BBAU 2025 house in Dreamworld Exhibition Centre

BB12 said:
I'm not familiar with overseas versions, but wouldn't having cameras more visible, take away from the whole point of the show? Or will the housemates genuinely forget about them?
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There have been various attempts internationally to hide cameras (e.g. German put the hotheads behind mirrors for two years), but housemates heard the cameras moving anyways. They had a twist on one of the seasons when Big Brother went on vacation and initially housemates were curious if they were really left on their own. But then they've heard the cameras moving and knew they were not alone. The year prior to that, housemates always figured out when competitions happened because one of the cameras would move towards some alarm sign shortly before the alarm was triggered. And when everyone was just sitting around and they've heard the camera facing the sign moving, they knew there would be a competition.

Housemates will likely 'forget' about the visible cameras. Housemates on the international versions always claim that they forget the cameras quickly. Personally, I feel like it's more a "stop caring" than forgetting that they're getting filmed. I don't think it's 100% comparable, but I've been inside one (well.. two, actually) houses with no camera mirrors. The first thing I've done was looking for cameras, because I was interested in the technology. But after checking the cameras, I didn't really pay attention to whether they were moving and whom they were following.

Imho, it's more coming down to whether housemates are discouraged from talking to the cameras or not. You have BBUS, where people often talk to the cameras. That's somewhat encouraged by production, since they include these things in the TV episodes. Even on the first season in the Netherlands, housemates talked to the cameras without getting told off.. even if it was just a simple Goedemorgen.

Personally, I actually liked it in the early days, when the cameras would interact with housemates.. e.g. them being bored and asking a yes-or-no question, which the camera operator then answers by moving the camera. I don't think it takes anything away from the show.. imho it adds to whole "Big Brother is always watching" thing. Randoms talk to them in the diary room, unfamiliar voices talk from the ceiling. All of that lets them know they are part of the show. So I don't think a camera moving is that much different from them being talked to.

It just becomes annoying when housemates make playing with the cameras their whole identity, which is probably why almost all countries banned it eventually.
 
timmy said:
Hopefully they'll tweak it up to 8-10 weeks.
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I'm sort of hoping they have a decent reception for the launch. I'll definitely be going, but when BB said they were going to post a registration form on their socials for it, I was like "oh no", maybe they don't think they'll get the same as the OG days.
 
Yeah, my thought too. Did I spot an area with have an alcove ceiling and skylight? (It reminded me of the 2001/2002 house.)
 
Hmm.

RE Camera runs: was always a personal favourite of mine that Australia hid their equipment. It just looked tidier and I always wished the UK version at the time did the same. With every reality show using the same brand and model of Panasonic PTZ camera (UE160) these days I think the house looks like any other reality show (cough, Love Island) when they're plastered on every wall and in every corner and are in the background of every shot. It's moot now though I suppose. Just something I notice when I work on these types of shows. A huge effort is made to shoot around the robo cams - making me ask why they even put them in as visible cameras lol. BB is a different beast tho. I'm assuming it's a budgetary and creative choice.

RE Ceilings: this is a weird one. I suppose why would the viewer need to see the ceiling, but also this is where aircon/heating vents are hidden and where lights and plant microphones are installed. Also surely the noise carries more with no lid on the walls? I'd assume the diary room has a ceiling for this exact purpose.

In all fairness, having not seen the complete house yet I'm trying not to judge as the quality of the show itself is going to be the big player, but the colour and design choices are questionable to me from what I've seen and I really don't like the big diary room eye, if that's real. I am excited to see what they have in store tho.

Perhaps in a different life I was a production designer.
 
dasnico said:
I'm assuming it's a budgetary and creative choice.
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You know.. Endemol will call it a creative choice and you might make the argument here and there, but I think at the end of the day it's a budgetary choice and a budgetary choice alone. There've been articles floating around and I'm pretty sure they have been discussed on here before, which were basically about Endemol updating their systems and using much more AI (e.g. voice recognition) to cut down on the number of camera operators (and also using AI for logging).

RE Camera runs: was always a personal favourite of mine that Australia hid their equipment. It just looked tidier and I always wished the UK version at the time did the same.
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Australia looked tidier, but I've actually preferred the camera windows.. mainly to have shots where the cameras move between the windows and you see the walls from behind. It's mainly been used in interstitials, rarely maybe in a kitchen shot... so I don't think they are a defining creative visual for the show and that's why I wouldn't call it a creative choice to get rid of them.
That said though: The other day, YouTube pushed the music video for South Africa's theme song (also called Life, but different from all the other Leef adaptions) back into my feed. They play around a lot with these moving camera shots and film how the singer is looking into the mirrors:

I absolutely love those visuals, I love how they give you that 'You're behind the scenes' feel... but as I said: the actual TV show hasn't played around much with them. So I see why they are not a priority for Endemol anymore
 
I do not necessarily think it’s an endemol thing specifically. A lot of the creative and budgetary choices are decided by the producer. I know Jon De Mol frowns heavily on how the US changed his format for their version.
 
dasnico said:
know Jon De Mol frowns heavily on how the US changed his format for their version.
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I've read that before but I doubt that he was that unhappy with the direction the US took. I've never read that comment from him (but I've read comments when him and his team would blame CBS for casting choices and not showing certain storylines.. and generally not wanting to change anything for/during season 1).

I don't think he's been to mad about the changes. The way Big Brother was done wasn't even how he wanted to do the show in the first place. So I don't think he's been too attached to the original but not really original format. Besides, he was informed about the plans from the US and I don't think it came as a culture shock to him. By the time the US version premiered, this has already happened to his format:
- The format was sped up from what they initially conceived
- The first franchise has already been put on hold because of declining ratings
- The second season in his own country aired to mixed success
- His team came up with a celebrity version that didn't feature any nominations or evictions
- John de Mol was even able to watch a version of Big Brother in his native language that already had housemates evicting each other. And that's not even been live.
- His team in the Netherlands re-worked the show in its original country, abandoned the whole "back to basics" thing and introduced daily competitions because of the lackluster response to season 2. It just premiered later than the US.

Almost everything that he and his team came up with for the 1999 debut has already been changed before the US made their changes. So I don't think he's been too mad. And at the end of the day, he's a businessman. The CBS version brought in the money and his big cheque was written in mid-2000 anyways when he and his partners sold his company.
 
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kamui said:
I've read that before but I doubt that he was that unhappy with the direction the US took. I've never read that comment from him (but I've read comments when him and his team would blame CBS for casting choices and not showing certain storylines).

I don't think he's been to mad about the changes. The way Big Brother was done wasn't even how he wanted to do the show in the first place. So I don't think he's been too attached to the original but not really original format. Besides, he was informed about the plans from the US and I don't think it came as a culture shock to him. By the time the US version premiered, this has already happened to his format:
- The format was sped up from what they initially conceived
- The first franchise has already been put on hold because of declining ratings
- The second season in his own country aired to mixed success
- His team came up with a celebrity version that didn't feature any nominations or evictions
- John de Mol was even able to watch a version of Big Brother in his native language that already had housemates evicting each other. And that's not even been live.
- His team in the Netherlands re-worked the show in its original country, abandoned the whole "back to basics" thing and introduced daily competitions because of the lackluster response to season 2. It just premiered later than the US.

Almost everything that he and his team came up with for the 1999 debut has already been changed before the US made their changes. So I don't think he's been too mad. And at the end of the day, he's a businessman. The CBS version brought in the money and his big cheque was written in mid-2000 anyways when he and his partners sold his company.
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If you go back and watch any of the classic BBUS series you’ll spot the ways they adapted elements of the original format. You can tell unlike 7 who basically took Survivor’s format and slapped the BB name on it a lot of time and consideration went in to adapting BBUS. It also wouldn’t have been adapted if they didn’t have Endmol’s full blessing to do so. Not to mention that it’s their single longest continuously running franchise and in many ways has stayed truer to the BB concept than most.
 
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BB12 said:
Judging by that post, not a camera run in sight (bar a couple of glass panes) I'm not familiar with overseas versions, but wouldn't having cameras more visible, take away from the whole point of the show? Or will the housemates genuinely forget about them?
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The whole point of the show is they are being filmed 24/7 - cameras are critical to that. The idea HMs forget is nonsense - and IMO a few cameras dotted around the room are far less obvious than mirrors everywhere.
 
Kingston said:
If you go back and watch any of the classic BBUS series you’ll spot the ways they adapted elements of the original format. You can tell unlike 7 who basically took Survivor’s format and slapped the BB name on it a lot of time and consideration went in to adapting BBUS.
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Absolutely.. which is why my recommendation to anybody who wants to get into the BBUS is to start with season 2... it absolutely feels like a classic season of BB except for the eviction process.

It also wouldn’t have been adapted if they didn’t have Endmol’s full blessing to do so.
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At least initially, they've also been exchanging ideas. Who knows if the Logans had happened if it wasn't for BBUS. FNL might not have been a things. "The X factor" has also been referenced by some versions when they've sent in an ex to spice things up. A lot of franchise also adopted the HoH in some form or another.

And when John de Mol launched his own TV channel, bought some of the Endemol shares back and commissioned a new series of Big Brother in the Netherlands, they also got the US housemates from season 6 to send a "good luck" message.

I'm not sure when the exchange stopped.. definitely in the Grodner era and it's probably more on Grodner's part that she's not seeing the value in it. They might still have had some conversations initially though, because the US got a fairly old housemate in shortly after it's been a thing on a couple of international versions.

and in many ways has stayed truer to the BB concept than most.
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I've tried to make this point on other forums as well.. funnily enough, people from both sides (the US/international folks) usually don't want to hear it. It's still true though.
 
The US has stayed truer how? The US is one of the longest running versions of the franchise (in one of the largest countries), yes, but it is also like survivor in a house and barely echos the format mostly used elsewhere across the world.

I mean it’s subjective for sure but I’ve never been able to finish a season of BBUS. Obviously my opinion is unpopular, and the US is a totally different brand of audience, but it’s just another meh competition show. That being said, the US tends to milk formats to death. I think The Bachelor is on season 30 something?!
 
I’ve definitely heard of the exchange still happening… Alex M mentioned attending one and I saw one being publicized on Twitter a few years ago. That said it may not be annual anymore. The way Kris Noble loved to pick up ideas from BBUS I definitely got the impression he was tied to Arnold Shapiro’s hip at these things. You can definitely see the shift in the series post BBCAN jumping on to the scene. Especially in the early seasons BBUS tended to do its own thing while BBCAN tended to be more daring and adapt twists we’d see in international formats.
 
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