★★★★★ 0/5

Good News (last) Week

What do you do when the government changes Prime Ministers and you already have your episode in the can?

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Good News Week‘s habit of filming episodes well in advance bit them in the bum last night after the change in Prime Ministers.

The show was valiant in recording a new introduction with host Paul McDermott in front of a green screen, delivering an introduction with gags on the Rudd-Gillard switcheroo.

The polished host was even spot on with his eye line looking to an audience that really wasn’t there…

They laughed all the way from the edit suite.

But the edits never quite matched up. And a flat green screen is never really a substitute for truly dimensional sets.

Good News Week often films double episodes and plays them across two weeks, including at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. NCIS guest Pauley Perrette recently shot an episode on June 5, but it didn’t air until June 14.

20 Responses

  2. @Jason S

    You couldn’t screen it live… The real thing can go on for several hours and the language would make a sailor blush.

    Actually, if you’re in Sydney, you could do a lot worse than getting yourself down to one of the recording sessions, they’re hilarious. It’s a great free afternoon (or evening) of entertainment, as long as you’re not thin-skinned.

  3. If you have ever been to a filming of this you would know why this show isn’t live. Between the swearing and the lengh that they go on about a lot is cut out during editing….

  4. Just checked out the intro online, and yes it was a very unconvincing green screen… Why can’t they just re-shoot a new intro instead of poorly trying to trick people that this is what happened live in the studio?

  5. having worked with GNW for three years at the ABC, reshoots then were tricky – evidently they are no easier today! I didn’t see it, but budgeting (and the fact that they shoot GNW at the ABC in Ultimo not Channel 10) means that the chroma key with some fake laughs is the best they can do to achieve some currency in the face of such change since recording it.. Live would be an impossibility – other than the keeping to time would be even harder than the edited version is, the censor would begin having fits and get RSI from bleeping every second sentence!

  6. It makes you wonder how this show keeps going for the ratings it gets if the show was on a different channel it would have been axed long ago.Then on the other side you have people complaining about Hey Hey that’s doing a fine job…….strange

  7. Why not do it live?

    One episode takes many hours to shoot;
    They need to edit for inappropriate content/language;
    A lot of the jokes fall very flat;
    Only what looks good or is chronically embarrassing makes it to air;
    Props fall over & stagehands pop into view;
    Sound drops out, microphones fail or catch too much;
    & basically :
    >>> It’s not real, it’s television! <<<
    That's all folks 🙂

  8. When Claire popped up, I thought that it looked like green screen but I thought “No, that’s not what they usually do.” Now that I know the truth, I am glad that they did do this.

  9. Looked very, very obvious. Especially when Claire stabbed him in the back. Looked like a video sequence from an early 90s CD-ROM game.

    The clumsy editing and dubbing in of the audience made it worse.

  13. Ummm…. I was looking for some trickery but obviously not very hard coz I didn’t really see it. Thought it was an excellent intro, but the rest of the show was conspicuous in its absence of backstabbing comedy.

  19. Why couldn’t they just use the same studio set but without the audiance to do the re-stood for the final few jokes?

    Or better still come back and re-shoot the show?

    IMO it should be done no sooner than the weekend before it airs, less chance of things like this happening.

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