BBC’s Cloned game show is the result of a successful training programme

BBC Entertainment’s first Future Formats trainee programme has been deemed a success after one of the participants has had a pilot for a Saturday night game show commissioned. George Hutton is a former English teacher who was living and working in Madrid when he decided to apply for a place on the scheme.

The Future Formats initiative is a six-month training programme which was launched in the first half of 2010. It consists of a three-month training course in TV formats, which includes lectures and workshops, and is then followed by two months of placements within various development and production teams at the BBC. The final month sees all programme participants working together to develop the new formats they’ve created.

Hutton’s hi-tech game show is called Cloned and uses CGI and green screen technology, visual effects and post-production techniques to create several computer-generated clones of a celebrity. The show will see a team of four contestants attempt to identify the real celebrity from among the clones via a series of challenges and tasks.

It is understood that the BBC received 700 applications for the scheme when it was first advertised, and the unique project has been so successful that the corporation has already launched Future Formats 2, which will take on another eight trainees, this time for seven months. While there is no guaranteed job at the end of the programme, head of Future Formats at the BBC, Kate Phillips, says most of the students are currently working as development researchers in the wider broadcasting industry.