Losing the master tape for our second episode turned out to be the best thing that’s happened to us during the course of making 31 Questions Season 2. Tired and irritated, we went back into the studio with an audience one more time on 13 May 2013 to re-shoot the lost episode. It could not have gone better.
Allow me to give you a quick tour of the set:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnyyD-_btI
I used the best questions and material from our first two episodes to make a kind of “super episode”. And as it was the absolute last chance for the foreseeable future to see a taping live, we had a fantastic crowd. Much better than the one we’d had when we taped it the first time round. Damn Comedy Festival.
As we were re-using questions, this did mean we’d need some fresh contestants. And Declan and Lisa were fantastic.
I’d felt a little disconnected from the show the last couple of weeks and I was concerned about my performance. The original plan was to get rough edits of the episodes done before taping the next one. But once again, logistical issues prevented that from working as efficiently as we’d like.
Though plenty of people were telling me “hey, you were great” (#humblebrag), the only way I know how to access my on-camera performance is by watching the footage back myself. Anthony managed to get a couple of short clips from the raw footage up on a private YouTube link the night before, so I could at least check out some of it.
It’s amazing how bad habits can creep in if you don’t continually self-evaluate. And just like my golf swing, I think my posture had gradually degraded over the course of the season. But I fixed it for this episode. I think.
And that’s the beauty of this redux. Undoubtedly our finest episode will be the first one that goes to air, and – if the YouTube views for Season 1 are anything to go by – quite possibly the only episode a lot of people will watch. Better it be the best one.
There was a bit of TV magic in the studio that night. We were given an absolute gift from above during the “Complexity” round. We’d done this round during the Episode 2 taping, and it was quite well received the first time, so we kept it exactly the same for the re-shoot. A lot of the “gag rounds” are still legitimate game show rounds, where actual points are fairly and squarely earned. Not this round. It’s essentially a sketch.
The gag is the round is so complicated, it doesn’t make any sense. So at the start, Anthony reveals a huge rule book and insists on reading all the rules. He also pulls out a brand new candle. We were planning on doing a jump cut to simulate the passage of time, and come back to Anthony reading from the END of the book and the big candle has burnt all the way down.
But to set this up, Anthony actually had to light the candle first on camera. He’s really dragging it out, and I’m telling him to hurry up. But when it was time to actually light the candle, Anthony for the life of him just could not light the thing.
The audience was starting to giggle, and after about a minute, Anthony finally got the candle burning. But it was the tiniest flame. And after about 10 seconds, a line of smoke streamed from the wick, indicating the flame had gone out. The audience just lost it. You could not have scripted it.
And I’m there looking irritated, but all the while thinking, “Oh thank you. Thank you God.”
I’ve now seen the rough cuts for all the episodes. They’re all pretty good. A couple of them are amazing. Of course, I am extremely biased.
This week, we did something that most community TV shows don’t bother to do: We had a dedicated studio date just for pick-up shots. And I’ll tell you why most shows don’t do this: Because it’s a pain in the arse. But we really want 31 Questions to be the poster child of low budget television. So we knew we had to do it.
After going through the rough cuts, Anthony and I compiled a list of 15-20 things that would benefit from being re-shot. They were mostly due to audio problems, but there were also a few bits of footage that we just didn’t have, even on the iso-recordings, eg. shots of the score board at critical times.
So we went back in the studio on Monday May 27 with a skeleton crew (not actual skeletons) and set up half the set. We were also planning on shooting some prize footage for our “prizes” at the start of each episode (this is a Season 2 addition). But the pick-ups took longer than we thought, as is usually the case with making TV. So we’re still not done yet. But we’re close. So, so close.
We’re currently exploring options to shoot this prize footage outside the heavily in-demand RMITV studio.
Our first episode of Season 2 is due to air on Channel 31 Melbourne & Geelong at 8.30PM, Saturday July 20. TVS Sydney, 31 Digital Brisbane, 44 Adelaide and Face Television New Zealand have all said they’re keen to air Season 2.
We’re still waiting to hear back from WestTV Perth. I’ll have air dates for all of these cities & NZ soon. But they’ll be on YouTube shortly after they air in Melbourne.
Subscribe to the 31 Questions YouTube Channel, if you haven’t already.
We’ve just about reached the end of the “production” stage of 31 Questions Season 2. We got off to a shaky start, but there’s some real magic this year. I’m proud of my team. I’m proud of how we got it done. And I’ll be proud of the finished product.
I don’t know about you, but 31 Questions is the kind of TV show I actually want to watch.
Kind regards,
David M. Green
Content maker.
