Veliki brat

Veliki brat (eng. Big Brother) was a Serbian production of the global reality show franchise Big Brother. The show was recorded and produced in Belgrade by Emotion Production.

Originally, the show started off as a Serbian production with housemates form Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Third season included housemates from Macedonia as well. For the fourth season Croatian broadcaster and producer RTL got involved, and auditions were held in Croatia, making the show pan-regional.

In Serbia, the show was often picked up by different channels. The first three regular series and three celebrity series were broadcast on B92 channel while the other two celebrity and the fourth regular series were brodcated on Pink. In Montenegro the show is broadcast by Pink M and Prva, in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Pink BH, OBN and BN, in Macedonia by A1 and Sitel, and in Croatia the show is broadcast by RTL respectively.

After a one year hiatus in 2012 and rumors of cancellation, producers announced that the show will be back in 2013 for a celebrity series. It is not yet officially confirmed that a regular series will follow in autumn, but RTL stated that they are interested in the idea of doing one more series with Emotion Prodiction, and Emotion expressed the wish of doing a series that would include Slovenia as well. On October 12, 2014, it was announced that the series will no longer air, because the house is demolished.^[1]

Format

Veliki brat follows the format set for the franchise owned by Endemol. It is also modeled by the British format of the show.
Veliki brat is a game show in which a group of contestants, called housemates, live in isolation from the outside world in a custom built house. On the launch night, 12 or more (varies from series to series) housemates move inside the house of Veliki Brat. The house includes everyday facilities such as a fully equipped kitchen, garden, bedroom, bathroom and additional rooms, depending from series to series. The house is also a television studio with dozens of cameras and microphones in all of the rooms to record the activities of the housemates. The only place where housemates can escape the company of the other contestants is the Diary Room, where they are encouraged to voice their true feelings with Veliki Brat and the producers.
Each week all housemates nominate two of their fellow contestants for potential eviction. Failure to do so may result in a punishment, such as a reduction in the prize fund. The two, or more, housemates with the highest number of nominations face a public vote conducted by phone, with the contestant receiving the most votes being evicted from the house. Occasionally more than one housemate may be evicted in a week.
Series last for approximately 100 days, and the winner is decided by the public vote. The prize fund is 100,000 €.
There are fundamental rules that are never subjected to changes, but then there are some rules that are changeable if the Veliki Brat (producers) decides so - these new, changed rules are often referred to as twists.

Broadcasting

Where there is a current series, every day a highlights show is broadcast. The highlights show is simply referred as "Veliki Brat". From 2006 to 2011, highlights shows air time was 45 minutes, while the later series air for 75 minutes.
Once a week there is a live eviction show, which is filmed in front of a live audience and is broadcast live. The eviction show incorporates the highlights shows along with eviction and interview of the housemate the public has voted to leave the house of Veliki Brat.

The show

Eye, titles and theme tune

The eye logo for season one was a reused version of the eye from Big Brother UK 6. For other seasons the same eye logo was used, but in different colours, and for the celebrity editions, a star is inserted where the eye pupil should be.

The opening titles are also taken from the Big Brother UK 6, but with a different theme tune over the titles. The theme tune is written by Marko Milicević, then credited as Marko Hollywood.

A modified version of the Big Brother UK 11 titles and logo have been used for the 2011 Serbian series.

The house

The house is located in Belgrade, urban neighborhood of Košutnjak. The house itself hasn't been remodeled since it was built in 2006, but the interior is redesigned for every season. Originally, it consisted of two bedrooms, one living room, kitchen and a dining room, diary room, bathroom, storage room, garden and a few more rooms which are sometimes used as task rooms, or secret rooms for new housemates. For the third season, the wall between male and female bedroom was knocked down, so there was only one big bedroom. During the same season another room was added - the relaxation room (also known as "make out" room).

The diary room interviews

The diary room is actually called 'ispovedaonica', which is Serbian for confessional. The main difference between the diary room interviews in Veliki Brat and other Big Brother series (including the UK edition) is in Big Brother's 'voice'. Unlike most of the diary room interviews, where you can hear the actual voices of the producers, in Veliki Brat the producers' voices are processed so that it gives the illusion that Big Brother always speaks in the same (robotic) way.

Big Brother UK

Veliki brat very much follows the way Big Brother UK is produced. For example, when a housemate is talking about another housemate in the Diary Room, the camera will cut to a clip of the housemate who is being talked about while you can still hear the speech of the housemate in the diary room.

In between clips of the past 24-hour highlights, there are quick bumpers which show something related to the title sequence. This is true to the UK version, however, this may just be because the titles are adapted from the UK version as well.

When introducing a new day, the narrator will say the day number, time and if there has been any previous matters that relate to the episode. The narrator, throughout the episode, will say the time and what certain housemates are doing. The only difference being that the UK narrator, Marcus Bentley, is male and the Serbian narrator is female. When the time and day are shown, it is shown on the same background as the UK version too (only in different colours depending on the series), however again, this is only because the theme is adapted from the UK version.

Seasons

Season 5

In early January 2013, Croatian broadcaster RTL announced that they will be airing a new season of the show in the fall of 2013, and that producers from Emotion (the production company that owns the licence for the Serbian franchise of the show) will also be involved - therefore making it a joined venture like the last broadcast season.^[2] It still isn't confirmed which Serbian broadcaster will air the show. Producers from Emotion said that they are interested in having the auditions in Slovenia as well^[3] - which would set the number of participating countries to a new high of 6, making it the first series to include all of the former Yugoslav countries, it is expected to follow the new format of Big Brother UK which the Veliki Brat bases its broadcast on.
In June 2013, it was announced that the regular 2013 series was cancelled.^[4] As the main reason for the cancellation, both Emotion and RTL said they have new TV shows that they want to broadcast. Emotion said that instead of a new series in fall 2013, they plan on doing a new one in early 2014.^[5]
On October 12, 2014, it was announced that the series will no longer air, because the house is demolished.^[6]

Table of seasons and winners

Season	Year	Country debutants	Winner
Veliki brat 2006	2006	Serbia,  Montenegro,  Bosnia and Herzegovina	Ivan Ljuba
Veliki brat VIP 1	2007		Saša Ćurčić
Veliki brat 2007	2007		Discontinued*
Veliki brat VIP 2	2008		Mimi Đurović
Veliki Brat VIP All Stars	2009		Miki Đuričić
Veliki brat 2009	2009	Macedonia	Vladimir Arsić Arsa
Veliki Brat VIP 4	2010		Milan Marić
Veliki brat 2011	2011	Croatia,	Marijana Čvrljak
Veliki Brat VIP 5	2013		Žarko Stojanović

• * - Series finished early without a winner due to the deaths of three former housemates who got into a car accident. The reward was divided between the seven housemates remaining in the house.

References

External links

• Official web site (Serbian)
• UnOfficial Fan site (Serbian)
• UnOfficial web site (Serbian)
• Livestream (Serbian)

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