Wednesday, August 22, 2012

My day as a TV show host.

Filming a 30 minute infotainment is no easy feat. Only a 20 minute show took us 16 hours to shoot.
                     
Outside Mediacorp, there are hoards of vandalism. Rabid fans leave their mark.
                      
Short of a personal trailer, we do have a bus that chauffeurs us around and act as a holding area to stay cool in the hot weather while the crew sets up.
Receiving the script only on filming day itself.
The best part about filming a lifestyle programme than a drama is there is no memorizing! Everything is pretty impromptu and therefore entertainment hosts are often linguistically talented, like Bryan Wong, my co-host.

To mike me up, they slot something furry in between my cleavage.
I made Bryan and the crew laugh alot. Mainly because my Mandarin is as bad as something rotten. So i made lots of mistakes, i almost turned the show into a Learning Mandarin show instead!

Besides, with me around, plenty of sexual innuendos! This episode is going to be full of them, a first according to Bryan and the crew. We had such a riot bantering back and forth in my cannot-make-it Mandarin.
Bryan is a world traveller. Because of his job, he has travelled wide and far to exotic places i can't even pronounce much less spell the names. One wisdom he imparted to me was his motto to always pick the furthest destination to travel while he is still young and able. The neighboring countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and such, he'll leave it in his old age when long flight hours are a torture.

Also, cities are comfortable travel spots so USA is not on his cards while he can rough it out.
The infotainment is about highlighting lifestyle ideas suggested by members of the public. My episode's theme is about Western cultures and thus they found me fitting to be a co-host. We visited places that has British flavours, otherwise influenced by Europe.

I love the eating part of filming! Also, here is where i see the talent of a real show host at work. To us, we describe something as "nice to eat" or "not nice to eat". Our vocabulary is very much limited.

A cake that i can only describe in less than 3 seconds with a mere "nice to eat", a professional host like Bryan can rave about it for a full 10 minutes.
I could only quietly lick away at my spoon and act busy while Bryan go on and on about how yummy the cakes are. Therefore, there is some exaggeration in food shows and it's amusing to repeat our astonished expressions again and again for different takes. Also in a very impromptu environment filming a lifestyle progamme, we often don't stop talking till the director calls Cut. Thus, the sexual innuendoes, because i ran out of things to say!  This is to produce more footage than less to make post editing easy.

The cakes at Antoinette is indeed yummy. I sound like a total Bimbo at certain parts. Honestly, i love experiencing different things but i am absolutely ignorant and clueless when it comes to Geography, History and pronouncing foreign languages. Porsche is pronounced as Por-Cher and not Por-Shay.



Absolutely beat, i'm sitting on the chair Michael Jackson used in his Thriller MTV!
It's very much like a family while on set. The production assistants, director and writer takes very good care of the hosts.

Hosting a TV show indeed takes you to places you wouldn't otherwise go. It widens your knowledge, and feeds you free food.
Latest Tapas bar in town.


Find out where these places are and watch my debut hosting on 我要公开 on Friday, Channel 8, at 8.30pm!

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