Prime Television complete new comedy show for BBC

Prime Television, the suppliers of cutting-edge minicam equipment, has announced a major collaboration with the BBC in making their new comedy/reality game show, ‘The Sack Race’. The first show of the six part series is to be broadcast on January 12 at 9.30pm on BBC Two and features contestants battling it out against the clock to lose their jobs on their first day of work.
Prime Television provided technical expertise and all crew for the production of the series, installed the hidden cameras and microphones in all locations and provided on-location crew for shooting and technical support.
The two new recruits are introduced to the existing members of staff in separate companies and were selected to bring chaos and mayhem into the workplace. Their aim is to get the sack, as near to 3pm as possible, in the most imaginative and entertaining way possible.
Prime Television was chosen to work with the BBC on the show due to its experience in remote control minicams and covert filming, having recently made many other hidden camera shows including ‘My New Best Friend’ for Channel 4 and ‘Stitch Up’ for the BBC. Each location was a multi-camera OB with six remote control pan and tilt cameras, six fixed position minicams and 24 microphones, 13 of which were radios, all tied into a small gallery, often hidden in the stationery cupboard. Prime provided four crews for each location: one to pre-rig (running around 1.5km of each kind of cable needed and installing camera hides), one to fit the cameras the night before the shoot; one to run the gallery on the shoot day; and one to de-rig the equipment.
Nick Ludlow, Managing Director of Prime Television, said: “It was like having a PSC camera in each corner of the room. We were able to get real close into the action, zooming in on the shocked faces of the staff, panning to the left and right to catch the gossip. All our cameras are fully remote control and often our crew of five with our OB gallery were hidden in a small storeroom within the workplace for the day’s shooting.
“As well as hiding all the cameras, we had to install many kilometres of cabling at each location which also had to be hidden. Sound was really important also as we had to catch all the gossip and whispers of the staff as they could not believe some of the antics that the new employee was getting up to.”
The Sack Race is a BBC production and is produced by Mike Agnew, Mob Dar, Andrew Wightman and Helen Nightingale. The programme will transmit on BBC Two with the following weeks programme premiering on BBC Three immediately afterwards.
(GB)