![]() Looking at modern science fiction, one of the game changing new technologies has been the introduction of giant LED screens to create virtual sets. A Virtual WorldĪnother reason for the similarities between gameshows and spaceship interiors is that they are ultimately both realised using the same technology, whether it’s shonky plywood sets in the 80s, a judicious application of greenscreen in the early noughties, or still more high-tech solutions now. The Doctor Who episode “Bad Wolf” literally had the Doctor transported into dystopian version of shows like The Weakest Link and Big Brother, and the sets didn’t even need updating (although in a show littered with poorly aged references, it’s got to be said these are the ones possibly hardest to explain to modern young viewers). Most recently we have been enjoying the murderous playground-game tournament of Squid Game, which in turn as inspired the not-at-all-dystopian real-life game show, Squid Game: The Challenge(which is going exactly as well as you would expect).īut that is only the latest in the deadly game show genre that includes everything from The Hunger Games to the Black Mirror episode, “Fifteen Million Merits”, all the way back to The Running Man, with aesthetic influences flowing smoothly from real game shows into fictional game shows and back again. By which we mean, science fiction loves nothing more than a gameshow that might actually kill you. It is a kind of osmosis that goes two ways. ![]() “I might see the side of a building and it can inspire the look for a set married with something else. It might be you’re given a brief and the producers say they want it to look sci-fi, or they want a really retro sci-fi aesthetic,” he says. “As a designer you look for inspiration everywhere. Science fiction is one of many sources of inspiration for gameshow set designers, as Bryce points out. The name of Granada Television’s The Krypton Factor is a legally daring reference to Superman’s home planet, while shows like The Crystal Maze go even further still, introducing a time travelling obstacle course with an entire “zone” set aboard an actual spaceship. And today, of course, those considerations have to be combined with ensuring the set is also Covid-compliant.īut over the years it has not been uncommon for game shows to tie in science fictional elements, some of them more explicit than others. With a show like Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, the show might be faster moving and require people to move about the set. “You have to know how the show works, and design the set around the mechanics of the show.”įor a straight up game show or panel show like University Challenge or QI, this can be as straightforward as a presenter, two teams, and having the right number of chairs or podiums for each team. “When you design any show you’re always designing in response to someone else’s request,” Bryce tells us. ![]() Richard D James is a well-known production designer known primarily for his work on the sets of Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager, but he cut his teeth designing sets for game shows like Let’s Make a Deal, The Choice is Yours, and Split Second. There has, over the decades, been a great deal of osmosis between the genres in terms of talent, influences and ideas. The reasons behind the space-age game show aesthetic go beyond cheaper funky lighting. But Bryce points out there is a common look among what he calls the “Saturday Night Shiny Floor” shows. There are still exceptions to the rule – shows like Richard Osman’s House of Games, Taskmaster, or the Child Genius series that Bryce himself has worked on take on a different aesthetic entirely. The basically advances in technology make these options much more readily available.” We have LED tape lights that are much cheaper and easier to install. “Years ago, a lit edge used to need neon lights, glass tubes, and it was really expensive,” Bryce says. He explained to us that many of the tools for making game show sets more dramatic and futuristic have simply become much cheaper and easier to use. ![]() Stephen Bryce is a production designer who has worked on numerous game shows and more, and is responsible for the futuristic sets you can see in The Family Brain Games, Viral Tap, and the companion show The Apprentice: You’re Fired. One of the factors behind these trends, predictably, is technology. As cinematographer Neil Oseman points out in his blog on lighting the fictional game show “The Knowledge”, quiz show sets through the ages are a handy signifier for the wandering time traveller trying to figure out what decade they’ve landed in.
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