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GMRC Series 2 - Episode 5 - 'The Sky's the Limit'


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8 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

 

Yes, there was 'no under 18s' rule for the demonstrations, which I thought was a bit disappointing. I assumed this was because of the presenter's risqué double-entendre material...

 

And then three little lads turned up who were transfixed by our rocket launch (they were standing right next to me as I was doing by narration and that was genuinely the look on their faces). 'Great!', I thought, as this is exactly the age group that we're trying to inspire.

 

One of the little lads came up to me and told me how much he'd enjoyed the rocket launch - turned out that he was the son of one of the KBG sound technicians so, presumably, that's 'allowed'?

They were right to be transfixed by the rocket and that is how it should be.  Shame that more children couldn’t go to see that layouts and presentations although it would have been a long day for them. 

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As Andy (York) alluded to earlier, the new issue of BRM (Nov 19) carries an interview with Team Grantham about our involvement in this year's competition (it states that Heat 5 is due to air this Friday but of course subsequent events have proved that to be incorrect). My sub. copy has just landed on the doormat so I can see how it turned out.

 

It contains the trackplan which I sent to Howard and co, so I won't post that here. However, the image below hasn't been used so thought that might be of interest. We didn't strictly speaking had to produce such a drawing but, given some of the complex aspects of the design, it was actually quite useful to the team to help visualise things. You were encouraged as a team to send in as much detail as you could about your plan so that the production team could review and give you the green light (or otherwise).

50613373_TeamGrantham-Heat5Frontelevation_LR.jpg.3433e086a39ab539f6c6f39436f34080.jpg

 

Also, attached below is the overall design description and my subsequent project plan, showing how we might break down and share out the build amongst us. The latter document makes for sobering reading now the programme has aired as it makes me realise how far behind we were at times and how much had to be ditched in order to get the thing finished! Don't tell Steve or Kathy.... (they knew!)

 

Again, this post partly in case others are interested in getting involved in future series as an idea of how much is involved and what a personal commitment it all is.

Team Grantham - Heat 5 layout design description.docx Heat 5 project plan.xlsx

Edited by LNER4479
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2 hours ago, noiseboy72 said:

Yes, I hope if it gets another season they make it possible for kids to come along. They presented no problems at all during filming - in fact they were better behaved than the team members, who kept wandering off for a sit down between takes and had to be rounded up on a regular basis!

 

 

The vast majority of children attending shows are well behaved, those that aren't do not get invited again. When I take my friend to a show because he is a single parent we nearly always have his young son with us. The lad has never once let us down by misbehaving, in fact he is so well behaved that he often gets invited to operate layouts at shows.

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Just to add to @LNER4479's comments, Heat 5 competitors had to submit the same level of detail for both semis - and the final as well!

 

Once the initial submission had been approved, there was an order form for each and every supplier. This for me was the toughest part of the whole experience. You'd think that having the keys to the toyshop would be easy, but trust me, it isn't. You need to work out what locos, stock and scenics you would like, then check if it's on the current stock availability list, find out it's not, change your plans and try again! It truly is quite stressful doing it once, but 4 times was beyond a joke. In the end we made our 2 semi-final layouts quite similar in their basic design, so it was possible to reduce the differences in stock and scenics and make the process somewhat quicker. 

 

Once it all arrived - boxes of it, it needed checking and sorting and distributing so that pre-build could be started. 

 

...and that was before we'd even arrived at Fawley...

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3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

 

Yes, there was 'no under 18s' rule for the demonstrations, which I thought was a bit disappointing. I assumed this was because of the presenter's risqué double-entendre material...

 

And then three little lads turned up who were transfixed by our rocket launch (they were standing right next to me as I was doing by narration and that was genuinely the look on their faces). 'Great!', I thought, as this is exactly the age group that we're trying to inspire.

 

One of the little lads came up to me afterwards and told me how much he'd enjoyed the rocket launch - turned out that he was the son of one of the KBG sound technicians so, presumably, that's 'allowed'?

It will probably have been because of the rules about children and young people on film and TV sets rather than the double entendres. It's entirely possible to include them but the production team have to carry out various processes to do so and may not have wanted that additional workload. A member of one of the teams being under 18 would be different- they were a key part of that team so worth the effort. I'm not sure whether the invited friends and families would be counted as audience or participants but in any case most shows recorded in front of a studio audience have a minimum age of 18 with some at 16.  I'm guessing that children of the crew who were there would not have counted as audience or participants. 

 

Thinking about this did make me wonder about the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures. These do have an audience predominately made up of children and young people- not surprisingly as that's who they're for- but that's an established event covered by television not a television show as such.

Edited by Pacific231G
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1 hour ago, noiseboy72 said:

Once the initial submission had been approved, there was an order form for each and every supplier. This for me was the toughest part of the whole experience. You'd think that having the keys to the toyshop would be easy, but trust me, it isn't.

 

Absolutely, Matt. This was undoubtedly the most time-consuming task.

 

You THINK you know the manufacturer's catalogues and - of course - stock is a relatively easy pick. But consider: track, electrics, buildings, scenic materials, road vehicles, figures, glue ... They all have to be ordered. I spent literally hours on the internet, punching in product code after product code to bring up an image so I could be sure of what we were ordering. The other team members can help, but someone has to fill in the order forms, check you haven't gone over the limit and - if you have - sort out who doesn't get what. Have you ever tried going through the Faller buildings range?!?!?! (happily available to us via the Gaugemaster sponsorship).

 

And yes - being in Heat 5 (the last heat), we all had to order our stuff for Semi-Final 1 as well. They were all delivered to Fawley Hill and the KBG team insisted that we checked through them all to ensure the orders were correct ... all whilst we were trying to build our Heat 5 layouts with of course no idea of whether we would actually be progressing through to the next round or not! Feel quite sorry for Railway Sleepers the way it turned out - seeing all that stuff then having to go home empty handed.

 

Of course, none of this is ever shown on the tele!

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16 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Thinking about this did make me wonder about the Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures. These do have an audience predominately made up of children and young people- not surprisingly as that's who they're for- but that's an established event covered by television not a television show as such.

 

In theatre its usually the Chaperone and working hours that cause problems. As they are audience, whoever brought them has responsibility for the child as they are in a "safe" public area. I guess as the whole room at Fawley would count as a set the children fall under the first type.  

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15 minutes ago, willjam39 said:

 

In theatre its usually the Chaperone and working hours that cause problems. As they are audience, whoever brought them has responsibility for the child as they are in a "safe" public area. I guess as the whole room at Fawley would count as a set the children fall under the first type.  

Indeed. I've produced programmes with children and young people, mostly in their schools but sometimes in the studio and we always took advice. In the BBC that was fairly easily available but for an indie it probably does involve more extra work. The BBC's guidelines are though publicly available. 

I was curious about the general restrictions on under 18s in TV studio audiences (16 but accompanied in some) ; clearly that doesn't apply in the theatre but it may be a policy rather than a regulatory thing.

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On 07/10/2019 at 09:17, Professor Yaffle said:

 

Only one layout was Mars, MGNR, and the other was Planet XVI, not quite sure where that was exactly. I'm sure the Railway Sleepers can comment on that. I understand we did have to submit our ideas for approval.

Chris

MGNR

 

Hi Chris,   

 

Planet XVI was not meant to be Mars, or any other particular known planet for that matter.   Instead it was a random generic sci-fi planet. 

 

In our early planning we settled on the sci-fi elements of the heat's theme "The Sky's The Limit/To Infinity And Beyond/Space Race" - just unfortunity the theme was truncated to just "the sky's the limit" on the day.

 

James (Railway Sleepers)

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19 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

we all had to order our stuff for Semi-Final 1 as well. They were all delivered to Fawley Hill and the KBG team insisted that we checked through them all to ensure the orders were correct ... all whilst we were trying to build our Heat 5 layouts with of course no idea of whether we would actually be progressing through to the next round or not! Feel quite sorry for Railway Sleepers the way it turned out - seeing all that stuff then having to go home empty handed.

 

That's quite illuminating, understandable but an unwanted diversion I would imagine.

 

No fun-poking at the Railway Sleepers intended but I pictured Jim Bowen at this point.

 

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"Let's have a look at what you could have won"

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Hi all, I am Martin and I was a member of the Railway Sleepers team.  We knew that we were the outsiders from the start, only 3 of our team being familiar with model railways.  But all 6 of us are also avid wargamers so this is where the model building skills come from.  We are used to building gaming tables full of scenery.  Nevertheless we missed out by just 1 point and fair play to the Muddle team who by winning the scratch build challenge (=2 points) overtook us.  A couple to things.  First taking part is fantastic fun.  It is lovely to build your layout at home or at the club but it is totally different doing that in a competition.  You just cannot compare one with the other.  It is a TV format, it is not a guide to building your own layout at home.  You need to get on with it and you have to live with the choices you made beforehand, often very restricted, without the info needed etc.  We all try to have an ace up our sleeve.  Team Grantham had the radio telecope (absolutely superb modelling), we had the laser cutter machine for the track laying, buildings and the illuminated space race boards.  On the subject of the Queen Elizabeth loco, ou colour scheme was blue and white.  So that is why we choose that loco and James hand painted the coaches in those colours.  I still think that our Queen Elizabeth was the most beautiful loco in all the heats.  When that thing ran over the viaduct, it was superb to see.  And on the subject of shunting, all 3 teams did shunting on their demonstrations.   When looking at the program, it seems to me that they only showed 2% of all the stuff they filmed.  So much happened.  

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I think it would be fairer if at the end of the heats all the entries points were compared instead of on a heat by heat basis. There could be a situation where a heat winner could have fewer points than the runner up on another heat.

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2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I think it would be fairer if at the end of the heats all the entries points were compared instead of on a heat by heat basis. There could be a situation where a heat winner could have fewer points than the runner up on another heat.

And that was what happened to us. We scored more points than the winners of Heats 1 & 4, but the wild card rule let us through, so I think it was a fair result all around.

 

Some themes - and Sc-Fi is one, are easier to interpret than others and this probably leads to higher marks. It wouldn't be fair to totalise all scores unless we all created layouts to the same theme.

 

As a team we were totally happy with the scoring system. You will have to see if it was as kind to us in the Semi-finals as it was in the heats...

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I think others have said that Heat 5 had some of the strongest teams. I'm not entirely how it worked out like that, as we - Team Muddle and Go Nowhere are just an extended bunch of friends with various railway interests and only a few of us really model in 00 to any extent. We didn't really expect to be competitive against the more organised teams, but knew we could present an attractive fantasy layout that hopefully would work well on TV. 

 

It's interesting the impact the 2 points from the scratch build challenge has on the scores. I do think it's a valid round, but the items need to be less silly. Tanning lotion and a paper thong?? No one would admit to choosing the items - Kathy and Steve in particular were keen to distance themselves from the selection process. Maybe next time the teams get told what to build - but supply their own bits? That might make a fun twist and would certainly see lots of digging around in the scrap box looking for bits!

Edited by noiseboy72
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As a primarily Sci-Fi Steampunk modeller, Steampunk Laurie from Team Steampunk Series 1, I have to say how much I enjoyed Heat 5 and the creativity that shone through from all teams. There were elements of each model I really found entertaining. 

 

In fact this series of GMRC seems more about fantasy based modelling than I was expecting, with sci-fi elements creeping into many designs across the heats, and it makes me wonder if more show layouts will reflect this in future? For me the hobby needs to evolve a little bit (still keeping its core modelling) so as to attract new people. 

 

So well done to all teams on GMRC2 and especially this heat that had some wonderful interpretations. Steampunk models, TB1, and some great buildings. This is my first post on GMRC2 as these modellers fired me up! 

 

Steampunk Laurie 

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1 hour ago, noiseboy72 said:

Maybe next time the teams get told what to build - but supply their own bits? That might make a fun twist and would certainly see lots of digging around in the scrap box looking for bits!

 

KBG: Next week you will be making a coal mine. 

 

TEAM: Oh look what I found in my scrapbox,  a coal mine kit!

 

Well how would you lay down a hard and fast rule as to what is acceptable scrap?

 

Personally, I think the producers are having bets on who can generate the most outrage on here with their choice of items. 

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Thanks Laurie, I'm glad you enjoyed our modelling :) We tried not to go too Steampunk, but we wanted the vibrant Victorian colours and for the rockets to look a little like the HG Wells / Jules Verne illustrations, so the Steampunk look was inevitable.

 

Check out our website and on this page: https://www.mgnr.uk/creating-the-layouts you will see some of Chris's initial sketches. These really steered what the layout would look like and were so useful in building the various elements and tieing everything into a common theme.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Grumpold said:

  On the subject of the Queen Elizabeth loco, ou colour scheme was blue and white.  So that is why we choose that loco and James hand painted the coaches in those colours.  I still think that our Queen Elizabeth was the most beautiful loco in all the heats.  When that thing ran over the viaduct, it was superb to see.

Well, as a die-hard LMS fan (despite my Grantham inspired user name), with the 'Duchess' type being my all time fave loco, it worked for me every time. Although you don't get much time to admire other teams efforts, I did notice that the coaches had been repainted in the same colour scheme. When the space city buildings were (eventually!) brought in, the overall effect was most striking.

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1 hour ago, LocoLaurie said:

As a primarily Sci-Fi Steampunk modeller, Steampunk Laurie from Team Steampunk Series 1, I have to say how much I enjoyed Heat 5 and the creativity that shone through from all teams. There were elements of each model I really found entertaining. 

 

In fact this series of GMRC seems more about fantasy based modelling than I was expecting, with sci-fi elements creeping into many designs across the heats, and it makes me wonder if more show layouts will reflect this in future? For me the hobby needs to evolve a little bit (still keeping its core modelling) so as to attract new people. 

 

So well done to all teams on GMRC2 and especially this heat that had some wonderful interpretations. Steampunk models, TB1, and some great buildings. This is my first post on GMRC2 as these modellers fired me up! 

 

Steampunk Laurie 

Thanks Laurie - glad TB1 struck a chord. We (Team Grantham) are of a certain age that grew up with Supermarionation - Thunderbirds was a firm favourite of mine - so the opportunity to include our little homage was just too good to miss. It was also good fortune that the TB1 model fitted perfectly on a OO flat wagon!

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10 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Thanks Laurie - glad TB1 struck a chord. We (Team Grantham) are of a certain age that grew up with Supermarionation - Thunderbirds was a firm favourite of mine - so the opportunity to include our little homage was just too good to miss. It was also good fortune that the TB1 model fitted perfectly on a OO flat wagon

 

It gives those us who love Thunderbirds AND pasties a dilemma. Which inspirational wagon load from this series do we build first?

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8 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Well, as a die-hard LMS fan (despite my Grantham inspired user name), with the 'Duchess' type being my all time fave loco, it worked for me every time. Although you don't get much time to admire other teams efforts, I did notice that the coaches had been repainted in the same colour scheme. When the space city buildings were (eventually!) brought in, the overall effect was most striking.


thanks, the galaxy express coaches were ones in used on my childhood layout, 35 years ago.   A BR mk1, LNER sleeper and LNER brake.   Airbrushed silver with blue stripes to match the main stripes on the Queen Elizabeth.   The coaches were upgraded with sitting passengers, and coach lighting.       The overall colour of Blue and Silver matched the white and blue of the city, and even the blue and white of our team shirts.

The loco was chosen because of its sleek ‘futuristic’ overall look and it’s bold colour.

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