- The first task of the day was putting the flooring, provided by Sammi, onto the studio floor and making sure it was in the right position. The day before, myself and a few others helped Sammi to bring the flooring onto the studio floor so it could flatten.
- As I wanted to come in early for this day, I helped Sammi move the flooring into the correct position and tape it together. Nisserin came in shortly and started helping along with Ellen who assisted a while later on her arrival. It was quite a big task and it took a while, but with the amount of people helping put it together, it didn't take as long as it would've with just one person doing the job.
- While we were putting the finishing touches to the floor, the set design team arrived and started to unload everything in their van. Previously, myself, Sammi and Nisserin had marked out the centre of the flooring, which would then be the centre of the set. We marked where I wanted the back of the set to be, so as soon as the flooring was finished, the set design team started to build the flats of the set in the correct positions.
- I told the set design team where the back flat would be and then I let them do their job. I kept an eye on the task, but I didn't want to get too involved as I knew they knew what they were doing.
- One item of the set design that I wasn't too sure on was the red carpet. Since the day of seeing their new layout of the set, I knew the red carpet would be a decision we would have to make on the day. The red carpet was too wide for each podium to be on either side of it, and where we wanted to place the podiums, there wouldn't be a big enough gap for the host to walk through them.
- After chatting with the set design team, myself and Josh decided we didn't want it on the set, but instead it would just behind the door so it was still used.
- During the set being put together, the two lighting guys turned up, James and Chris, and I introduced myself to them. They had already been briefed by Ellen, as she is the lighting assistant, but I wanted to check that they were happy with everything.
- I previously printed off a hand out of the 4/5 main positions of the host and contestants, and Ellen gave this to the lighting guys. When speaking with the two of them, I had mentioned that we will mark out the positions on the set once all of the flats had been put into place, so they know exactly where their marks will be.
- Imogen, the floor manager, came down onto the floor and we went through the props that the set team had brought in. Josh was involved in this as well just to see if he liked what they had created, luckily we both were really happy with the outcome of the props.
- When looking at the podiums, we found that they were very heavy, and Imogen was slightly concerned, which was very understandable.
- The original plan was to take the podiums off for Round 3 and then take the host's podium off for Round 4.
- After speaking to Del and discussing what we could do, it was decided that we would leave the all podiums on the set for Round 3 and then they would all come off for Round 4.
- This made it a lot easier for Imogen as she had more audience runners to help carry and take other things on and off set.
- Myself and Imogen then went through the script to make sure we had everything the way it should be. We went through what props needed to be taken on and off the set and when, and what cameras we will be coming back to in the edit.
- After going through this we were both feeling confident about the show. There are a few that might have to change throughout this rehearsal since this is the first rehearsal with the props and the set, but we are prepared for these changes.
- Sammi and Paul had flagged up a problem with the sound the day before this rehearsal day. They had mentioned that the buzzers had a very loud hiss to them and it would be bad during the live show.
- Paul had suggested to us that we don't use the sound of the buzzers and do something in order for Sammi to be able to see the buzzers so she could play it through her laptop.
- There was a lot of discussion on this day, and a lot of ideas were suggested as we tried to come up with the best solution.
- We had seen that the set design team had some spare blocks and we tested them out to see if they could work as a stand. Sammi had brought with her some lights that when you press down on them they light up. However, we wouldn't be using the light system, instead we would just be using the pressing down mechanism so Sammi could see when the contestant pressed down on the buzzers or not.
- We talked with the set design people, and asked if they could glue together some of those blocks, attach them to both of the contestants podiums and paint them gold so they matched the theme. They were more than happy to do so, and we eventually had them working on for the first rehearsal of the day.
- I think this is a good solution as it gave Sammi the ability to see the buzzers being pressed from her position on the sound room and also it looked good as part of the set.
- The lighting guys started to rig their equipment and to help them with the process we began to block out each section of the show.
- To start with we blocked out Round 1 & 2. Myself, Imogen and Josh got all of the props we needed for those rounds, so the podiums and we placed them where I thought they should be.
- James and Chris suggested a few times moving the podiums slightly to work with the lighting which I thought was a good idea. Then once we had planned out those positions we marked down the set.
- We did the same with Round 3 and Round 4 and every position was marked on the set so Imogen knew where the contestants would be standing and where the props should be placed.
- This helped the lighting guys as it aided them with knowing where to rig the lights and where to position them.
- I then went into the gallery and after speaking to Del, I decided I want to go through the VT's with Sam, Rosie, Paul and Laura.
- I wanted to make sure the VT's were timed correctly for Rosie, I also wanted to make sure they were playing ok, and I wanted to make sure Paul felt happy with where to put the faders for them.
- When going through the VT's there were a few moments when they would crash and we weren't sure why. We made sure to keep going through the videos to make sure they had buffered properly. Del was in the room at the time, and we decided that if the video crashed I could either cut off it, or I could stay on it and hope that it would be frozen for too long.
- I decided that if it was frozen for a few seconds I would stay on it, but if I asked Sam why it was frozen and he didn't know why and it was on screen frozen for a long time, I would cut off it.
- During this run through we also found that one of the VT's ended very weirdly, and the credits were in the wrong order. The VT editors then changed this and so did Ellen who did the credits.
- After everyone was happy with the VT's, I decided to run through the graphics with Nisserin and Laura and make sure they were al working properly and looked good on screen.
We then stopped for a quick lunch while the flooring was being cleaned. During lunch the cameras were being set up by the camera operators and they were being placed in the correct positions.
- Before our first rehearsal I wanted to make sure Camera 5 was in the right position as in all the previous rehearsals, camera 5 was in different positions all the time. Even though, throughout all rehearsals camera 5 was on the right looking at the set, I decided to switch it to being on the left side looking at the set.
- The main decision for this was because the door was on the right, and I wanted it to look directly on from the door so the entrance shots looked better and more effective.
- The only problem that occurred through this was Camera 2 was sometimes in shot. To solve this problem I made sure that Cheyenne, who was operating camera 2, knew when she heard the end of round music sting, or heard Rosie start counting down, to be ready to move out of the shot.
- It's not a massive problem if Cheyenne is seen on screen, but hopefully with the rehearsals everything will work out good.
- Our first rehearsal was at 2:30pm and everyone was ready for it. The cameras were all set up, the mic were on the host and the contestant, and everyone was happy to go. The only thing that wasn't ready was the lighting but that was ok as we had done all of our other rehearsals without it.
- Before our rehearsal I made sure all the cameras were working and we could see all of them, and I made sure everyone was happy to go.
- We did 3 rehearsals and all of them were really good. I think the more rehearsals we did the better it got, but it definitely helped that the set was up as it made it look 10 times better.
- We had a lot of comments from people that the gallery was so calm and we all looked like we knew what we were doing. I really appreciated this and I thought we all have improved so much since the first few rehearsals we did. This makes me feel so much more confident and happy with the show.
- A few things that we sorted out during the rehearsals was what to do if we had a tie at the end of round 3. This was a planned tie but no one in the gallery apart from Josh knew it would happen.
- When trying to sort out a plan for the tie break, I knew not to get involved. If it affected the look of the show I would get involved and say my opinions, but as I only needed to cover it and pick the shots for it, I just focused on that.
- During the VT after this, we chatted as a group in the gallery and we knew that, that tie break took a lot of time out of the show. It was decided that there would be a tie break question in an envelope and the contestants would be rushed to answer the question so not so much time was taken out of the show.
- Also the podiums being on set during Round 3 and being taken off for Round 4 didn't make a lot of sense as they weren't using the podiums during Round 3. So it was decided that we would go with the original prop plan which was the podiums would be taken off before Round 3.
- Also, due to needing time to fill at the end of the show, potentially, Helen suggested not to play the end entrance music so early on at the end as you could tell the host was filling out the end of the show. I talked to Sammi about this and she was happy to do that, and we decided to start at -10 when Rosie is counting down towards the set of the credits.
- When trying this out it worked really well and it made the show look better and look a lot more natural.
Overall, I think this dress rehearsal and set rig went really well and I feel so much more confident with the show and how it will work out. We only have two rehearsals on the live show day but I think that if we had anymore we wouldn't do the live show as well.
I'm feeling confident with everyone and everything, and I'm feeling really positive about the live show.
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