QI Recordings: Behind the Scenes

Hi there. As some of you already know I’m a student of media and hoping to work in London one day. Through a series of delightful coincidences I was offered the chance to come down and have a look at how QI is made from a floor-managers perspective.

I arrived at the production office at precisely 12pm. After being given a special pass I was shown through the maze of corridors leading to the QI offices (and almost knocking poor Paul O’ Grady off his feet for which I do apologize). Having arrived in the office I was greeted by several members of the team and then it was down to business. I was shown the script and how the fact cards are produced.

One of QI's researchers (known as Flash to members of the QI forums) then led me through to have a look at the studio, which looked great. After being given a radio microphone I assisted the team with some sound effects that they were making (You’ll have to wait for the 11th recording to air to find out what they were). The whole process was fun, if a little messy. Then it was time for the first rehearsal . 5 stand-ins sit on set and read through the script as if it was Stephen and the guests themselves. This allows the video (VT) operators time to check their audio and visual effects and make sure they all appear on screen properly.

After a quick lunch it was time for the second rehearsal with Stephen. This is the time that Stephen Fry has to familiarize himself with the questions when the entire script is read through again.

The third rehearsal involves Stephen and the 4 guests, however it is NOT the same script that will be used when the audience are in. These are just a few teaser questions to warm the guests up and to allow the wardrobe staff to select shirts for them. It was made very clear to me that it is essential that the clothes don’t clash with the set or make the guest look too “washed-out”.

Dinner was provided for all of us after the fourth rehearsal, Fresh vegetable kebabs, hot rice and a delicious raspberry tart for afters. I was able to have a quick chat with the guests whilst we ate, and everyone was quite looking forward to the show. The guests then vanished off to their dressing rooms for make-up, whilst I nipped outside to see a few forum friends. I was then called back in to help with the set before the audience came in.

Despite what the audience saw on the night, a floor manager is a very busy person during the day. My main tasks when the audience were seated was placing the guests notepads up on set and making sure that the space behind set was free of obstacles. Then the show begins. When Stephen's microphone broke halfway through the show we had to call up for some sound engineers, they remedied the problem swiftly. By now I knew the script off by heart, having read it and watched it being rehearsed so many times in the seven hours before the show. However, the recording itself is an entirely different entity. There is such a huge transformation from a script of questions to what you see on the show.

All in all, I really enjoyed my time working as a crew member. The team have gave me priceless experience that will help me through my HND and I must wish a massive thank you to all of them.

Mandibles

QI BoAI at the Hay Festival - 2008

In the QI world, the lord overseers Lloyd and Mitchinson are known, in whispered reverence, as "The Two Johns". Apart from their roles in researching/supervising the TV show, they were the dual authors behind the books of General Ignorance and Animal Ignorance, and run the operation whose mission it is to find something quite interesting in everything--even, dare I say, Chelmsford.

I spiel to you because John Mitchinson, who, by his own admission, doesn't "know what to do with this info!", asked me to advertise the fact that the this dynamic duo is going to be making a presentation about "12 suitably interesting beasts" this coming May, at the Guardian Hay Festival in Wales. If that weren't exciting enough for you, they're going to be dressed to the nines . . . as a sheep and a chicken. In order that some sense of mystery should still be preserved, no revelation will yet be made concerning which is the sheep and which the chicken.

The nitty-gritty details:

What?: The QI Zoo: The Book of Animal Ignorance
Where?: The Hay Festival
Which?: Hay-on-Wye, Wales
Who?: John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
When?: Saturday, 26 May 2008 | 7:00 pm
Why?: Does one really need an excuse to dress up in silly costume and educate the masses?

[The Hay Festival 2008 website and schedule.]

Ticketing: Tickets are free to students who apply successfully through this page. When the programme is released, tickets can also be purchased here.

Thinking Buddies - Times

The Times newspaper has produced a rather interesting article on the creation, philosophy and success of QI. It's certainly well worth a read. Click Here.

Cutting Masterpieces

Piers Fletcher here, jack-of-several-trades on the show. QI Fanatic thought you might want to hear about the editing process on the show.

The edit is very key. What you see on the screen is the 30-minute distillation of at least 90 minutes' material. I know those guys seem just razor-sharp and button-cute on the show, but, trust me, if you and I had an editor following us around cutting out two-thirds of everything we said, we'd all sound like Oscar Wilde. So, imagine what it's like when you take someone who sounds like Oscar Wilde in the first place, and then edit him to be even sharper and quicker than he already is - you end up with the best conversationalist you ever met: Dorothy Parker or Melvyn Bragg, or the Queen of Sheba or somebody.

Or … Stephen Fry. And that's it, in a nutshell.

The topical panel shows like HIGNFY and Mock the Week need to edit on the fly, recording and editing a show a week, but at QI we record all twelve and only then go into the edit suite. First, we get a transcript of the whole recording, from which we make a 'paper cut', a first stab at cutting fairly big chunks out of the recording - bits which clearly didn't work or where there were technical problems. Then we go into editing suite in Soho with director Ian Lorimer and edit wizard Nick King (who moonlights, literally, as an astronomical photographer - check his work at http://www.synner.co.uk) and work through what's left. We aim to cut each show down to about 35 minutes on the first pass, and then we go through it again to trim it to 29 or so, and then again to take out all the coughs and splutters.

The main work is done on that first pass. Sometimes there are painful decisions to be made; we almost always have to cut something we love. The criteria are fairly obvious: if it's interesting and funny, it's in, if it's neither interesting nor funny, it's out, and if it's either interesting or funny but not both it's up for argument. However, in the next series there will be a compilation show at the end of the series with unbroadcast material from all but one of the episodes. That plus a 7 minute online vodcast after each episode has made some of the decisions to cut sections easier.

It's all done digitally, of course, and Nick works the machines with unbelievable speed and skill. Even so, it takes us many weeks to complete all twelve shows - in fact we're only now delivering the E Series to the BBC so that it can start on the 21st September.

I have to say, however long it takes it always feels like time well spent.

QI E04 Recording Review

*This is episode E01 in the Autumn transmission order.

The fourth episode was hilarious, certainly the funniest that I've seen so far this series. I also have a lot more to tell you about at the end, so keep reading.

This time I didn't enter through either of the main doors. For this episode I entered through the front of the building and reported to reception. Of course that means that I don't really know what was going on in the queue last night (if someone wants to add a comment to this post, please do). Stephen Grant told me that fewer people were turned away on this occasion, just over a hundred. That's still a lot. However, a reliable source told me that Stephen's figure for the first show was not accurate. It wasn't 300 people who were turned away but 500 (which is about the same as the capacity of the studio). Considering that not all the tickets issued would have been used, you can see that the whole audience and more is double booked.

Stephen Grant's warm up was cut short last night. The audience were required to produce the sounds for the buzzers in a future episode (the audience of the second show on series D were also required to do this) which cut down his act. We'll look forward to his return and I am intrigued by how his stand in will perform next week.

Now for the spoilers. You should have worked out what to do by now, just highlight the text below if you want to read it. The first paragraph lists the guests if that is all that you want to know. If you want to, skip down to read about the green room.

The guests for EpE04 were Jimmy Carr, Rob Brydon and (as you already know) Bill Bailey. All of them performed excellently, including Alan. Stephen was rather teased for some reading trouble. I'll say no more since I think this might make the cut.

The topic for the evening was Engineering. The subjects (to the best of my memory) included Trains, More Trains, Bridges, Buildings, Tunnels, Facades, Nukes and AI.

Stephen had a toy train in which he placed sweets to send to those that got questions right. Alan delighted in sending his sweets to the audience (toffees are not ideal whilst you're on stage) although they never made it past the second row.

After the show me and my guest (Lucwhostalking on the QI forum) headed into the green room. If you don't know, a green room is where all of the stars and such hang around before and after a show (there's also a bar with free drinks). For fairly obvious reasons much of what is said in the green room should stay there. However, I can tell you that everyone on the show (with the exception of [highlight:] Jimmy Carr) was there as well as many of the elves. I had a very good chat with John Lloyd (the producer) as well as Flash (an elf) and James (Eggshaped) who most of you will know either from the forum or the posts that he has added here.

Now it is fair to say that neither Luc or me have ever experienced anything like the green room before and we were both rather out of our depth. Hence I didn't have much of a chance to chat with any of the guests in the short time I was there before I needed to catch the last train home. However, it will certainly be something that I remember for a long time.

Andrew will be back next week with one of the reviews (I don't 100% know which one yet).

I'll also add that next weekend (Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th May) UKTV Gold 2 is doing a marathon of QI with 18 episodes over the two days. If you get that channel, don't forget to watch. There are details at the bottom of the blog.

Elving Away Behind the Scenes

Hi, Eggshaped here.

As you will know if you’ve been following this blog for the last few weeks, the recordings of QI have begun; and what a great few shows we have had so far.

I thought I’d give you a very brief insight as to what an elf does on the day of a recording (or at least what I do). As our work is mainly question research, you may think that we have a relaxing one when we’re filming – but actually there’s a lot to be done during the day.

I personally arrive some time in the early afternoon, though other elves do arrive earlier, and immediately get a copy of the day’s script (that is, the script which contains the day’s questions, the notes on Stephen’s cards, and some of the links between questions – other than that QI is, of course, unscripted) and head up to our office. The elves’ office is lush. It’s a huge room containing plenty of computers with a massive window overlooking the Thames; it even has its own balcony which will be great if the weather bucks up in the next few weeks!

The filming process begins with a warm-up with some stand-ins. Stephen asks them the questions in the same order as the show, this helps the technical peeps get an idea of how things will work, gives us an idea of how the questions will go, and gives Stephen a chance to familiarise himself with the questions.

After that, the guests will come in for their warm-up. This gives the techies a chance to test microphones and see if the guests’ clothes are camera-friendly; it also gives the guests a chance to get into the swing of things. Of course, we don’t want the guests to know the evening’s questions and answers in advance, so the elves come up with 5 brand new warm-up questions for each show. It’s a shame that sometimes the guests come up with brilliant material based on these questions which never sees the light of day!

After that it’s time for dinner, and the audience are just beginning to make their way in. While the audience arrive we like to keep them amused with a number of “factoids” which come up on screens around the studio, which I will usually type up. The screens are connected to a laptop into which I manually type the facts, I usually print off a couple of lists of facts from the QI database which I supplement with ones of my own: those of you who come to lots of shows will notice quite a few repeats of my fave facts – but hopefully I’ll try to keep them pretty fresh.

The warm-up (usually Stephen Grant) begins, and the elves take their place in the gallery (which, if you are looking at the set, is to the left, behind the curtains) where we are watching the show with a couple of laptops. We’re listening carefully for any factual errors which creep in or any questions which are asked by the guests. While it would be nice if we knew the answer to every question (we do pretty well from our original research) you can’t always predict which way a question will go, so we often will find ourselves googling away.

Stephen has got a screen in his desk which we post corrections or facts to. He also has an earpiece which he uses to communicate with the director. You'll notice he uses that when he does pickups at the end.

The show ends, hopefully a great success, and we make our way to the green room where the show is discussed and the bar is slowly emptied.

Another Exclusive Tomorrow

We really are spoiling you lot. Tomorrow Eggshaped will return to tell you just what the elves are up to behind the scenes at the recordings. He'll reveal everything from the Afternoon's research and the warm ups to the factoids on the screens and the frantic googling during the show.

Come back soon for another exclusive!

The second interactive QI DVD

Hi everyone. Those of you who read the QI forums (and if you don’t, why ever not?) will know who I am, so I sha’n’t elaborate.

QI Fanatic asked me here to say a little about the forthcoming interactive DVD game. I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with the joys of exam marking for the last couple of weeks, so it’s taken me a bit longer than I wanted to get around to it, but that’s Real Life for you.

Now then, that DVD. Well, it’s out later in the year, and of course everyone who reads this blog will want to have one.

I don’t want to give too much away about just exactly what’s going to be on there, but I can give you a few clues. There will be an option to play against someone else – but don’t panic if you prefer testing your knowledge or lack thereof to be a solitary pursuit, that will be possible too. And of course there are plenty of klaxons lurking. As for what the questions are about, that would be telling – but when we came up with them we tried fairly hard to make sure that all the subject areas you’d expect in a quiz were covered. Therefore, there may or may not be questions about quetzals, qvints, Qatar, quoits, and just perhaps even some things that don’t start with the letter Q.

The fully accredited elves – that’s people like eggshaped, who had something to say right here a few weeks back – are rather busy in the spring preparing for the recordings of the TV series (they start today, as you probably hadn’t failed to notice). As a result QI took on a bit of extra help to come up with the material for the DVD, and roped in three of the more established contributors to the forums as Peredhil (some prefer the title proto-elves). That was really a very exciting moment – receiving a message from Close To The Top asking me if I’d be up for supplying some multiple choice questions. It’s not as easy as it looks, specially since every answer has to be supported by reference to reputable sources – the last thing we want is for someone playing the game to know that we’ve got it wrong, so verification of everything included is essential. But it was fun, and I’m sure you’ll all have fun too when you get to play the game in a few months time!

Life as an elf

Hi there, my name’s James and I’m a QI elf, though if you’re a regular on QI.com you might know me better as Eggshaped.

I’m living proof that anyone can become a QI researcher. After the head gnomes saw me posting quite interesting facts on the forum at QI.com, I was asked to help out on the C series, and by the D series I was a fully paid-up member of the research team. Here we are now, the next series has been commissioned and we’ve already begun work on subjects beginning with the letter E; I thought I’d give you a quick idea of how the process works.

There are about 10 elves in all, most of whom spend most of the week working from home. Every week we’ll meet up at the QI club in Oxford, sitting around a large oval table with a strong pot of coffee, a large teapot and a couple of bottles of water. We sit surrounded by bookcases full of Lithuanian dictionaries, hefty tomes about string theory and (of course) the Encyclopaedia Britannica and OED.

The head elf will kick things off by recounting any news from the previous week and we will then head round in a clockwise direction with each elf explaining what they had been researching in the previous week. As a very rough rule of thumb, we’d each hope to get around 5 subjects covered in a week: sometimes we have a question ready and try it out on the other elves, and at other times we would just go through the research and the question will present itself from the following conversation. Of course the specific subject matter is strictly secret, if I told you I’d have to kill you, and we don’t really want to lose viewers if we don’t have to. However, you can look forward to some incredible stories and facts about Europe, Epidemics and Electricity. The meeting will continue, through lunch, until each elf has had his or her turn, and then we’ll head off to the pub – which is where the real work is done!

Fancy becoming a QI elf? Well the best way is to head over to QI.com and get posting. The elves are always there, and always on the lookout for new talent.