Final Major Project- research

Come Dine With Me

So I have been looking at a lot of different culinary shows for my Final Major Project, all from different times. The ones that stood out to me were Come Dine With Me and Ready Steady Cook.
Both of these shows are from different times (Come Dine With Me being first broadcast in january 2005 and Ready Steady Cook first being broadcast in October 1994.)

Ready Steady Cook

Even though the times in which they first started broadcasting are significantly different, both of these have stood the test of time and kept audiences interested. This is obviously the outcome I would like for my 15 minute series.

Because of the research I have done it has left me doing some very detailed looking into both of these programmes, watching many episodes and trying to work out what it is that has kept the audience tuning in for so long. I have come to decide that both of these programmes are very similar but at the same time have major difference too.
I am going to be explaining these now:

Presenter-

Ainsley Harriot- Ready Steady Cook presenter 

One of the first differences I noticed between these two shows is that both are very much powered by one person, but in two different ways. In Ready Steady Cook the presenter very much has a physical presents at all times, whether it be asking the contestants questions, doing pieces to camera or talking to the audience. Where as in Come Dine With Me, the person who keeps it all together is a voiceover. This is very well done as I consider the voiceover to be the driving force of the programme and gives it a sense of continuation and keeps it all together at all times. I am thinking for my programmes I will have  a physical presenter. This is because Come Dine With Me has contestants that are being shown on the screen to the audience, where as my programmes will be going for the more cookery show feel and so the most typical way to set this up would be to have one presenter on screen with possible some interaction from others at some points. I would like to bring the sense of humour that the Come Dine With me v/o brings to the shows. This would mean choosing a presenter that has a decent sense of humour and is confident with themselves along with some quick yet not offending wit!

Audience-

Come Dine With Me Setting

With Come Dine With Me and the setting it is in (contestants houses) there is no audience members of participation. Unlike Ready Steady Cook which has a very strong sense of audience participation and even has a little competition round which involves audience members bringing their favourite foods to the show for the professional cook to make something our of in a specific amount of time, and also the audience getting to decide who wins the final competition. The fact that I want to keep my shows quite laid back as I want to appeal to students and people of that age I feel that I would not have a audience for mine, but I could possibly have some participation from people, say the presenters friends or other students. I had the idea that I could possibly do a 'Watch and Do' method to my shows. This would mean having the presenter and then 2 other people watching and making what he/she is. Showing the audience at home how easy it is to do.

Setting-

Ready Steady Cook Setting

I want to keep these shows laid back, but not so much so that it ends up being messy or attention to detail being missed out on. This is why it has been hard for me to decide whether or not I want to use a studio based kitchen, or give it more of a homely rustic feel with a home kitchen. I will decide upon this once I have done further research into other cookery programmes that have used both of these methods. I have obviously seen both of these set outs with Ready Steady cook being in a studio and Come Dine With Me being in multiple contestants houses. I am at the moment leaning towards the at home style setting as this gives the show as a whole a more laid back, intimate feeling.

I am now going to look more into things such as the setting I want to use, the shots I would like to use and what kind of style presenter I am looking for. I will look at more cookery shows in order to get this information together!