We’re a technologically led industry and I’m a camera geek, so it’s important that I always use the best kit. How did you achieve such high quality images? Our team of assistant producers and researchers were incredibly persuasive in getting the release forms signed, but if you don’t get that signature you can't use the footage and have to start all over again. But it’s amazing how many people we recorded were either somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, skiving off work, or with someone they didn’t want to be seen with. It was a lot easier for Off Their Rockers because the show never created victims from the pranks and most people saw the funny side of what we were doing. The worst moment is when you know you have shot the perfect scene – when a gag has worked really well – and then you can’t persuade the mark to sign the consent forms. We had over 80 days of shooting for 6 x 30 episodes and were filming well into winter.
It takes forever to shoot a hidden camera sketch. What are the specific difficulties of hidden camera? The camera crew was so incognito that often the only giveaway sign for something odd occurring was me standing in the middle of the street speaking to the actors using a radio link, chuckling to myself while looking into a monitor concealed in a duffle bag. Prams are omnipresent on the high street, and are really mobile so you can position yourself close to people without noticing - and most people don’t look inside especially if you appear to be changing a nappy!
#Granny spy cam professional#
The main filming method was having professional TV cameras fitted into prams. Yes, it’s tricky but I invented a few key props to help us capture those moments. However, recording bemusement is much harder than anger or shock, especially with covert cameras, so we devised a technique that allowed close-up and unobscured photography.īut surely it’s difficult to get close enough to capture those reactions without the mark noticing? On Swag it was a look of utter stupidity or the growing sense of fear of being caught, but we wanted a different reaction when shooting Off Their Rockers.Īll the sketches were written with a much subtler style of comedy, where the OAP’s exhibited youthful behavior and all our scripts ended with a telling line, leaving the mark bemused. Hidden camera comedy relies on getting a rise out of a ‘mark’ (an industry term for a member of the public being filmed covertly) and in the days of Jeremy Beadle, it was all about recording the increasing frustration to a wind-up scenario. In the show we caught hundreds of people using some very crooked pranks and set the world to rights by showing that crime doesn’t pay - but might have a comedic payoff. I was then given my first directing job on a Guy Ritchie-inspired show called Swag a hidden camera comedy show based on the premise of setting up criminals for fun and yes, it was as dodgy as it sounds! It all began with a Channel 4 programme called Make My Day a game show in which the contestant becomes the star of their very own TV show. I’ve covertly filmed hundreds, possibly thousands of people throughout my career. Where did all this love of hidden camera begin?
#Granny spy cam how to#
Here to explain why it proved such a hit is the show’s series director Thomas Stark Holland, who tells us about directing hidden camera and reveals the secret of how to get that killer reaction shot… So who was behind this hit prime-time TV show, which regularly pulled in over 5m viewers? Had they stayed to watch the entire scene they would have recognised that these oldies actually had the upper hand and it was the UK’s youngsters who were being set up. Produced by CPL Productions, the show, which is set to return in 2014 after a successful first run, features senior citizens pranking unsuspecting members of the public.ĭuring filming on seires one, some members of the public accused the production team of OAP abuse, but they were basing this simply on the few seconds of footage they witnessed. The pensioners are teaching us a lesson on how to live life and we’d better start paying attention. Hold on, have we switched channel to Extreme Sports? No, this is ITV’s hidden camera sketch show Off Their Rockers, and all is not as it seems. A little old lady hobbles over to a young person and asks them to help her jump off London Bridge, because swimming in the Thames is “something she’s always wanted to do”.
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