Grand Designs' biggest behind-the-scenes secrets (original) (raw)

Grand Designs is back but a lot of building blocks go into bringing the beloved Channel 4 home renovation show to our screens.

One of its biggest successes is that it taps into many people's fantasies of building their dream home from scratch or renovating an old building. Grand Designs has been going for 25 years now, having first hit our screens in 1999, and it will continue to fascinate people for years to come.

Over the years, there have been many memorable Grand Design houses but especially Edward Short's lighthouse which was dubbed the saddest ever build after the creation of his dream home destroyed his marriage and left him on the edge of bankruptcy.

We delve into the secrets off camera that creates the magic of the show.

Filming Grand Designs

The Grand Design episodes are like mini films in themselves and each episode takes at least a year to shoot, and one build took as long as 10 years to come together. Often the builds take far longer than the people embarking on the journey expect it to. As you can imagine, it's important for the series to keep each of their projects tightly under wraps until they are ready.

"Some projects take five years, some take three, others take 18 months," Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud told This Morning in 2021. "They're ready when they're ready. Consequently, our series could be anywhere between four and nine projects, depending on what’s done."

There's a lot of waiting around for the perfect moment to shoot the scenes too when it comes to days on set, McCloud divulged. The presenter lifted the lid on how filming can leave him waiting in the cold for long periods at a time. He previously told Yahoo in an interview in December: "For one 40 second or minute long interview may take an hour or an hour and a half to do. So you just waiting for the plane to go, the cars to go by the bin lorry, the guys to stop using cameras on site, whatever it is."

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Despite the cold, he plans to keep on presenting Grand Designs for as long as he enjoys it. He added: "You're waiting for the sun to be in the right place, the clouds to go, the cameraman to get a new battery, the sound guy to fiddle around with his microphone and yeah, that's all. It's all inexplicable. There's a lot of waiting but I'm patient. I don't have a problem with waiting, it is the cold. So as long as I can cope with that, I keep on doing it."

The first house in the 25th anniversary series of Grand Designs. (Channel 4 screengrab)

Getting paid for Grand Designs

While Grand Designs is hugely success, McCloud recently revealed people aren't paid to appear on the show. However, the TV star did clarify those appearing on the show get money to cover the costs where filming may interrupt with the building project itself.

McCloud told Devon Live: "They do not get paid for being on the show. They get a very, very small amount of money to cover the stop-and-start nature of filming. So when we film scenes and want half an hour quiet, which means asking every builder on site to put their tools down and go for a tea break, they get paid for that. We film for about 20 days and over time that can build up and can impact a building project so we contribute a small amount to cover that and that's it."

A throwback of Kevin McCloud on Grand Designs. (Channel 4)

At the heart of Grand Designs, McCloud said it's about telling a story that documents what exactly happened. Every individual taking part gets their own special homemade movie at the end of the project. He previously told Yahoo: "We tell a story and each story is true. It really matters to us that the people are filming that they can watch it with their friends and feel that it is an accurate true account of what happened."

Dealing with death on Grand Designs

Grand Designs captures people's extraordinary lives on camera, everything from building disasters, money woes, babies and naturally death. McCloud has said dealing with death will always be difficult but it is dealt with very respectfully because people appearing on Grand Designs have invited the cameras into their lives to tell their story.

"We might be in five years of people's lives or 10 years," he previously told Yahoo. "And so we watch children grow up and we experience mother-in-laws moving in and people getting ill and babies being born and it's all part of the narrative.

Kevin McCloud caught up with Edward Short, the man behind the infamous Grand Designs' lighthouse. (Channel 4)

"It's sad of course, and difficult to deal with, but I've dealt with it enough times now to know how you do it on camera and you do it very respectfully, you deal with every one of these situations, very respectfully. These people are not being paid, they're not actors. They are people who are doing this because they've volunteered and they've let us into their lives, which is a privilege for us.

"So the way we've respond is by covering things as well as we can but always with a degree of humility and respect. Those are our guidelines. We spend a lot of time talking, for example about our duty of care to people."

Grand Designs returns to Channel 4 at 9pm on Wednesday.