VT Production

V.I.POO VT commercial screenshot.

My role was important when it came to the creation and development of the VT's. Working with the VT Director, we tried to develop ideas that were relevant thematically and stylistically to the show as a whole.

VT Production was challenging, as it did feel at times as though the group wasn't bonding well together and pulling in the same direction. Difficulties with availability and communication, as well as creative differences, meant that progress was being made slowly at times and it was around two days before TX that we received the final version of the Charity Shop Showdown. This segment was conceptually strong, taking influence from Dress to Impress and had within it a great opportunity to carry a lot of energy and humour, but for me ultimately fell a little short of the mark. There were some really strong qualities; the edit was well refined and the Presenters' personalities were visible, along with John providing a strong V.O. but the sound was a prominent issue throughout which ultimately detracted from the quality of the piece and took away from the strengths markedly too.

Entering The Children's Trust to ask for permission to film.

During the development stages of the VT's, I also scouted locations in Maidstone with Emily and Lewis for the charity showdown segment. I'm very familiar with Maidstone and knew that within around a 5-minute walking radius there were somewhere in the region of 12 different charity shops; this gave us plenty of opportunity to approach different stores to get permission for filming. The benefit of some of these stores (Peggy Sue, MADM) was that they were small charities that only had one store, so decision-makers were easier to speak to directly without too much red tape standing in the way. This was really helpful for our small Production where we couldn't offer much in the way of incentives other than small-scale promotion of their businesses.

During the post-production process, I sat with the Producers and reviewed the VT's, taking notes on changes we might like to make, or ideas on how we thought they might be improved. The notes we then provided were actioned and revised editions were then sent back to us. It was agreed early on that some of the VT's would not be used, so the most suitable were chosen for the Live show.

One of the VT's that was incomplete by TX, but had originally been planned as a segment of the show was the "You talk sh*t" segment, a sequence of Vox pops asking the public about fashion trends, celebrity gossip and risqué questions. We had originally planned this segment as a way to break the potential monotony of the studio setting and to buy us some time for camera repo's, we also thought it had the potential for unexpected reactions that could be funny for the audience. Although the show worked without this VT, I would have liked to have seen the section fulfilled and the potential that it could have had. Thinking of Let's Talk Shit as something that I believe has the potential to be commissioned, it's important to have options to gauge audience interactivity and preferred segments and I had imagined that in a group of 3 episodes (For example), each episode might have some deviations between segments to see what was most popular and further inform the rest of the series.

With these frustrations in mind and the challenges during the development of the VT's, I thought that the final outcome could have been finished to a better standard and this would have helped elevate the show's professionalism.