Scrapheap Challenge

[lankeela]

I have been watching the reruns of this on Sunday mornings and begun to wonder - is it a real scrapyard or just a filmset - and is the scrap genuine, or do they put the stuff there knowing what they are going to be looking for?

I have noticed that stuff is there in other programmes, if you see what I mean, i.e. one week they were looking for boats and you can see the boats in other programmes.

Must say although I am not mechanically minded I think this programme is great, and Robert Llewellyn and Lisa ? make a great team.

[Richard1966]

I don't know for certain so this response is conjecture, but I think it is a film set.

There would be all sorts of health and safety issues in a genuine scrap yard. They also have to set it up for eh cameras and obviously they plant items that the teams will need to have. The teams still have to find it though.

[LCDMAN]

It's Lisa Rodgers you are thinking of, she's no relation to Cathy Rodgers who also produced the series. (and went in front of the camera to co-present with Robert for the next 2 or 3 series before Lisa joined).

There is a great book available all about the making of Scrapheap Challenge. I got it for Xmas a few years ago.

Yes - it's pretty much staged, including planting *useful" things for each build and the "spontaneous" design meetings around the blackboard, aren't! Very often they have gone well over the allowed 10 hours build time, otherwise the teams would have nothing to race/show/fight with.

Here's the book on Amazon;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Scenes-at-Scrap heap-Challenge/dp/0752219995/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF 8&s=books&qid=1234185930&sr=8-3

Wow - 2001, didn't think it was that old!

[LCDMAN]

Whoops, seems neither of them spell "Rogers" with a "d" in, sorry ladies!!

[lankeela]

Great stuff. Thanks for your answers. As I said, I am not mechanically minded but I love this sort of thing, and I also like Robot Wars and would love to go to a filming.

[lankeela]

Ordered the book!

Robert Llewellyn was on another series on late at night, where they played out scenes from films, to see if they were actually possible, like the boat crossing the lake of acid in Dante's Inferno. He was hilarious in that as well. Can't remember the name of the programme. Any ideas?

[lankeela]

Found it, it was called Hollywood Science, only made one episode and originally started out as six 10-minute shorts, broadcast on the BBC Learning Zone in 2001.

Thats why I remember it being on late at night as I used to work in a restaurant and get home late and watched the Learning Zone to unwind.