notes on filming tv

I recently stumbled onto the filming of a TV pilot, and saw some behind-the-scenes stuff that perhaps you might be interested in.

I found out that the opening credits, where the audience are screaming the host into existence, are actually filmed in the middle of the show. This is because the audience is not actually warmed up at the beginning of the show but will be by the half-way mark (at least you'd hope so).

On TV, when you see the host rush out in front of the audience at the top of show, it's actually the second time that the host has rushed out. We were told this, at the half-time interval by some bearded guy, who was not the MC but popped out onto the stage, who proceeded to explain the filming of the opening sequence to us.

We were told to scream like a bunch of rabid monkies, and, of course, being a bunch of celebrity-starved attention tools, we cheered on the host back on stage to welcome us once again.

The icing on the bike

What is the most important thing on a bike? Well I was recently talking Lizzie, an avid bike-rider, about bike accessories. We were at a party at my place, and she and I and a couple of other people were gathered around the bikes parked in our apartment, where she pointed out the features of her bike. Being a bike-enthousiast, Lizzie's bike was a labour of love, a hand-crafted, custom-made work of art, built around a bright blue Bridgestone frame.

But then she said that it wasn't quite perfect. Not perfect? She pointed me towards her handle-bars. "There," she said, "Can you see that I've only get one set of brake handles". It had one of those curvy handles that look like ram horns. The brake handles flared over the edge of the horns.

"What I really need is to have another brake handles set over the top," as she pointed to the top part of the handles near the fulcrum joining the handle to the frame.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"It's much easier to smoke a cigarette with when you can hold the top of the handlebar with your other hand."