Interview by John Freeman. My
Hero creator Paul Mendelson reveals how the show is brought to our TV screens.
This
interview was conducted in May 2002
John: Take us through the process of taking an episode of My Hero to screen. What happens after you have written a script?
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PM: Well, what you
do is, you have a weekly read-through where all the cast
sit round a table and you read through the script. That’s
in a rehearsal room, which could be a church hall or something
like that. All
the sets are there, in that the furniture is there or rudimentary
furniture the same size as the furniture will be on the set.
But there are no walls, just
little bits of tape on the floor and little poles to suggest
where doors are. But it replicates the set.
So you have the read through and all sit round a table, and obviously you time it because if it's over length you cut a bit and if it's under length you have to add bits. Over length is better. Under length is a real nightmare! And people make comments and we hear which bits people laugh at.
Then the actors go and have a coffee and we go and see what we need to do with this episode.
John: You and director John Stroud?
PM: Me, John Stroud, Marcus Mortimer the producer and Paul Mayhew-Archer, who's the Script Editor but who also writes scripts as well; I don't write all the scripts, but I work on the scripts that I haven't written as well, as the creator of the series.
It's quite an ensemble thing; it's quite collaborative, which how it's done these days.
And we will have already had a big read through beforehand, a few weeks before we have done the locations ... When you have a series you will read through all the scripts, the whole lot together. All of them, and then we do a bit of work on them.
All the location scenes, all the outside filming scenes are done together over a period of about six days. To save time and also because you're going to be playing them into the audience each week so they see the whole show.
So you have the read through and all sit round a table, and obviously you time it because if it's over length you cut a bit and if it's under length you have to add bits. Over length is better. Under length is a real nightmare! And people make comments and we hear which bits people laugh at.
Then the actors go and have a coffee and we go and see what we need to do with this episode.
John: You and director John Stroud?
PM: Me, John Stroud, Marcus Mortimer the producer and Paul Mayhew-Archer, who's the Script Editor but who also writes scripts as well; I don't write all the scripts, but I work on the scripts that I haven't written as well, as the creator of the series.
It's quite an ensemble thing; it's quite collaborative, which how it's done these days.
And we will have already had a big read through beforehand, a few weeks before we have done the locations ... When you have a series you will read through all the scripts, the whole lot together. All of them, and then we do a bit of work on them.
All the location scenes, all the outside filming scenes are done together over a period of about six days. To save time and also because you're going to be playing them into the audience each week so they see the whole show.
Then we have the read through per episode, as I said. It's one week per episode. When we've got a script that we're reasonably pleased with, John blocks it out and they work through it over a few days in this church hall, getting more and more accurate and funny etc.
I'm not there the whole time. I used to stay the whole time
and do things, but now I do other things and they don't really need me anyway.
They manage quite happily on their own!
We record on a Wednesday; the producers' run is normally on a Monday. And so Marcus and I will come in and we'd watch the show; they'd do a run of the show and we'll make comments.
Then the next day, and this isn't true of most series, but because we have a lot of special effects we do quite a lot of pre-recording work so we'll be in the studio the day before the recording and we'll do some of the special effects stuff so that the audience can see it the following day. We'll do that on the set.
On the day of recording, Wednesday or whatever it is, the actors will come in and all through the day they will do the show on the set, and that's really for the cameras so the cameras can rehearse the camera script that John's written. Then, at about 4.30, we do a dress run, where they do the whole show in costume, in make-up, so we can see exactly what the audience are going to see. Then we give notes to John and he gives notes to the cast or whatever about little rewrites, but there won’t be many by that stage. Then they play it to the audience.
We record on a Wednesday; the producers' run is normally on a Monday. And so Marcus and I will come in and we'd watch the show; they'd do a run of the show and we'll make comments.
Then the next day, and this isn't true of most series, but because we have a lot of special effects we do quite a lot of pre-recording work so we'll be in the studio the day before the recording and we'll do some of the special effects stuff so that the audience can see it the following day. We'll do that on the set.
On the day of recording, Wednesday or whatever it is, the actors will come in and all through the day they will do the show on the set, and that's really for the cameras so the cameras can rehearse the camera script that John's written. Then, at about 4.30, we do a dress run, where they do the whole show in costume, in make-up, so we can see exactly what the audience are going to see. Then we give notes to John and he gives notes to the cast or whatever about little rewrites, but there won’t be many by that stage. Then they play it to the audience.
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They love that, the audience, especially when somebody makes a mistake. They think all their birthdays have come at once. They do the whole show and they show the film sequences as well, so that we can record the laughs to the film sequences. And they will see the whole show over a period between 7.30 and 10.00pm. They'll see a whole half hour being put together and obviously there's some editing to do afterwards.
John tries to do as much as he can live, even the special effects, he'll try and find a way so that the audience sees them live. Which is much more exciting. And that's how it's done.
My Hero is a much more complicated show than most sit-coms. Birds of a Feather is just three people talking in a kitchen -- we've got people flying!
John: How are the visual effects done?
PM: There's somebody there, let’s say for the baby. At one point we had the baby juggling, she comes in and she says, "There's balls... or fire breathing." But they're all done by the special effects people, they get hired and they do those live for the audience, which is very funny.
