London Trip

Today we went to London to visit two places of interest; The London Movieum, and also to visit a live studio and watch a live performance of the comedy show "Not going out" accompanied by the hilarious comedian - Alun Cochrane. The Movieum is a place in London that contains many props, scripts and interactive games in relation to film, also with a tour guide and some dressed up characters performing around the building.

The Movieum was an exciting experience, and we were given a chance to explore the place ourselves. It had everything from a decapitated head prop from "Shaun of the dead" to a gallery of the "Mr. Men" cartoon. Along with clothing and gadgets from "James bond", and robot props from "Dr. Who", along with many other things, made it an interesting experience.

We then had some time to kill before we had to gather on the coach to go to the studio, so we had a quick look at Big Ben and the London eye and head off into city to have a browse, but mainly to get some food because we were all starving. Most of the restaurants were packed with people, along with the streets, and took us some time to find anywhere with a free table, but in the end we managed to get a pizza and something to drink.

Then we went onto the coach again to the television studio, to watch the BBC three comedy; Not going out. This was a good chance to get a behind the scenes look at how a TV programme really works. First thing i noticed was three different sets where scenes are filmed, any scenes that needed to be filmed outside of these sets were pre-recorded before the show. There was also a mass of microphones attached to a crane above, thier purpose was to record the laughter of the crowd. For the show we had to laugh when appropriate. also the sets were surrounded by three or four cameras with a camera operator, and boom operators also.

When charachters clothing or a set had to be altered, we would go to an interval where comedian Alun Cochrane would entertain us. I found Alun hillarious and thought it was a good way to keep the audience amused for the intervals. obviously he was hired specifically for the intervals, and is not a neccassity for the programme, but was a great addition and kept audiences from becoming bored. This made me think more about how budgets work for television companies, as things have to be paid for, that arent always in the forefront of your mind, when thinking about television shows.

I shall leave you with some pictures from the day out.