As Live - Initial Ideas

 Initial Ideas

Having worked well together on previous projects, Heather Wallbanks and I decided to partner up and collaborate on the pitch for the As Live unit. 

Heather and I brought together and discussed our ideas that we had thought of within the unit briefing. It was discovered that both of us wanted to make a game show of some sorts. In the UK, game shows have always held a presence on British TV, with the earliest evidence of competitions/game shows in broadcasting thought to be 1926 (Holmes, 2008). With this in mind and our enjoyment of game shows, we decided upon pitching a game show. We wrote a list of potential game show ideas ranging from an outdoor obstacle course at a waterpark, to a scavenger hunt. We felt that with As Live being shot in March, the weather conditions might not be suitable and could put both cast and crew at risk, with maximum temperatures predicted to reach 13 degrees celsius in Kent (Accu Weather, 2022). A scavenger hunt was therefore more feasible. We thought about conducting it within a supermarket and getting the contestants to go around fetching items within a time limit however, we realised that the TV show ‘Supermarket Sweep’ uses this format through getting contestants to answer various questions and go around collecting items within a time limit (IMDB, 2022). It was also felt that a scavenger hunt probably wouldn’t be enough to stand alone for a half an hour live TV show and would start to lose the audience’s engagement if the whole 30 minute show was a scavenger hunt. As a result of this, we decided to have a few challenges for the contestants to partake in and the scavenger hunt be a segment within the show. 

Due to the popularity of Ru Paul’s drag race in the UK, “with the first series of Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK racking up over 12 million viewers” (Chakraverty, 2021), an increase of more than a third of members of the British public identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community in four years (as of 2020), and a decrease in those identifying as heterosexual (Robinson, 2020), we felt that the idea to make our show LGBTQ+ friendly is current and also will aim to help others gain a bit more of an understanding of aspects of LGBTQ+ culture. With drag culture being current and popular partly due to Ru Paul’s drag race and partly due to changes in attitudes in society, with the UK being a more “diverse and tolerant society” (Government Equalities Office, 2022), we want our idea to be very glamorous and camp.

Bibliography:

Accuweather (2022) Weather for Kent in March 2022. At: https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/maidstone/me14-1/march-weather/328972 (Accessed 20/01/2022)

Chakraverty, M. (2021) ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race UK: ‘I spent five years plucking up the courage to try it out’’ In: iNews 12/01/2021. At: https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/rupauls-drag-race-uk-bbc3-series-two-start-date-contestants-826828

Government Equalities Office. (2018) National LGBT Survey. At: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/722314/GEO-LGBT-Survey-Report.pdf (Accessed 20/01/2022)

Holmes, S. (2008) The Quiz Show. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. At: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucreative-ebooks/detail.action?docID=380401# (Accessed 20/01/2022)

IMDB (2022) Supermarket Sweep. At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180384/ (Accessed 20/01/2022)

Robinson, G. (2020) ‘Number of people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual at UK high’ In: The Guardian 06/03/2020. At: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/06/number-people-identify-lesbian-gay-bisexual-uk-high