New series of Grand Designs

[Barney12]

OMG ....Time to lock away your wife/girlfriend/lover. It’s Kevin the fertility god. Have you noticed that whenever he’s arround someone gets pregnant ? 

[Jeremy Harris]

54 minutes ago, ProDave said:

@JSHarris the thing that always struck me about Scrapheap, was they would drag the engine out of some wreck, stick it on the contraption they were making, and it would always work.

 

Were the engines tested or were they advised in advance which ones were good? Did it ever happen that after all the work they actually found the salvaged engine was a dud?

 

The engine we ended up with was a total pig, took well over an hour, at around 11pm, after a day that started on set at around 7am, to get to start for the final build shots.

 

Generally, there's at least enough stuff in the heap to build around 3 or 4 machines that will fulfil the brief, but whether or not the engineering team have checked anything out is doubtful. 

 

32 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

I’ve done TV (and film) stuff with my dogs (in a previous life), everything from the Welsh language soap opera Pobol y Cwm, TV adverts, and My Life So Far (filmed in Scotland). Lots of divas, lots of standing around being bored to death, lots of retakes especially with the adverts where that 30 seconds has to be completely perfect, but luckily the dogs didn’t give a sh1t about any of that so no diva tantrums on their part ?.

 

Worst production for hanging around getting wet, cold and bored, doing dozens of retakes, was Poldark in the 70's.  It was all shot on film, too, which made things even slower, with all the delays for reloads.  The Onedin line was really weird, as we did all the at sea sequences for the whole series in a week, sailing around a few miles offshore, with the damned stupid director not understanding that you can't just turn a square rigger*** around; it's a process that can easily take half an hour or so of hard work to wear ship (and you don't even want to think about how long it takes to tack, we'd have needed half as many crew again and it would still have been slower), and get her heading in the right direction for light or whatever. 

 

 

*** The Charlotte Rose wasn't, strictly speaking, a square rigger originally, she was a Baltic Trader modified to take a square rig, but with a damned great Gardner diesel to allow her to get in and out of the two harbours used, Charlestown and the main set up the river from Fowey.

[jack]

My wife worked at a small film and television production company when we met. I've seen a few bits and pieces of the process - definitely not glamorous!

[MarkyP]

a producer of Grand Designs has kids at the same school as mine and I have spoken to him a few times. I asked why people go on the show seeing as you don't get paid. He gave a few reasons: The first was that some people just really, really want to be on the telly. The second is you get a letter from the production company confirming that you'll be on the show. This apparently unlocks the door to all sorts of discounts which for a large, high spec project can literally be worth thousands where suppliers want you to use their product in the hope of a bit of screen time. Another reason was that it tends to gee the builder and contractors up a bit, people still get messed about and have issues with schedules but knowing the camera crew is coming does rather focus the mind. He also said that the production team will get involved themselves if things are going really badly. It's not uncommon for them to be there doing second fit, decorating and dressing rooms in the days before Kevin is due to turn up for the episode finale as they need at the very least a few rooms to be finished. And, yes, very often the furniture isn't the owner's and has been hired in the by the production co and the family hasn't really moved in. 

 

 

[jack]

The alleged discounts were a large part of my wife's interest, but I wasn't convinced there'd be that many. 

[Hecateh]

53 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Worst production for hanging around getting wet, cold and bored, doing dozens of retakes, was Poldark in the 70's.  It was all shot on film, too, which made things even slower, with all the delays for reloads. 

But that was 'THE REAL DEAL'  Aiden's ok but 'he' was amazing.  They didn't dumb down the accent (again the current Demelza is great but not a patch on the original.  

 

They don't make programmes like that no more!!

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

Aiden's ok but 'he' was amazing. 

 

‘He’ was in this version too. See them together,

 

 

and I’d still go for Aidan out of the 2! ?

 

[NSS]

I was approached with a view to having our build covered on 'The House that £100k Built' (think that was it's name). I just laughed and asked whether they'd actually looked at the plans.

[Onoff]

7 hours ago, newhome said:

 

You and your altruistic streak, moonlighting as a make up artist & foc too. Well done you! 

 

 

 

[Triassic]

8 hours ago, jack said:

The alleged discounts were a large part of my wife's interest, but I wasn't convinced there'd be that many. 

We joked with the Architect about Grand Designs, she very quickly and with a straight face, possibly thinking we were serious, suggested if that was the case her services wiould cost more, “as the design had to be right”.

[Onoff]

17 minutes ago, Triassic said:

We joked with the Architect about Grand Designs, she very quickly and with a straight face, possibly thinking we were serious, suggested if that was the case her services wiould cost more, “as the design had to be right”.

 

I'd have asked for a discount from her there and then based on the implication that without GD in the frame she clearly wasn't fussed about the design being right! 

[jack]

27 minutes ago, Triassic said:

We joked with the Architect about Grand Designs, she very quickly and with a straight face, possibly thinking we were serious, suggested if that was the case her services wiould cost more, “as the design had to be right”.

 

We mentioned to our architect that we were tired of being asked by everyone who saw his (very modern) plans whether we were going on Grand Designs. He said that if we did that, he'd be out the door immediately!

[PeterW]

25 minutes ago, Triassic said:

We joked with the Architect about Grand Designs, she very quickly and with a straight face, possibly thinking we were serious, suggested if that was the case her services wiould cost more, “as the design had to be right”.

 

We have friends who had a house designed locally and one architect gave them the terms of business and there were clauses in that related to TV programmes and that if the designs were used in a TV show there was a 10% uplift in fees to cover “artistic rework” and any interviews to camera would be something like £500 plus VAT ..! 

 

Not sure if they had a bad experience with a show, or wanted to get some money from glory ..!! 

[Hecateh]

11 hours ago, newhome said:

 

and I’d still go for Aidan out of the 2! ?

 

Seeing him  now - so would I - he hasn't aged well but back in the day

[Ferdinand]

12 hours ago, MarkyP said:

a producer of Grand Designs has kids at the same school as mine and I have spoken to him a few times. I asked why people go on the show seeing as you don't get paid. He gave a few reasons: The first was that some people just really, really want to be on the telly. The second is you get a letter from the production company confirming that you'll be on the show. This apparently unlocks the door to all sorts of discounts which for a large, high spec project can literally be worth thousands where suppliers want you to use their product in the hope of a bit of screen time. Another reason was that it tends to gee the builder and contractors up a bit, people still get messed about and have issues with schedules but knowing the camera crew is coming does rather focus the mind. He also said that the production team will get involved themselves if things are going really badly. It's not uncommon for them to be there doing second fit, decorating and dressing rooms in the days before Kevin is due to turn up for the episode finale as they need at the very least a few rooms to be finished. And, yes, very often the furniture isn't the owner's and has been hired in the by the production co and the family hasn't really moved in. 

 

 

 

I think that appearing on GD can genuinely help a sale or a B&B business, but comes into that category called "non-neutral" - it drives the outcome to extremes.

 

So you can do really well (that early Tower in Yorkshire with the Ancient Monument designation or the bungalow on the Isle of Wight), or disastrously (the big house in Whitehaven (?) by the chap with the Geodesic Dome bee in his bonnet).

 

You can also embarrass yourself a little ... eg the Doctors in Bath with the £350k hole-in-the-ground, or prove your eccentricity to the world (the Cob Palace or that Gothic Horror one, or the chap with the aeroplane and the circular plan). 

 

Or you can potentially make a career.

 

What you do get is more attention.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited September 26, 2018 by Ferdinand

[MarkyP]

in chatting he said they'd have been interested in our project. I'm not sure it was quite grand enough but it does have a few unusual twists, and despite all advice we only demolished the old derelict timber bungalow and kept a large modern extension as the basis for the project (which made it bloody complicated but financially more viable). I also project managed and did (am still doing) loads DIY which is another plus as they like the owner getting the tools out. But god am I glad we didn't do it, I had some pretty dark times during the worst of the project (we lived in it throughout). At one point we had the whole roof off, the side of the house open, a mud bath all around us, freezing cold, a storm had ripped off some temporary weathering and we'd had a load of water damage, we had 3 weeks without heating,  a massive cock up by supplier of windows (26 of them, all wrong), not to mention the standard headaches with constantly cat herding the sub-contractors. If Kevin had turned up during the autumn of 2016 to skip around the site grinning and making patronising remarks he would have mysteriously disappeared. I had a soakaway being dug which would been the perfect size for him!

 

[ToughButterCup]

38 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

[...]

You can also embarrass yourself a little

[...]

 

You Ferdi? Never.

[newhome]

1 hour ago, Hecateh said:

Seeing him  now - so would I - he hasn't aged well but back in the day

 

Nah, I’d still go for Aidan ?

[Declan52]

Think I would have been fine on grand designs but Def not on the £100k house. That piers guy was always trying to get the builder to make walls from weird things like sheet metal and copper tiles. All of which would have cost more than plasterboard.

[joe90]

Mine could not be on grand designs, too traditional and on budget (and the windows were not late !!! )

[Ferdinand]

39 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

You Ferdi? Never.

 

It said "You" not "I".

 

.

 

(Not planning to go on Grand Designs any time soon.)

[Pocster]

16 hours ago, NSS said:

I was approached with a view to having our build covered on 'The House that £100k Built' (think that was it's name). I just laughed and asked whether they'd actually looked at the plans.

Beeny babe . Who also is constantly pregnant .

[PeterW]

3 minutes ago, pocster said:

Beeny babe . Who also is constantly pregnant .

 

She probably hangs around with KMC.... 

[ProDave]

We would be disqualified from GD as SWMBO is beyond "child bearing age"

[Jude1234]

I have found out that my builder has been AWOL as he is involved in a build for Grand Designs?

Edited September 26, 2018 by Jude1234