User:Stifle/Design and production of The Crystal Maze

The Crystal Maze was one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful British TV game shows of all time. A substantial part of this success was due to the unusually ambitious and elaborate design of the show, which created a number of production challenges. This article provides more detailed information about the design and production of the show.

Features of The Crystal Maze set

Design of the zones

After Series 1, the move of studios meant that Aztec Zone had more 'breathing space' and the zone could expand giving it more open space and the painted 'rainforest' diorama more distance from the main set.

Industrial Zone gave cameramen much more freedom compared to other zones. In other zones a slip with a camera could result in seeing the roof of the hangar, yet in Industrial it didn't matter as it fitted in with the theme of the zone. The sweeping camera jib was also greatly used in this zone, predominantly for the scenes of running upstairs (to or from Medieval Zone). The zone changed slightly from Series 1 to Series 2 with the greater 'spread', due to more available space, and the painted skyline Diorama. Industrial was, at the time, the only zone to have two proper floors.

Ocean Zone's Main Saloon featured a brand new Bird's Eye Maple interior, with fish tanks behind porthole windows). The Boiler Room section of Ocean Zone generally reused materials from Industrial Zone. Real seaweed was used on the set, which over time gave the set an authentic seaweed smell. In Series 5, the illuminated chandeliers were scrapped to make the ship look more abandoned; however this seemed to make the Saloon appear much more dull.

Medieval Zone went through many slight changes through the six series, including the addition of O'Brien's dining table. One episode included fictitious portraits of the O'Brien family. The armour of O'Brien's "Daddy" also featured, as a way of releasing the crystal after successful completion of an 'Excalibur' game in which the crystal had to be brought out of the cell attached to the handle of a sword. The zone's entrance to the maze was also changed greatly, with the addition of gravestones, statues and a rarely seen painted diorama, glimpsed in a few episodes of Series 3.

In series 2 a secondary corridor was introduced in Futuristic Zone from the Aztec Lift back to the Computer Room (however this was not shown until the map was renewed in Series 4). The zone had few changes, other than the bright blue floor in the Console Room in Series 3.

The Crystal Maze map

In series 1–3:, the on-screen diagram used to depict The Crystal Maze consisted of a black background with Zones formed from coloured lines. Industrial was purple, Aztec was yellow, Futuristic was blue, Medieval was green and the Crystal Dome was white. The current location of the team in the maze was shown by a single red dot, which could be positioned in numerous places on the map, including different areas in the Zones, the obstacles between the Zones or even outside the map once or twice in the case of the Aztec Zone. Occasionally, no dot at all was shown for the Aztec Zone. The Crystal Dome had no dot and just zoomed in after a few seconds. Also, the map could sometimes be shown twice for the same Zone, the first showing the obstacle and the second the Zone. The map could zoom in at any time however.

In series 4–6: The Diagram consisted of a multi-coloured background with Zones formed from filled coloured areas. Ocean was blue, Aztec was yellow, Futuristic was grey, Medieval was green and the Crystal Dome was white with blue water. The location of the team around the maze was shown by a radar-like positioning system. Unlike the series 1–3 map, the locator had fixed positions in the Zones and did not venture into the obstacles. The Crystal Dome also had this type of locator.

In both cases, the map zoomed in on each individual Zone and the Dome. The angle used to zoom in on each Zone was different: some just panned down, others did a full 180-degree angled sweep to show the Zone from the back. Whenever the map zoomed in, all other Zones and the Dome drifted away so that the individual cells and obstacles could be seen more clearly. The Dome's zoom showed it from the very front, a very steep pan down being required for this. In series 6 and the 1992 Kids Christmas Special, the zoom in on Zones included a sound effect.

Game rooms

The recurring features of the design of game rooms in each zone were as follows:

• Aztec: The rooms had wooden doors which were held shut with pieces of rope tied around a peg in the stone block wall. Each door had a rectangular panel cut out of it, covered with sackcloth. Other team members could move the sackcloth to see inside. Other rooms, had square holes in high up positions. Other team members could easily climb to these holes and look inside the room. But the gaps would be too high up for the contestant inside the room to reach.
• Industrial The industrial zone had steel doors which were locked with bar latches. There were no windows, so teammates would have to watch a television monitor placed in the centre of the zone.
• Ocean: The Ocean zone had mahogany doors which were neatly decorated, but their appearance would be affected by their positioning around the ship. These would be locked with golden latches. Like Industrial there was no way for teammates to see into the cell so the game was watched on a monitor.
• Medieval: The large metal doors were actually made of wood and then painted black. Most have a panel which can be opened by contestants, revealing fencing that allowed them to see inside the room. The rooms usually had windows with metal bars, allowing teammates to see inside. The doors used a bar latch.
• Futuristic: These doors were metal with no handles or windows. They would be activated by a number panel. The host would enter a unique code into the number panel, thus unlocking the door. However, the host only needed to press one button to allow the contestant back out. Occasionally, the host would enter the code again to lock the room when the challenge was completed. Like Industrial, teammates can see the contestant through a monitor.

Game room timers

Every game room had a timer outside it, supposedly for the host to keep time for that game on. The 'timepieces' used in each zone were as follows:

• Aztec: Water clocks, with green water trickling out of a pipe into a glass bowl crudely marked with a series of lines.
• Futuristic: Brightly coloured digital countdown timers (#:##), with a red start button and black stop button.
• Medieval: Old-fashioned wooden sand hour glasses, often covered in cobwebs, which sat in a purpose built holder in the wall. (It could be removed.)
• Industrial (series 1-3): Industrial-style mechanical timer clock, with minute and second hands.
• Ocean (series 4-6): Ornate early 20th Century style clock faces, with Roman numerals.

Moving from the final zone to the Dome

Although the team's transition from the final Zone to the Crystal Dome was never shown in full on screen, the team would always leave a given Zone by a specific route, despite these routes having little or no geographical proximity to the Dome (in most cases, they actually led off the edge of the map.) In earlier series of the show, the exit to the dome wasn't specific and varied depending on what zone the team were in. However in later series, the exit usually remained the same.

• Aztec: The team would exit by running past the column and towards the river which was used to enter the Crystal Maze from the Aztec Zone.
• Industrial: In Series 1, the team would exit by going up the stairs towards the Medieval Zone. In Series 2 & 3, the team would exit past the tunnel portal leading to the Aztec Zone and out. This is the only time the night sky (in reality, a painted cyclorama backdrop on the wall of the stage) could be seen from the Industrial Zone.
• Ocean: In Series 4 & 5, the route the team exited to the dome varied. Sometimes it was by using the stairs in the boiler room and at other times it was by going up the stairs in the main saloon. In Series 6, the team would exit via a panel in the boiler room, near the cylindrical cell. Again, this door had bright light and fog coming from behind it. This route was one of the two which could in theory have geographically led to anywhere near the Dome.
• Medieval: During Series 1–4, the team would exit in most cases by the Medieval Zone entrance and only on some occasions would they leave by the door near to the Futuristic Zone, behind which was fog and bright lights. In Series 5 & 6, the team would always exit through the door.
• Futuristic: In series 1–4, the team would leave through the door which teams enter the zone. In Series 5–6, the team left through a door placed in the new corridor built on the other side of the lift. The new corridor first appeared in series 3. The team exited into bright light and fog.

The Crystal Dome

For the first series, it was originally planned to offer a 'double-or-nothing' Gamble Game to teams winning 50–99 gold tokens. This consisted of a small 'wire-frame' model of the Crystal Dome with some pieces removed, which the team (if they accepted the Gamble) would have to re-assemble within a time limit. However, the Gamble Game idea was dropped shortly before the first series was filmed.

After much experimentation with samples of dozens of different foils, the production team found only one which worked properly in the Dome without either falling to the floor and staying there, blowing straight to the top of the Dome and staying there, or 'sticking' to the wall panels. Unfortunately, this foil-like material was only manufactured in silver, so the gold tokens were actually silver ones which were sprayed with gold paint by the production crew.

The ratio of silver to gold tokens within the Dome was five to four (625 silver and 500 gold), and the gold tokens were very difficult to tell from silver ones when blowing around inside the Dome, especially since the paint on the 'gold' tokens tended to flake off, although neither of these details were obvious to the viewer. The shape and size of the Dome meant that every sound within it (including a contestant's own voice) appeared to come from a single point roughly ten feet above the Dome's mesh floor, and directly above its centre. This could be disorientating to the contestants.

Other show design elements

Contestants' clothes

Contestants did not wear their regular clothes. In the first series, contestants wore jumpers and white trousers. In the second series, contestants wore jackets and sporty trousers. In the third and fourth series, contestants wore jumpsuits. In the fifth series, three contestants wore coats and three contestants wore black waistcoats. In the sixth series, two male contestants and two female contestants wore coats and a male contestant and a female contestant wore black waistcoats. In the fifth and sixth series, contestants wore black cargo trousers. In the fifth and the sixth series, contestants also wore name badges and colour-coded badges identifying the zone in which they had first entered the maze (which would have helped the production team with identification), and the captain and vice-captain wore an additional identifying badge.

Design of games

The games played by contestants were not all devised by the production team. In Series 1 many of the games were devised by Mensa, the high IQ society. Games in future series were devised by former contestants of the show, by television industry consultants, and by several viewers of the show who decided to submit ideas for games. Game designers were paid £100 per game used, and were credited in the shows in which their game was played. The games and special effects were built by a company called Artem.

Filming

Choice of game category and contestant

In the early series, the captain's choice of game (from the options of Mental, Skill, Physical or Mystery) and contestant to play the game was genuine. However in later series, it was not a free choice and was 'imposed' on the team by the production team, sometimes with some discussion between the producers and the entire team before the contest began. This allowed the production team to match games to people most suitable to play them, rather than risking the Captain selecting an inappropriate person to play a game and making the resulting game dull or uninteresting for viewers.

Camera set-up delays

Although not visible in the show, after the first series there was in fact a lengthy delay (15 minutes or more) between a player being sent into one of the puzzle chambers and them actually beginning to play the puzzle. This occurred because the show was filmed using only two mobile cameras; as soon as the outside scene of the player jumping into the chamber was filmed, filming had to stop for one of the cameras had to be set up on a rig inside the chamber. In the first series shots inside the game chambers were run as set-ups on a second day of filming so that on the first day games were played with little delay. On the first series other contestants remained in the game area, however on later series contestants were sometimes sent to "the green room" (a hospitality area) during the process. Shots where the player looked directly into the camera during the puzzle also had to be edited from the show.

The time that it took a contestant to travel back through the maze to 'buy out' a locked-in contestant from a previous zone was very short compared to the camera setup delays between the games (and locked-in contestants would likely be waiting in the green room rather than actually inside the chamber). Therefore the in-game time that such rescues appeared to take was purely scripted. It was claimed that if the contestants did not rejoin the team in time, they would both be excluded from the Crystal Dome finalé: a danger that was stated in several episodes, but did not actually exist.

Timechecks

All timepieces outside game cells were dummies. A YouTube clip of outtakes posted by the production team, featuring the production sound feed, proves that the host received timechecks verbally in his earpiece from the director's assistant. These timechecks were only occasional, meaning that when a team asked the host how much time was left in the game, he would often have only a very vague idea at first before, after a long hesitation, suddenly shouting (for example) "One minute left!"

This did not stop the hosts from making elaborate light-hearted acts of reading the timers, particularly the water clocks and hour glasses, in order to keep up the appearance (somewhat sarcastically at times) of those timers being real. In one episode, Richard O'Brien delivered an improvised monologue about how he had carefully studied the subtle art of reading water clocks, but still it was so challenging that he had had difficulty (i.e. in reality, been waiting for the next timecheck in his earpiece) in reading the clock just previously. The 'modern' timers (in Industrial, Ocean and Futuristic) were in fact fully readable by contestants outside the cell as well as the host, but they were not routinely used by the host.

Filming of the Crystal Dome

Each team in the Maze was asked by the production team to film the Crystal Dome sequence twice. Although a blizzard of tokens was activated by the fans in the floor, unfortunately a large number of tokens always quickly re-settled on the floor at the edges of the Dome, out of reach of the rotating fans. This meant that contestants spent a disproportionate amount of time in the Dome collecting tokens on hands and knees at the edges - which was deemed to make poor television. In the second 'dummy' filming of the Dome sequence, contestants were asked to jump and grab flying tokens from the air instead. Sequences from both recordings were spliced together as seamlessly as possible in the finished broadcast.

Production timeline

Each series of the show took three months' preparation, five weeks of filming and four months of editing.

External links

• An incomplete story of being a contestant on The Crystal Maze, by series 6 contestant Bob Lishman
• Official website of David G. Croft, director of all six series of The Crystal Maze
• Outtakes clip posted on YouTube by a production team member
• A second collection of out-takes and behind-the-scenes clips on YouTube