Visit To Endemol Studios Bristol, Deal Or No Deal

We got the chance to visit the Endemol studio’s in Bristol to watch deal or no deal being filmed. I’ve never actually watched the show so I did some research and realised that it’s become a bit of a phenomenon, quickly becoming one of the nation’s favourite television shows. I read a few articles on the show done by journalists who had the same experience we were about to have, it sounded really fun, most of it was about the contestants. The contestants all stay in a hotel together, partying and having fun in the evenings then spending their days filming three episodes of deal or no deal. Each episode sees a contestant stepping up and therefore leaving the group by the end of the show and people can spend months as a contestant until they get picked. I was also interested to find out that some people had even left their jobs for this opportunity.

After a short wait we met Annalise who had us wait to join the rest of the audience who had probably just had a talk about their roles as an audience. We joined the end of the audience queue and were ushered onto the set. We got a chance to speak to the audience researchers who were getting the audience to their seats. I learnt that getting to that position was the same as I’ve learnt so far, which is starting as a runner and working your way to researcher, this was also the first time I’d hear about the lack of people working in media in the southwest. We were seated according to height and within a few minutes the warm up guy took the mic and started telling a few jokes, one of them aimed at reuben, I think he told him to smile and made fun of how low he was wearing his beanie hat. We spent some time practicing our reactions, like clapping and cheering, and saying ooooooh when something bad happened. I was glad that there were only two reactions; it made it easier on my brain. The contestants were ready, having their make up done, they were a really good laugh and you could see they all got along really well with each other which made it really enjoyable to watch.



There was about seven cameras set up, the most interesting looking was attached to a cameraman in a kind of suit where he controlled the camera while walking around the set. Before filming of the show began we practiced our reaction shots while the cameramen took some close ups of some of the audience.

The show began as they picked a contestant randomly; it was genuinely done at random by the computer because they had to stop the filming to give the lucky contestant a lapel mic. The show took about an hour and a half to film and it was hugely entertaining. I thought that Noel conducted himself really professionally on and off camera but was still very friendly and joked with the audience, the crew and the contestants.

It became clear that the camera crew were taking directions from the gallery team as they freely moved around the set circling noel and the female contestant as well as the other contestants. There were a few stops for where the adverts would be where the make up team would come back to touch up anyone that needed it. At these times the floor manager and would direct us at our clapping when the show would resume controlling us like a conducter.
After the excitement of watching the show being filmed we were taken on a tour of the facilities at Endemol. There seemed to be a lot of outsourcing going on as both the editing suite, which was just round the corner, and the camera crew were hired from a different company. I think they called the editing suites ‘The Farm’.

Overall it was a great trip but I think it may not have been as informative on roles as our BBC trip was.