POLITICAL SITCOM BALLOT MONKEYS RECORDED AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS

Pinewood was able to accommodate the whole production on site as well as being involved in devising  the production workflow and schedule that happened all in one day.

To keep the show fresh and topical, all the final segments were  written shot and edited on the day of transmission; some of the show was shot in the previous few days

Paul Darbyshire, Broadcast Director for Pinewood Studios Group commented:

“The show was like having four separate productions shooting at the same time, so a major hurdle was being able to ingest and manage 4 multicam shoots running continuously throughout the day. There were 8 camera’s shooting P2 on four political party buses so the quantity of media being generated was significant.”

OutPost Facilities, based on site at Pinewood, provided media storage and Avids for the main programme edit, and then on the day of TX the editing team had a very busy time completing the programme, stitching the show together and grading in an online edit simultaneously with the new topical sections shot that morning, all ready for transmission from HDCAM by 10pm. The final programme was then sent for transmission from one of Pinewood’s transmission galleries, utilising Pinewood’s diversely routed BT broadcast lines to tower.

The Hat Trick production commissioned by Channel 4, airing in May, had two episodes written and filmed during the run up to the general election. The final three episodes aired Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Election Week. The action takes place on four political party buses, which were located on site at Pinewood Studios from mid-April.

Starring Ben Miller, Hugh Dennis, Sarah Hadland and Kathleen Rose Perkins the actors offer up authentic portrayals of politicians, reeling off stereotypical political promises alongside an abundance of over-exaggerated hand-gestures.

You can catch up on all five episodes of Ballot Monkeys on Channel 4’s website.