The Rest Is Entertainment - Top Three Spielberg Films

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Which of Steven Spielberg's legendary catalogue of work makes Marina and Richard's top 3s? On films, what will come of the trend of de-aging and what are good / bad examples? How are child actors protected when in a horror film? And, how do you film "film"? Sign-up to The Rest Is Entertainment newsletter for more insights and recommendations - www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Rest is Entertainment Questions Edition with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osborne, Question and Answers Edition. You're very, very welcome. I'm going to hit you with our first question. Do you need an answer or? I'm out of here if this carries on. I'm out of here. We did issue a Please Give Us This Question plea. A Come and Get Me plea. Come and Question Us plea.

Could people ask us about our top three Spielberg movies? Yes, I can't remember why we issued that plea. I know it's for a good reason. I think we just wanted to say what our top three Spielberg movies are, I think it's probably that simple. Okay, I mean, I would have thought. That makes sense.

And also it's a hard one, very hard one to do. This is where the whole answers thing comes into this podcast. This is the beauty of it. Oh my God, I hadn't thought of that. Okay. Is that people might actually need an answer. We also said, by the way, because we were fairly open in asking people to send it to us, they said, if you've got a good name, we are more likely to read yours out.

We got an awful lot of people asking this. Some people did not get this memo. I just want just a shout out to both Dan Smith and Gary Wilson to say, if we're asking for this question, and we're saying, please give us a name that's going to be interesting to read out, Dan, God love you, but Dan Smith is not, we're not going to be able to have a lot of fun with it. And Gary Wilson, there's a snooker player called Gary Wilson. But that is not going to cut the mustard. But the person whose name we've chosen, of course, the question we've chosen, Dan and Gary, take notes. Max Spiegelberg, apparently not related, but often mistaken, says Max Spiegelberg. So I think but often mistaken says Max Spiegelberg. I think maybe it's his real name. Max's question, yeah, he's absolutely gone

route one as well. What are your top three Steven Spielberg films? Should we do 3-3-2-2-1-1? Yes, because I think we both know this isn't my strong suit, but they're because because I you know, we structure I've got strong eyes and It's very I very it pains me to leave out close encounters But this is I mean there's pays me to leave out all sorts of things But it pays me to leave out do all it pays me to leave out Shinders list But it's what one of the few directors you could do a top ten of and not ever Yeah, I'm putting Jaws at three.

Hold, excuse me, wow, okay. Jaws at three, that's interesting. Any reason or...? It's really hard for me not to put... I knew you'd absolutely lose your mind if I said I wanted to put them all equal number one. Of course you can't put it equal number one. No, I know, so I knew you'd lose your mind. I tell you what, why don't you marry three people? Why don't you do that? Why don't you say to your husband, do you know what? Maybe I have. Maybe I have. Breaking.

Okay. So okay, you've gone Jaws at three. My number three, you just mentioned it, I've gone Jule. Just because it was such an explosion on the screen and you just think, oh wow, here's a- It's just frozen on the small screen first, it's a TV movie first. Yes, it's a TV movie, exactly. But you just think somebody who comes along, because people often think, you know, what

is it that directors do? Isn't it all script? isn't it all script isn't it all actors Jule shows you what a director does someone who just takes a simple idea and just makes it look extraordinary and you know you're in the hands of a master you just looked after throughout that film and you haven't seen anything quite like it the thing he's brilliant at is you think oh I've seen things like this before but I haven't seen this and that's such an extraordinary school. All the studios in Hollywood when that became a TV movie were just like, sorry, who is this guy? Yeah, but exactly it is interesting sometimes you get it with songwriters, you get it with musicians,

you get it with actors sometimes where they just turn up and everybody all at the same time goes, yes, that's the thing that we are after, that's the thing that people struggle a lifetime to do and just straight out of the blocks, which doesn't negate the hard work he puts in and the incredible hours he puts in, but right from the start, he has that vision that Hollywood loved, but most importantly, viewers absolutely loved as well. So it's a great piece of cinema, but also it's, it's an entertainment. So I've gone dual for my number three. For number two, again, it's so hard.

E.T. He's so good with making films with children and using children in that way. It's such an extraordinary story and it's so beautifully told. And it is totally heartbreaking. God, I remember being in the cinema. We watched this in the cinema. Me and my sisters and my mother.

And one of my sisters was sitting next to my mother and she had her arm around her. And halfway through Lorna said, mommy, why is my hair wet? It's because my mother had been just crying on her head. Anyway, ET is my hair wet? It's because my mother had been just crying on her head. Anyway, ET is my number two. I remember watching that, it's the first ever pirate video I ever saw when I was kid because we didn't have VHS's when I was a kid, I'm so old. And the the witchholes who lived opposite us, they got like a video recorder, so

this had been whatever year ET came out, early 80s, and they were the talk of our road and then suddenly there was this this bootleg version of ET. So the first have been whatever year ET came out, early 80s. And they were the talk of our road. And then suddenly there was this bootleg version of ET. So the first time I watched it, I didn't get the full cinematic scale, but I had the utter awe of being able to watch like a major Hollywood movie illegally on a television. So actually in a way, it gave me as much happiness

as watching on a huge IMAX. Should I do my number one? Okay. Because we've spoken about it already. My number one. Oh no, I haven't got to do my number two. Uh, Raiders of the Lost Ark. It never stops.

Every time there's like a breath, like something else incredible happens. It's just absolutely nonstop. Well it's my number one, so I can chime in at this point. Great, chime in. Please chime in. It's my number one. I have to put it because it's the one I probably, even though there are all his films I rewatch a lot, but I rewatch that most. The character

is obviously extraordinary. There's actually some really amazing, I'm going to try and find them, these script meeting notes between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's a story conference. Oh my God, you've got such pleasure coming to you if you haven't read those. You just think, wow, this is some people really think, when you see some absolute sort of rubbish, I'm not even gonna mention some of the directors, I can't stand, but you know who they are.

And you watch something like this and you think this is like a different species. It is so extraordinary, it's amazing. The characters, one of the greatest characters of all time. The direction, everything about it, the adventure, the thrill, so many of the shots when you first see the hat, all of it is iconic and I have to put it at number one because it's the one I rewatch most frequently. By the way, we should do some one-offs where we talk about some of our favourite films

because that's the thing about the production notes, behind so many films there are amazing books and stuff that we can talk through so maybe we'll do a horrifying amount of which I will have read yeah but maybe we'll do a series on some of our favorite films and we can just do lots behind it with you like a watch along I would love that that'd be a fun thing to do. Right hit me with your number one then. My number one is something else we should do a watch along of it's your number three it's Jaws again something that visually is so arresting and you think yeah but loads of people have done movies about sharks and movies on the

sea and movies about small towns. You think, yeah, but none of them looked like that. None of them had this sort of absolute clarity of vision. And Spielberg is incredibly good at, if he's got a story, literally nothing gets in the way of the story. Nothing gets in the way of your enjoyment of that film. There is nothing where you kind of go, oh, maybe just lose that bit, maybe lose that line, maybe just lose that scene because actually we want to get on with the

action. Everything is in the service of the character and the action at the same time and the look of it is extraordinary. If you want to think about scares in cinema and if you want to think about how cinema is used and some of those moments in Jaws Where you just think well, that's the template for so much that came after and Spielberg by the way be the first person to say Oh, no But I was working on templates of other directors from many many years ago And of course he was but you have to at some point go there's a pantheon of cinema moments But he was also working on the fly because as we discussed before The shark was such a problem and it doesn't work and in the end you see very little of it and it's all point of view the

shark all of those shots from above and someone in the water my mother told me that that summer didn't matter where you were people did not want to go in the sea of course people talk about sort of I still think about it's like you're in Cornwall don't worry yeah I guess when people doing open water swimming you go um there's a little movie I'd like to tell you about I don't know if you've seen it's called Jaws So maybe you shouldn't do that Mike listen, there's worse things in RC There's also an object lesson to anyone is writing anything or anything that sometimes your biggest problems are your biggest solutions because the fact that he Couldn't make the shark work made them go

Oh, we're just gonna hint at the shark and the hint at the shark is the thing that makes the movie and it's always The case in pretty much any work you do anywhere the thing you think ah, there's no way of fixing this the thing that makes the movie. And it's always the case in pretty much any work you do anywhere. The thing you think, oh, there's no way of fixing this. The thing your work around is the thing where people go, Oh, I hadn't seen that before. Yeah. Yeah. Because no, no, no one had had to solve that specific problem before. For a long time, they had the shark at the Universal Studios tour right back in the sort of eighties when people used to go to the Universal Studios tour and people used to laugh when the boat goes fast and the shark comes out of the water and it was a sort of common piece because when you saw it you're like oh it looks crap. But as it turns out, there's that great photo,

have you ever seen that great photo of Spielberg like reclining in the jaws of the shark while they're on set? He's in the water, I bet he's in the shark's teeth reclining. I'll try and put that on the newsletter as well because it's fun. Here's a question for you then from Shell Doley. Shell asks, during the filming of The Shining, Danny Lloyd was under the impression, he's the little kid, Danny Lloyd was under the impression he was filming a drama movie to protect him from the scary elements of the movie he was actually making. I'm wondering how horror or particularly intense films are made when working with child actors.

Are they filmed in a certain way to hide the scarier or more dramatic elements of a film? Ah yes, well Shel, because you know children are often in horror films, they somehow make it matter more, or they can be quite creepy themselves. So it's one or, they're either in it for one or the other reasons, and in Shining you've got both types of childs. You've got, oh dear this poor innocent child, and then you've got things like the twins. And anyone with two kids, by the way, has both those types of child. Yes. Sometimes in the same child, sometimes at different times. Now, that's what they did do with Danny Lloyd. And the twins, the two girls now, they have to be in a, they

are in a horrible scene where there's lots of blood and death. What happened there, I think, was that the props department, they showed them the fake blood and they gave them the blood to take home. And I think they talked about it afterwards as a sort of fun experience because it's all you try and make it a bit like Halloween. Often what they do is they'll show you the rig if it's a stunt or something like that. And the children were always fascinated and things like that. I have to say that my middle son accidentally, I don't know quite how this happened, watched it when he shouldn't have watched it. This sounds like a sub tweet to your husband. No, no, it's not. I don't think I think it's probably my fault. Anyway, I don't know quite how this happened watched it when he shouldn't have watched it. This sounds like a sub tweet to your husband

No, no, it's not. I don't think it's probably my fault. Anyway, I don't quite know how this happened Anyway, he watched it and he was terrified of Pennywise the clown one night He said it to me at bedtime and I thought oh my god I know what to do and then I suddenly remembered had I not seen some pap pictures on set of Pennywise and he was stuck on the zip wire. And then you could see Pennywise having a sandwich and a cup of tea while they were sort of resourcing it all out. Once I showed that to him, my son,

he never minded about it whatsoever again. It was like, and it was that exact scene that he'd been terrified by where Pennywise kind of scoots down into a park. So that made it all right. When I was a kid, I used to, tremendously unexpected, used to terrify me. And I'd watch one accidentally.

And it's still to this day, the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life and if I ever I was upstairs and I wasn't asleep and I could hear downstairs my mum watching Tales of the Unexpected and that music started it would yeah they reshow Tales of the Unexpected on Sky Arts yes in the mornings on weekends absolutely brilliant but even now when that music starts, I have to just calm myself. But I've always done the thing of, I saw again, you saw the filming of a film on Teddy and saw the clapperboard. And so I always just, if ever I was watching Scary,

imagined the clapperboard going at the beginning and the end and imagining the cameras where they are as well. And that makes things less scary to me. But also do remember that in, actually I'll tell you who had a a bad time Linda Blair in The Exorcist she had a terrible time because although she says I knew nothing about what I was doing I didn't understand why I was stabbing this thing with a cross I didn't understand any of that and I honestly didn't get it and it didn't matter to me but she was physically very harmed in that because they had to put her in a harness when she coming off the bed and she got a spinal fracture a lower spinal fracture from that but

another thing you have to say that happens really mostly in these things is that you often will not see the child in the same frame as the horror and very often they will not have been even on set where the horrible bit that they're even looking at is shot. They are not actually, if you watch how it's cut, you don't see them all together. They're not in the same frame and you realise that they haven't been involved in it at all. So they are very careful. And obviously, compared to when Linda Blow was in The Exorcist, there are now a number of different things you have to do to protect children and they are very well protected on set. But I tell you what a really dark one is, is Jodie Foster. Well, Jodie Foster, when she played the child

prostitute in Taxi Driver, she was 12. By the way, she had made way more movies than Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro at that time. Martin Scorsese apparently used to just giggle and say, would try and say, can you open his flies, and then would have to walk away, because he just found the whole thing so excruciating. I mean, she's extraordinary, isn't she?

She says she sort of took her, she's by far the most experienced person on set, in terms of being in films. So she sort of took over and got on with it but they were sort of both unable to deal with it. That's pretty grim, you can't really get past that in that role. Yeah but it's that interesting thing of there's lots of artists and stuff who say my kids can't watch any of my films yet and when their kids get a bit older and they can suddenly show them stuff, it's a nice moment. But yeah, lots of kids who have never seen the film that they're in until they get a little bit

older. Richard, here is one for you. Dr Dan, it feels like a TV doctor is asking you this question. What if that's Dan Smith and he's finally seen the error of his ways? Because I'll get you now. Oh, I did two questions, but I put the wrong one name on each one. Dr Dan. I should have done that for the Spielberg top three anyway. Dr Dan has got this question on says, having just heard Richard declare his devotion to Family Fortunes, it made me reflect on TV titles in other countries. In Australia, our equivalent to Family Fortunes is Family Feud, which I believe is also the case in the US.

I'm wondering if you can provide other examples of names of TV programmes that differ and shine a light on why producers might change for different audiences. Yeah, it's an interesting one because TV is TV is certainly you know 15 years ago in the absolute height of the TV format business there was a real concentration on having exactly the same title in every single territory so when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire went around the world it tended to keep exactly the same title everywhere. Also, by the way, the same theme music, the same graphics, the same set. What was that, the peak of formats? It was the peak of formats because it was the peak of linear TV and there was lots of

advertising money sloshing around and everyone needed to fill their schedules. And formats were such an, in America, it had always been scripted and suddenly you got this big non-scripted stuff coming in so there were just lots of markets that were very very open to big new unscripted television shows. Thank you. And so Big Brother, Millionaire, Weakest Thing all happened at roughly the same time as each other and all went around the world, all with the same name by the way. Now that's one way of doing things. So who wants to be a millionaire? It's if you don't know the song, you understand the expression. It's not you know, it's not, and by the way there were versions of who wants to be a millionaire where there was not a million

up for grabs. So it's, but people just kept that title and people understood it. Weakest link the same. Even if you don't have that expression in your country, you sort of, you kind of get it. Deal or no deal when we did it, and as I say, it came from a Dutch lottery show, and deal or no deal doesn't mean anything in the UK. Or it didn't, because that was pre-Brexit when suddenly everything was deal or no deal.

And that is, if you've got a piece of IP and you've got something you protect, it's nice to have that brand. Coca-Cola calls itself Coca-Cola everywhere in the world, you know, there's reasons for it and the graphic identity is the same Certain shows that have gone around the world You do have to change so Strictly Come Dancing would be a really good example of that So Strictly Come Dancing huge on the BBC that goes around the world as well. Now that title Literally makes no sense to anybody. So it comes from the fact

that we used to have Come Dancing, it used to be the BBC show, and it came out a few years after Strictly Ballroom. And so it became Strictly Come Dancing. It is so idiosyncratic that it couldn't possibly... Yeah, you could try and get away with it, but you know, certainly in America they would say, look, this isn't... When it went to ABC and they were like, tell me what the exact show is in the title. Yeah, exactly so that over there it's called Dancing with the Stars right which is perfect it's sort of it's probably a better name than Strictly Come Dancing but Strictly Works Beautifully over here but in other countries they can call that other things it literally

doesn't translate so pointless but it doesn't translate to other countries because pointless is a pun which is is no points, but also it's sort of a slightly quirky kind of underdog British title. So everywhere in the world that's called like Nilgapunkt and things like that. So it's always called different things because if you've got any sort of pun, it doesn't quite fit the bill. Yeah. So Family Feud, that was an American show and you bring it over and in the UK you kind of think Feud, yeah, that was an American show and you bring it over and in the UK you kind of think Feud doesn't suit our personality type, whereas if we call it family fortunes we keep that lovely.

Yeah, we never argue. I mean, it does now. But the trouble is we do argue and so it's like, should we not remind ourselves of that? So it had that thing in the 70s and 80s in British TV of being slightly more aspirational. A different version of that would be Strike It Lucky, the Barrymore show, which in America was called Strike It Rich. And we got to the point in our culture then where we go, oh, I think it was, it came out during the year of Thatcherism where we're like, oh, maybe Strike It Rich might be a bit on the nose for our times. So we call

it Strike It Lucky over here. So again, it's these little kind of cultural things that come about. Some shows you have to rename university challenges, College Bowl in the States. And firstly, we don't know what a college is. We know what university is and we don't know what a bowl is because that, you know, like Super Bowl or things like that, we don't understand that that's a competition. So if we call that college bowl over here, that would essentially be like calling Strictly Come Dancing, Strictly Come Dancing in America. It would make absolutely no sense at all. So by and large you will try and protect the name of your show and you'll try and have

the brand go around the world but there are moments where you just think this is just not going to work in our territory. If you have a show that's a real roller coaster like Millionaire, like Weakest Link, you can call it whatever you want. So you can say to the Americans you can have it but you have to call it this. If you've got shows that they're just picking up off the shelf you know a few years later then it's harder. Traitors which has gone around the world, the most recent show really to have gone around the world, that's a pretty simple translation into pretty much any country so that's

called the traitors pretty much everywhere. But yeah so sometimes it's just the power of the brand that you already have so you can impose it on people so House of Games by the way is called Richard Osmond's House of Games because there is a show called House of Games in America so we weren't allowed to call it that so it's put my name in the title but obviously if we went abroad with that we would not call it Richard Osmond's House of Games although I would like it yeah if I go to Slovenia and watch Richard Osmond's House of Games but hosted by someone else

lucky likey some kind of the the equivalent of The Ginger Woman. They do that on Pointless. You watch Pointless in some countries in the world, they literally have a guy wearing glasses at their laptop. And you just think, okay, this icon, I kind of see it. I mean, I'm more than that. I'm more than a pair of glasses. Have you written any books? No. No, they also then legally have to write murder mystery as well otherwise otherwise they get fired and with that I think we should go to a break

welcome back everybody Marina this is a perfect question for you given the show that you've recently making Christian Mahn asks I see hot off the heels of Harrison Ford Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. There is now a movie with a D-age Tom Hanks in production. Is this ladies foray into unrealistic plastic fantastic fakeness down to your point made previously that there are no more leading men under 40 except Timothy Shana May? Right, that is the movie here that stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. It's interesting that one I feel is different. It's directed by Robert Zemeckis. I cannot wait for this one. I can't wait for it Wright. It's interesting that one I feel is different. It's directed by Robert Zemekis. I cannot wait for this one. I can't wait for it either.

It's got one fixed camera position and you're going to see them through all, you can see the trailer now, you're going to see them through a whole as they age. I feel that in fairness Robert Zemekis has been interested in aging. If you think he's always been interested in aging and how people change in place and time. If you look at Back to the Future trilogy, you look at Forrest Gump think he's always been interested in aging and how people change in place and time if you look at Back to the Future trilogy you look at Forrest Gump he's interested in that anyway so I would throw him a bone as it were not that he needs one and it's based on a comic book as well which it's just a very very clever device of the camera is the thing that stays still and people move through the camera even back to like prehistoric times if you see the trailer

yes the same fixed shot so you couldn't do it without some sort of device whereby you have the de-aging. You have to do it there otherwise we have seen it creeping up much more, there were a few it was in things like Benjamin Button and things like that that you'd have to obviously have it but then suddenly in 2019 I think it is obviously it happened with Harrison Ford. I'm of the view that it's one of those ones that some of these are just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. I mean I particularly like the fact that, imagine if they just de-aged Marlon Brando. I mean Marlon Brando, if you'd had the technology you'd have had to do it every time he turned up on set by the end.

Because he turns up on set for Apocalypse Now and he's enormous and they're thinking what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I mean, actually, and another great film, I mean, not a great film, but another absolute cult classic, Dr. Moreau, which I strongly revise anyone, have a look at that. And then there's a wonderful documentary about the making of it. But in the end, what Coppola has to do, again, necessity, he has to put him so deeply in the shadows in Apocalypse Now. And those incredible shots you get of him sort of looming out of the darkness, which seemed to be, of course, all of this was planned because of the nature of the book, but a lot of that came from necessity.

But in general, this de-aging thing, I don't know, it seems to me that it's more part of nostalgia and people are doing it because of nostalgia and nostalgia is a huge thing. Do you know that in the late 17th century nostalgia they thought it was a disease you could be cured of? It was named after Swiss mercenaries who were fighting for all the various different powers in Europe and they thought you could be cured of it. But now we think that you make so much money out of it that no one wants to cure anybody of it. But in terms of your question, sorry going back to it, these old movie stars, yeah they can open the movies still and even when you're going to see Gladiator 2 later this year you'll see

the people who like Paul Mescal don't as a rule genuinely definitely get themselves up and go out to the cinema. I think they will by the way, I think you'll come for Denzel Washington and you'll stay for Paul Mescal but you'll see a lot of Denzel Washington in that trailer because people get up and will go and watch Denzel. And is he de-aged in that? No he's not, that's relating to the part of the question is why is this because we can't find any leading young men under that certain age. You will find them but they will also use other people to get in. In terms of the technology I actually think that the workarounds that they had to do in the old days were in general better sometimes in the case Perhaps of this Zemmicka's film here, which we'll have to see it seems to me like there's no other possible way you could do it

It's the only way to do it. He's not going I'm making this film and I'd like a young Tom Hanks in it He's saying I'm making this film with Tom Hanks and I have to have Tom Hanks a series of different ages And it's one of the great themes and tropes of his work as a director. So I'm interested but is it definitively We're gonna get more and more and more and more de-aged actors in movies because, I mean, why wouldn't we? We can do it, and by the way, we've talked before, we're gonna get to the point where you are gonna be

in movies because the AI is gonna be good enough that we take an image of you and suddenly you're gonna be in Back to the Future. Oh yes, sorry, that was a little thing. We talked about Delebs before, The Book of the Dead, dead celebrities and how they make money. Now, an AI firm only this past week has bought up the voices of Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, James Dean and I think like Burt Reynolds who are going to read audiobooks. Liza Minnelli is like,

I'm so happy to see my mother's voice available to the countless millions of people who love her. I can't help feeling she might be thinking of some other countless millions, but anyhow. So this is a thing, this is real, this is happening with the permission of these estates. The Delebs are on the march in terms of AI and reading and they're going to do audiobooks. Yeah, I don't know how you're going to, because the great audiobook readers, I mean, there's acting and emotion. It's not, we're not just listening to a timbre, a voice or, you know, we're, so I mean, how are they, how are they, how are they getting the acting? I don't know, well we'll have to see, but the trouble is, everyone's saying, oh it's irreplicable all this human stuff, I think we're going to find

more and more, as we said so often before, that it's not perhaps, or it's, or it's replicable to a level that people are happy with. My children will watch the most awful AI narration on YouTube, and I was saying at the weekend to them, can you turn this off I can't listen to it and they're like what they don't even notice it or hear it that it's all almost individual what it is it's individual words that have been taped together to say whatever you want yeah they say this is a tennis ball factory it's un-listenable to but not to them in Denver in Colorado and you think yeah yeah I think yeah the next few years are a long

slow process of working out that humankind are not as special as we thought we were. Ah, that's annoying, isn't it? See you in the catacombs. Yeah. All right, Richard. That's a great catchphrase for the show. See you on the catacombs, guys, all downhill from here.

The rest is catacombs. Richard, I'm dying to ask you this question. It comes from Matt Stubbs, but also me. Stubbsy says, what are your absolute favourite top three shows that everyone else seems to have forgotten? Well, it's interesting that because it's the first one I would talk about is I saw the Traitors is up for like a BAFTA for most original show. And 10, 15 years ago, we were all trying to pitch a version of it because we all played that wink murder or mafia or whatever you want to call it or werewolf. So everyone played it. So the the BBC teatime version of Traitors, which was on about 10, 15 years ago,

hosted by Tony Livesey. So the BBC have had a series of this before they literally did it as a teatime show. But they play out in half hour episodes. And at at the time I thought this is really I love this show It's really really good around for one series and everyone's own that's never gonna work And then became the biggest show in the world. So if you can you can find an episode on on YouTube I mean, there's so many brilliant comedy dramas right at the moment that they really slip through the net the one I absolutely Love the two seasons of it now, but it didn't seem to trouble the scorers here,

is Upright, which is Tim Minchin. Tim Minchin and sort of taking Upright Piano across Australia for reasons that the plot will lead you into. And that's a show, I just think it's so brilliant. And it's like half hours, and it's got a really great British sensibility. There's no barriers to British people loving that show and Tim Mitch and is great in it and

the rest of the cast is amazing as well. In this golden age of scripted television, there are just so many shows that have just slipped through the net, just brilliant bits of television that are lost forever but upright. I'm not sure they will be. I think they'll be watching in this whole new era of with ad tiers and everyone licensing everyone else's content. I think all of this stuff that they made during this period, slightly like the Suits phenomenon, but they'll reshow all this stuff because they simply can't afford to make anywhere like as many of them. And a great show is a great show, is a great show and remains one. But that I would really,

really recommend. I'll do one of my own ones because we did a show called International King of Sports on Channel 5 and there's still some Footage of it. We filmed it down in Cheltenham and it was a series we made up loads of sports essentially like under hurdles and things that you know, lots of backwards running and loads of different things up uphill long jump and We've got competitors from all around the world listen spoiler They were all like British universities, but you know, that's so we had Nigeria and Australia and Japan So and they'd all wear the kit of their country. Well, they were all at British universities, but you know, so we had Nigeria and Australia and Japan, so and they'd all wear the kit of their country. Were they athletes in any? Yes.

Yeah. That's the idea behind the show is there's loads of people who are unbelievable athletes, but haven't quite found the sport for them. You know, they did tennis and they did rugby, but they didn't quite find the one that they fit. So we invented loads of new sport, and it had world records and stuff like that. And we pretended it was like the 50th annual version of International King of Sports. So we had loads of records.

Adam Parry commentated on it and we filmed it in stadiums and what have you. That was a show that I loved. I'd love to remake it for Netflix with like a multi-billion dollar budget. It was just like one of those shows that was just an absolute joy. And you do think by and large,

every show I've ever done has got its just desserts. Some have been more successful than they should have been, but International King of Sports was the one that I think, ah, that's the one. That's the one that got away. You can see with the casting how it could be so amazing because there's backstories in that way that during the Olympics, which we're about to, everyone is about to get incredibly into the stories of athletes they've never heard of before. You're all about to become obsessed and moved

and transported by people who you've never heard of before and in sports by and large you have zero interest in at any other time of the year. Yeah and also you'll flick on to like the quarter finals of the 110m hurdles so you go I'm not interested and then suddenly you see in lane three there's a Brit so you go oh okay I'll watch this one and by the way this is still in an era where you get away with calling a show international king of sports and it was it was all men which you definitively wouldn't do now to be international Champion of Sports and it would be much more

interesting for it. It was of its time, it very much did not have a live audience in it and you can really tell, but it was an awful lot of fun. Okay, I love that one. Final question for you Marina, I'm asking this because of the show you've just been working on. Emma Godber asks, I have always wondered what happens when the plot calls for another fictional show to be filmed. Do they use prop cameras, lighting and actors to act as the team or do they use the crew that is already there filming the actual show but add some extra cameras? Aha, okay. Well, I can speak about the show specifically that I have, which is not aired

but has finished shooting. Are you allowed to say what it's called by the way? Yes, it's called The Franchise. You will be able to watch it on HBO or Now or Sky or wherever you get HBO shows like Succession or House of the Dragon. It's all backstage on, I'm not giving any way to say it, it's all backstage on a franchise film. And we had an entirely separate fake crew,

entirely separate props, everything. I will only say that on day one, when we got there to shoot the pilot, it was such a head scramble, it was so confusing, you couldn't tell because they looked so like that person might look in the crew and you've got a very very big crew on a show like that and therefore you also have a very big crew on a big superhero franchise movie so you need to have a very big crew of supporting actors who are all those people. You actually worked out eventually that people had yellow lanyards and black lanyards for real

and not real. Like Inception where they have a spinning top. Yeah exactly but you I couldn't get my head around it I was thinking is that part of the set or is that our tent that the writers sit in or is that where the writers in the thingy would sit and you couldn't work it out and actually people were told that don't touch that you've got a drink of water from the water. It was like, no, that's for continuity. You can't touch that as part of the set. And so we were in such a muddle throughout. And even right by the end, we were still saying to people,

is that, can I just, you know, you thought we're on the crew and they'd be like, I'm not on the crew. But in order to keep the realism, we had to have all of that. Yeah, and totally separate cameras, totally separate everything. The whole thing was almost like a double of everything.

That's amazing. It was fascinating to look at. Yeah. But essentially if you're ever seeing a camera or a camera operator on a film, then that is an actor. They're always too busy anyway, the people who are doing those jobs. They certainly wouldn't want to be so asked, do you don't mind mucking in here? But never, never ask a crew to muck in. No, you can pay me to muck in if you want to, but yeah, you muck in all you like.

I'm doing a job of work. Absolutely. So, and they are very very busy so it will always be as on that show an entirely separate crew of people. That's us done I think for another week. I think it is. Oh and don't forget you can sign up to the newsletter which I've touted various things this week Lovely, see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.