconstructed to it because I think things have become so polished. Yeah, it feels very real.

15:31Richard Osman:So I think it comes from a real place, which is you're sat in an edit and you're watching every single bit of sync you get in, every single interview you get in. You do see them at the beginning sitting down saying, and where do you need me to look? And as an editor and as a director, you're thinking this is the time at which this person feels the most natural, the most real. It would be useful for me for people to buy them as a natural and real person. Actually, this would be a really, I wonder if I could just keep this in. It does a lot of work for me. It makes it feel natural. It makes it this as a real human being.

16:01Richard Osman:You understand everything that's going on. I think that's where it comes from is that they saw that footage and went, it would be great to have this in. Adam Curtis always says all the footage he ends up using is after people stop doing the thing that they were supposed to be doing. So you're doing like a little quick piece to camera in, I don't know, Sarajevo or wherever it is. And the stuff that happens afterwards becomes the usable stuff because it's when people's guard is down or whatever. But again, saying, you know, are we good to the director or whatever you're saying, all of it is supposed to sort of acknowledge the artifice and therefore kind of remove some of the artifice because we're always talking about authenticity in documentary making.

16:37So that is why. But I agree that it's become such a cliche now that I don't want to see it anymore. Like lots of things.

16:42Richard Osman:And also, yeah, it's also been taken advantage of. There's a particularly egregious version of it in the Vardy documentary where they're doing the, oh, I'm sitting down. But it's like a script, like a really eggy scripted piece to bring a particular prop into the thing. And you think, no, come on. That's, to me, is when no more of this now. I like it. I like seeing people, you know, slightly, you know, off guard. I like the naturalness of it. But now they've started using it. And honestly, on that Vardy thing, it's very, very, very early on in that Vardy documentary. I'll see it again in 20 years.

17:15Let the cycle turn over again. I'm bored of it now.

17:17Richard Osman:Let the cycle turn over again. But, you know, honestly, if you sit in an edit on a TV show and the bits that aren't really on camera, the bits where someone's just talking to the audience or the bits in between the shots, you think, oh, my God, there's such a naturalness here that is so great. And documentaries can use it. You can't use it in entertainment shows. That's why sometimes you'll see after the, you know, the credits of a TV show, they'll use a little bit from the recording where people are just kind of you know slightly off mic and mucking about because it just it it does bring a real truth to things right shall we now go to some adverts yes uh we're going to take a break and after we take a break we're going to talk about take a break the magazine who are using ai for their fiction now we'll be discussing that

18:02this episode is brought to you by lloyd's rewards now a big mistake that people make is leaving the cinema as soon as the credits roll because there might be a bonus scene right at the end.

18:12Richard Osman:They're absolutely one of my favourite things in the middle. Yeah, you never know. In Marvel's ones, there used to be a mid-credit scene and then there'd be an end-credit scene. I remember the first one I really remember, well, two, I remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off where he tells you to go home at the end, but also Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds where they would do bloopers. It just feels like a secret little glimpse into a different world. And it doesn't quite have to be over. Yeah, exactly. And it's just a lovely little added bonus. You've done everything, you've made your show, you've given everyone everything.