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Day Septante Neuf was indeed day three in Paris, and I profited with another good rest, and headed out “on the town” at around 10 am. I did some walking around in the morning but the main crux of the day was that I was going to be attending a taping of the France 3 game show Questions Pour Un Champion.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Questions. I saw it when I was in France the last time, with a bunch of friends:
Questions is a trivia game, with three distinct rounds.
The first round is Neuf Points Gagnants – “Nine to win” – where initially each question is worth one point, and the first to nine advances to round two, at which points questions become two points each, qualify a second player, finally they raise to three, and qualify the third player and the fourth is eliminated.
Round two is Quatre à la suite – “Four in a row” – each player, in order of their qualification from round one, picks one of four available topics (or, for later qualifiers, what’s left) and answers as many questions as they can in 40 seconds with the hopes of getting four in a row. Best two scores move on to Round three which is called Face à Face – “Head to Head”, where players are read increasingly easier clues to discover the answer to a “who am I” or “what am I” riddle. Winner can either take an amount of money and quit the show, or try to come back and win five games in a row, thus winning a jackpot that usually hovers around 20,000 Euros.
Now that we’ve gotten the mechanics out of the way, a bit about the taping. I arrived at 1 pm for a 1.30 pm taping, and at 1.30 pm, 57 seniors rolled in. I was, by far, the youngest person in the audience by quite a mile. Not to say that they weren’t friendly; once they heard I was from Canada they were more than happy to chat with me about my home and native land.
They taped three episodes that afternoon. As you can see we were in the festive season…
… One minute we were celebrating the holidays and then next…
… HAPPY NEW YEAR! In TV land it was already 2010. I’ve got a new year’s date with host Julien Lepers; this will actually creep out most of the people in the archival picture above.
Speaking of Julien, he was nice enough to pose for a picture with me during a taping stopdown (which they seem to take a lot of, mostly on whims). He also signed a copy of the picture you see way above.
One of the more interesting things I found about this taping is that it’s the first show EVER that I’ve been able to take pictures DURING the taping. As long as we didn’t put a flash on, not a problem. Which looks something like this:
And apparently some celebrities like to play the game too… ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy Fallon everyone!
Ok, not so much, but our champion Jerome was on quite a roll that day. A couple more pictures… first off, les mains sur le buzzer…
Then, doing my best Julien impression (this is mostly a gag for a certain UK based game show website):
All in all, a good day at the studio, even if the warm up guy sucked up to Julien just a bit too much. Not to say he was bad, it just got tired, quickly.
The taping let out around 7 pm so I made tracks to the Arc de Triomphe to climb it. Not so on this evening; due to the France-Ireland football (read: soccer) match, everything was closed early. I decided to come back the next evening, and after picking up a computer game at Fnac, I grabbed a crepe next door to the Moulin Rouge where already those supporting Algeria (in another football match, I was told) had taken to rioting (ie. Smashing bottles all over). As such I chilled back at the hotel (which, while affordable, is pretty much low key as you can get).
Day Quatre-Vingt was to be my last full day in Paris. As a result there was a checklist of some things I needed to get done. Walk through Montmartre, check. Buy postcards, check. Buy train tickets, check. One of the less “checkable” things that I did, because I didn’t want to rush through it was to sit and have a chocolat at the café made famous in Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, le Café des 2 Moulins. I’ve never had a hot chocolate that wasn’t pretty much delivered to me done up… but this one had the chocolate sauce poured into the cup, and then you added your own milk. It was wonderfully good. I sat down and wrote a couple more postcards and snapped a couple of pictures.
This is the pig lamp (albeit blurry) from Amélie’s bedside table. Or at least a replica.
In the back of the café there is a big poster from the movie to remind you… if you hadn’t been bombarded by the fact that Amélie is their big marketing track – you can even become a fan of the café on a certain social networking site.
One of the things that I like about Montmartre is that although it is touristy, it’s not nearly as touristy as many other places in Paris. As a result I really love just walking around the area. I decided to do one more hike up the stairs in front of the Basilique Sacré-Coeur, and as you can see, the weather very much was on my side.
After jetting off some more emails and trying feverishly to get some more things done correspondence wise, I started to make my way off to Saint-Denis, a northern Parisien suburb. Everything pretty much is accessible by either Metro or bus in Paris, so off I went. After a few switches, I arrived at Garibaldi station, and about a half hour later, I found myself sitting in the audience of Des Chiffres et Des Lettres.
Now, let’s get one thing straight. I can hear a couple of you going… “wait, you went to Paris and you spent two of four days at tv tapings?”. Well here’s the thing. I’ve been lucky enough to have been to Paris twice before and in those two times I went hell bent for leather and went to everything touristy imaginable. Part of this trip was going to be taking it easy, and those of you who read this blog don’t have to work too hard to figure out that I’ve already been to tapings in Montreal and New York, so yes, I went and saw another game show!
Des Chiffres et Des Lettres (DCEDL from here on in) has to be the easiest show to get into. Physically, I mean that. I went to studio three, opened the door, hung up my coat, and took a seat. That was pretty much it. I got chatting with a mother daughter pair from Paris about why I was there to see the show, and then I did a survey around the audience and saw that yes, once again, I had lowered the average age of the audience. I don’t get why you hip kids aren’t going out to see these awesome shows? Ah yes, I mean you with your Secret Story and your À la recherche d’un Nouvelle Star.
In my scan of the audience I notice someone I recognize, and I start, for the lack of anything else, freaking out. (That’s for you, Mister Al).
Chatting with an audience member is Patrice Laffont. Nowadays, Patrice among other things is the original presenter and now producer for DCEDL and is presenter for La Liste Gagnante (known elsewhere as Who Dares Wins or The Money List). However, I know him mostly from presenting Pyramide in the 1990’s on France 2 and the granddaddy of all French game shows, Fort Boyard.
One of the audience wranglers obviously sees that I’m freaking out and says “Patrice, il y a quelqu’un ici du Toronto qui veut te rencontrer”. I go up to Patrice, explain I’m a big fan (especially of FB) and ask if I can have a picture, and he says yes!!!!
I am over the moon at this point, and there’s other audience members looking at me pretty strangely, but I really don’t care. I have just met Patrice Laffont. Next stop, Guy Mongrain. The audience wrangler then goes off and gets me a signed postcard! I actually had my new Fort Boyard book with me… but I just didn’t act fast enough! No complaints though.
About 15 minutes later, the team of Arielle, Bertrand and Laurent enter. Laurent is the main presenter, Arielle deals mostly with the letters/words and Bertrand (who was hired immediately after winning twelve games back in 1975) takes on the numbers/calculations. Unlike Countdown, DCEDL went computerized about five years ago. Players now actually use touch screens to enter their answers and all numbers and letters are “dealt” out by a central computer. No picking of an inverted-T for the numbers, for example.
And guess what? After celebrating a Happy New Year with Julien yesterday, I get to do it again at DCEDL. Before each episode, the hosts also record a “coming up” bumper, which for the first show managed to be the ONLY pick-up they had to do the whole time. Very professional!
The show is pretty much shot as broadcast. Their format is Numbers-Letters-Letters x2, 2 head to head “duels” and then another six rounds as stated earlier in this phrase. During one of the last letters games one of the highest scoring words had a Canadian origin. As they had been informed a Canuck was in the audience, they asked me off the cuff if I ever used the word… to which I responded not really! Pretty sure that won’t even make the edit.
After the first show it was time for the European game show tradition of munchies. They do treat their audiences well.
Before the second (of three shows) started, I asked Benedicte, my initial contact for audience tickets at the show if I could go and get a picture with the on air team. She said of course, and took it for me.
I explained to Laurent, Arielle and Bertrand how I watch the show on TV5 Canada back home and that I use it with my French students (no lie!) to practice vocabulary and that I was recently on the British version. We chatted a bit about that too.
All of a sudden I hear “vas lui chercher un micro, on va lui interviewer”. I immediately process what’s going to happen. They sit me down in the audience (everyone moves around between shows… look! New people!) in the front row and tell me not to yell into the microphone when they interview.
I was, in a bass-ackwards way, going to be on Des Chiffres et Des Lettres. The show that I have watched for I don’t know how many years, and played for so many more, wants to chat with me ON AIR.
Here.
We.
Go.
I actually am a bit nervous at this point. I’ve appeared on air so many times, but never in French! Don’t screw it up. Don’t screw it up. Don’t screw it up…
“Et aujourd’hui nous avons un Canadien ici dans le studio, il viens de Toronto, voici Ryan”.
And then everything seems to flow just fine. I am aware the camera is on me but don’t look directly into it. They first ask what I do, and I explain that I am a French and drama teacher, and they say that they have not met many Anglophone FSL teachers. Arielle asks me to explain what I do with my class, and I respond that I play the game before starting every class. She and the others are flattered and say that it’s the first time they’ve heard of someone playing it for the sole purpose of teaching students French as a Second Language. We then segue into my appearance on Countdown, and I managed to get in a quick hello to my Strasbourg Chiffres et Lettres club that I used to be part of. They also complimented me on my French, saying it was excellent for a non-native speaker. I like to think that I do have a good grasp of the language, although hearing it from natives is a nice bit of an ego-boost – ha!
It all seemed so quick, but yours truly will make his French television début on January 1st, 2010 on France 3. While TV5 Canada does broadcast it, it might be behind by a bit, but I will contact them to find out the date that it will air on my home side of the pond. Not sure about TV5 Monde in Europe for my UK friends, mind you. After it airs, I’ll be sure to post a clip online.
The second show came and went. I was having fun enjoying everything that had already happened but also the fact that I was actually doing well playing along. I noted this while chatting with Arielle after the second show, and she was extremely supportive and really was pushing the fact that I should keep practicing and said I would be an excellent candidate for the show.
I think I shall.
I then discovered something… in France, the show runs six days a week; back home it’s only M-F airings. Show three featured a new player (they play best 2 out of 3 on DCEDL) and a good game once again.
On the way out I of course thanked everyone profusely on the production team that I was fortunate enough to meet and got Arielle and Bertrand to sign my new computer game which I had almost returned! I think it will get good use once I get home.
I ended up riding for the most part pack into the centre of Paris with two people that I had chatted with at the show. It was nice to ride with someone I knew when we were all packed liked sardines!
It was time however to do my favourite “touristy” thing in Paris – climb the Arc de Triomphe. Things started bizarrely as two older teenagers (ie. 16 or 17) asked me if I would escort them to the top of the Arc – turns out you can’t climb it yourself if you’re under 18. No problem, it’s only about 200 stairs up to the top.
Once I got there, I just took it all in. It is absolutely GORGEOUS to view the night, lit up like a Christmas tree. I have a hard time describing how powerful I find that it is.
After about 10 minutes of walking around, a female, probably university age, asks me if I will take a picture for her and her mother. Again, not a problem, I know how hard it is to get some to take it for you for the most part.
We get talking… and it turns out she goes to Cleveland State University. There is someone who reads this blog (if not two people!) that have affiliations that I know of at CSU – one is a graduate, the other one is currently there studying. So I hit it off with Angela and her mother, leading to a lot of chatting and silly pictures such as this:
Which her mom took excessive amounts of! After awhile of joking, we said our goodbyes.
Not ten minutes later I see them again in the souvenir shop and we decide to go get a quick dinner on the Champs Elysees, and they have some questions about travelling around Europe which I am happy to sit down and answer. Four weeks riding trains, planes and automobiles (literally) and I’m a pretty good resource. As a thank you they pay for my dinner! What a nice treat… this is the part of the trip that I enjoy the most, meeting people and just having fun. I leave them my business card and then head back to the hotel. It’s time to pack up and move onto my favourite place in France… Strasbourg! My old stomping grounds, it’s time to get to know you again.
Cheers,
Vick.
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