Production: Visual Style, Narrative Structure and the Viewer Renovator

Abstract

Grand Designs has established its own unique visual production style. Along with the instantly recognisable demeanour and voice of its presenter, Kevin McCloud, the filming vernacular has become a familiar one across the entertainment landscape. This chapter examines some of the program’s industrial and production contexts by looking at the aesthetic and commercial choices made by its creators during the early days. Many of these design decisions are now signature elements of the Grand Designs identity, and these are mapped through the program’s format, style and genre, identifying its dramatic arc and episodic structure. As familiar as McCloud’s opening monologue are ‘the finals’, those sweeping cinematic shots that reveal the completed builds. This chapter goes behind the screen to explore how the camera is used by some of the creative practitioners of the program. The figure of the ‘viewer-renovator’ is also introduced to capture how audiences use the program in material and symbolic patterns of engagement.