Initial Ideas and Discussions

My initial idea was this:

• Motoring show styled like Top Gear with the live audience who interact with the show more than Top Gear.
• Live audience (or planned guest) gets on stage and gets involved in some experiment.
• Sofa with 2 or 3 presenters who have a car themed backdrop and two real cars in the studio.
• VT will be useful cutaways of car tests and experiments. An initial experiment could be something like is public transport (bus, train) faster quicker than using a car. 

After thinking about how this could be different to current programmes (Top Gear & Grand Tour) I decided that it may be best to change my idea from a motoring show to a commuting show. I would then still be able to use some of my initial ideas in this show.

However, this quickly changes as I was thinking about the viability of this idea getting commissioned. It seems like the commuting show may come across dreary. Helen also mentioned to me that this show may struggle. In the meeting with Helen, I thought of a way I could use the commuting issue but in a broader context.

My mind then wandered to it being a show around "First World Problems". Each show would have a focus on a new "first world problem" and the first episode would be around commuting. Helen liked this idea but I would need to develop this further and see if it was viable.

My idea for possible tv channels that this show would work with would be channel 4 and channel 5 as well as dave/uktv. They have the audience that I would be aiming for, which would be a quite wide age range (from 15-60). I would aim for this show to be aired from 8-10pm. Near watershed but maybe slightly before as I do not feel there is a need for it to be kept until after watershed.

An idea to make this distanced from shows like Top Gear is making the audience more involved. An idea to do this would be to get the audience to get involved with a yes/no vote at the start of each show. This would from the outset get the audience involved and hopefully be a good foundation for the rest of the show.

 My main idea for a VT Cutaway would be a challenge. This challenge has maintained from my initial idea around cars but has evolved. This challenge would consist of various forms of transport racing from a point A to a point B. This has taken inspiration from the old Top Gear challenges, I always thought that they were some of the best parts of that show and I wanted to incorporate something similar into my show.

I also wanted to include a chatty segment early on in the show were the main presenters as well as a possible guest would talk about topical issues around first world problems. Scripting would be important in this scenario as it would have to be topical and relevant at the same time as being funny. This would no doubt be a late script session as topics can change from day-to-day. (Could include something about funny social media pictures and messages in this news segment) Other ideas for the news piece include: Silly inventions, new technology and keeping the humor relevant.

I also we could have an interview in the show at some point. However the more I have thought about this, it could drain the pace of the show and also not be that exciting. I have got this idea here just in case, but it is on the back burner for now.

I had already thought about the type of presenter I would have liked. I wanted to have three comedic personalities as the main presenters and possibly one more as a guest if we had an interview. We worked with a great actor in a previous project who we thought would be perfect for this role, as one of the three main presenters. Andy Phipps worked with us in the documentary unit and we really enjoyed working with him and think he would be perfect as a presenter.

Over the day the idea certainly changes, but I now have a good base line for the meeting with Helen on Thursday and we will see what Cailan has done as well. Cailan missed the first meeting so I just explained my idea and I am interested to see what his idea is.