Anonymous Reality TV producer has worked in the UK and the USA, and has worked on some of the biggest reality shows on TV. He owns his own company, and for the time-being is writing anonymously to protect his future income. In time, he may reveal his true identity. And I bet you nobody cares.
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February 21, 2009
I wanted to share something with you - and apart from it just being interesting to me, I think it might say something about Reality TV as a genre.
So, mid conversation yesterday my other-half was describing the trials and tribulations a friend of our’s is experiencing in her career. Then it came… “Oh yeah… and now she’s, like, producing a reality TV show?!”.
There it was.
Right at the end of the sentence was the question-mark - that upward inflection of incredulity and questioning uncertainty that comes along when talking about something rather unsavory.
She followed up by stroking my ego a little. “Oh, er… you know. You know what I mean?”.
But, aside from the abject indignity our friend was so clearly (in my other-half’s opinion) having to live through while being associated with Reality TV, it struck me that this is actually a problem the whole genre faces.
You see, Reality TV has always been seen as the rather fun, young uncle of ‘propper tv’, the one who knows how to have a great time, knocks em back at family functions - amuses everyone with his self-confident ballsy behavior and his cheeky Coyote Ugly dancing, and who sometimes shows us his butt-crack for a laugh, but …er… has that problem with Bacardi and Coke and that issue with your daughter’s high school friends. Yes, that guy.
When I speak to friends or get introduced to people - even at a party last night - I find myself saying ‘oh, but not all that RUBBISH reality TV - you know, good stuff’.
I do have a rule when I choose a job - 1) NO ISLANDS/HOUSES WITH CONTESTANTS and 2) NO VOTING OFF. I’ve done pretty well by those rules. You know, the ‘good stuff’.
But, I think now we all have to recognize that it’s ok - multi-million dollar companies are making shed-loads of cash off of Reality TV, more and more people are being kept employed by the industry, in a time when movie production is slowing and dramas are cutting back - and I’d like to think expectations and therefore the bar is being raised.
This week, I wanted to call a few DoPs - people who all work in features or drama to come and shoot a show I’m producing right now, they were all busy shooting reality shows. All of them. How many other filmmakers is Reality TV keeping in work? Keeping ready to produce the next awesome indie feature or award winning Documentary?
So, aside from the fact that Reality TV is evolving fast and keeps a lot more people working than a lot of other film and tv genres, it’s worth remembering also that Reality TV has been on major network tv for over fifteen years, keeping the networks nice and rich and happy.
So, I think Reality TV should come out of the closet and take a bow.
Welcome to society Reality TV. We’ll get you sober and present you to the family soon. (But, er, stay away from Suzy and her friends please).
February 15, 2009
The most difficult thing to quantify is the time and money you’ll spend meeting and greeting the producers and executives you’re going to be working with.
My parterns in my company certainly don’t have the same appreciation for it that I do - but then again, I’m usually the one who gets to go, so who can blame them?!
There is a big event in DC that has just finished called ‘THE REEL SCREEN SUMMIT’, attended by all the big name cable companies, Discovery, History, A&E etc etc… all the people in factual entertainment who my company NEEDS to know. They’re all there, there’s a bar, there’s restaurants and there’s good talking time.
Now, you’re not going to want to go there and pitch to everyone, you’re not even going to want to go and sit in on all the panels - you don’t even need a badge.
But, make a couple of calls and say to your exec that you’re going and you’d love to have lunch or a beer with them and it does two things. It gives you some face time, which is always good, and if you end up pitching then so-be-it. But it also shows that you’re serious about your work. Imagine any other company, a shoe-store or a pizza restaurant who didn’t advertise? That’s what you’re doing. Showing that you can be trusted with their money and reputation. That you won’t rest until every show you deliver will be the best tv you’ve ever made.
Trust me, you can do that over a beer in a hotel lobby. And it’s more than worth it.
My policy is to go to all these events, genuinely hang out with these people. They’re your work colleagues, they share your interests and their success relies on your’s. It’s not brown-nosing - it’s vital to your growth as a producer. If you understand them, are fresh in their minds and are good to be around you’re far more likely to get a call from them in the future when they want someone to rework an idea they have, or if they have a hole in their schedule they need filling.
But, it’s very difficult to explain to your accountant why a plane ticket, four nights in a hotel and lot of food and drink is directly related to your success. The truth is you can’t explain it. It might not even pay off. Ever.
But it might. And if you get a special or a series out of it and your company earns 10-15% production fee each time, he’ll surely begin to see things your way.
Put it this way, last night I was out on the town in LA and bumped into a commissioning editor I work with sitting at a restaurant bar. We chatted for maybe five minutes, and now I know the real status of a couple of our projects in much greater detail than I would have known otherwise, and they promised to call me next week to arrange a ’stage 2′ meeting over another show I have with them. I was sure to make certain we didn’t talk all work, so now we have a little more personal history - not a lot - it’s not like we were exchanging baby photos, but it’s something.
The long and the short of it is that people work with people they like, people they like are usually people they know. You see, mostly, it’s not the old-boys’ network, it’s not school-ties - it’s just being around.
Also - look at it this way. You’re in this industry, you work here, meeting the people you work with is just much more fun than not. They talk your language, have similar conerns to you and can offer you consolation, insight or some good old life lessons. What’s not to like about that?
January 23, 2009
Further to my post of last week, this week a long running David / Golliath story just got wrapped up with a settlement of over $4M dollars being paid to Reality staffers for just the sorts of practaces I mentioned in last week’s blog.
The class action law-suit was brought by a bunch of reality crews against FOX, CBS and ABC for the illegal failure to pay cash due for working overtime, working through meals and at weekends.
The repercussions of this decision to settle are already beginning to have an impact… a memo went around the office yesterday instructing the crew on the show I’m running now about the company’s (sudden) decision to adhere to several ’newly implimented industry standards’. And then just this morning - amazingly - a timecard turned up on my desk with a note to “please fill in hours worked accurately and fully” for the first time in my career.
Read this story…
http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/01/reality-staffers-win-class-action-lawsuit.html
I’ll let you know as soon as I hear any more news from the front. (Or if this gets swept under the carpet).
January 10, 2009
So I was at dinner last night with some friends, one of whom has just returned from a shoot from hell, where her fellow crew members spent the entire 9 week shoot while travelling around the country complaining about everything.
The sad thing is that as we talked over the minute-by-minute breakdown of the shoot, the other people around the table, including myself, were all able to chime in with similar hellish stories from filming out in the field.
The problem is well known among reality TV producers, the issue is simple. And I’m going to be totally frank. A lot of very untalented people work in reality TV, and rather than move on and work in commercials or feature film production, (where they’d have to play alongside real professionals - not to mention getting into a Union), they can bust out of school, do a couple of turns in an assistant role, then, so long as they work for cheap and print up new business-cards (striking the ‘assistant’ from it) then they can pretty much make a long career in reality TV where they make up for their lack of discernable skills by being in a constant state of anger at the many and various ways ‘the producers are trying to keep them down’, ‘directors don’t know what they’re doing’, or (a big favorite), ‘this shoot is taking too long?!’
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of extremely talented people working at all levels in reality TV, but they will all tell you the same story. In reality TV bad crew-members can get hired over and over, and there’s enough work with new companies (who move into production too quickly to check references, and enough clueless executives who themselves have worked up through this same ladder, so don’t even know the difference), that the bad ones can flourish.
A favorite complaint is the lack of paid overtime, working through lunch and long days. Why do they complain about this? Well, for all of us working in reality TV we work ridiculous overtime often for free, we work through lunch most days and almost always work extremely long days. So this isn’t a gripe I disagree with.
So, it’s not that there isn’t enough to complain about - we don’t work nine-to-fives, and we don’t get anywhere near the compensation that you’d expect considering either the hours we work or the amount of income we generate for the production companies and the networks. But, my problem with the attitude of these crew-members is that, well, this is how it is - this is how we all KNOW it is. It’s how it’s always been. Moreover, their complaints are being made to the wrong people, and just don’t make the shows any better.
I’d love to say that that the networks and the gargantuan production companies we make so wealthy are finally preparing after all these years to redress the balance and pay us what we’re worth. But they seem quite happy earning all that money - I’m not holding my breath. I’d also love to say there’s a growing workers movement inside realty TV preparing to fight for the rights of all of us working in Reality TV, but we’re not organizing yet… we’re all too tired.
But these complaining crew-members highlight something about reality TV, and it’s something that the viewers should never really know, but effects every single second of every single reality show.
You see, almost all Reality TV is non-union. It is cheap to make precisely because it’s non-union. It’s one of the reasons that the networks love us and one of the many reasons why cable TV has grown so powerful in the last 10 years. Just as with cheap washing machines, bras or fan-belts - if your product is made by a union worker, (with all their lovely healthcare, benefits and employment protection), it is always going to be more expensive than one produced by a group of uninsured, benefitless and disposable workers.
(It’s worth remembering that in TV the ‘products’ that the networks are selling are not their TV shows but the airtime for the commercials in between the shows - so they’ll always dump a high priced drama with middling ratings for a dirt cheap Reality TV show with middling ratings - so long as they get some ratings they can sell the airtime to big brands).
So, why isn’t Reality TV unionized? For a start we came in late - the production companies who started delivering high rating reality shows right at the beginning of it all managed to do it for tiny budgets - the budgets have now been set in stone - and no network is going to pay more for a show when they now know how cheap the other guy did it for.
Another reason is perhaps the most controversial one… many producers have said, (and in the darkest corner of my mind I can only agree), that it would be almost impossible to produce reality TV under union guidelines. When shooting a reality TV show, any show, you’re expected to be capturing real life emotions from real live people, these people get emotional late at night, early in the morning, or after being under the microscope all day. One fun staple of the reality show is that we get to watch the ‘competition’ part, or the ‘challenge’ part - then we get to see them ‘back at the house’ where they’re forced to live with their competitors. That’s when most of the yelling and screaming happens. Outside of office hours. So, now you’re committed to shooting during the day AND the night. See the problem? That’s not a 10 or 12 hour day.
So, if reality TV unionizes there would be two results - for starters, shows like “Fat March” or “Beauty and the Geek” will become within spitting distance of being as expensive to make as “ER” or “West Wing”, and I think given the choice, if the networks have to decide between shelling out the same amount of cash, even I, who earn my living making reality TV shows, would prefer to be jobless and watch more “West Wing” rather than watch another cat-fight amongst a bunch of alcoholic bimbos.
Another result would be that I would have to become a Director’s Guild member in order to direct reality TV. I’d be in the same pot as Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg - and the networks could have their choice between using me, or some of the World’s best directors to make their shows… I think you can see why this wouldn’t necessarily be in my interest.
So, I’ve given you all the reasons why unionizing Reality TV would probably spell the end of the genre as we know it, and may even lose me work. Would it surprise you to know that I’d love to have this industry unionized?
I’d get healthcare. I wouldn’t be forced to work the insane, unreasonable hours I’m expected to, and that I don’t get paid for. All signs are that I’d get paid more and my quality of life would increase; hell, I might even get a pension. Finally, executives would have to value my work, training would increase for the younger crew and old dogs alike, and above all, with all this to back it up the work will be the focus of everyone’s day.
And if you’ve got TV being made by motivated, healthy, rested, properly paid and well trained crews - I totally believe the work would get infinitely better. But, this is realty TV. Who wants that?!
November 18, 2008
I’m often asked how you can start working in Reality TV - and someone I’m working with now suggested I pass on to you some of the advice I gave her this week… so here it is, lucky you! Usually when someone asks me how to get into Reality TV, after I’ve checked their head for injury, I say something like - “Well, what do you want to DO in Reality TV?” Do you want to direct it? Shoot it? Write… oh, sorry… no writing jobs in Reality TV of course… Silly me.
People almost every time answer that they want to produce Reality TV. This is perfectly acceptable, it shows drive and a vision for their career - but just know that when you ask this of most Reality TV producers it makes you sound a little like the work placement kid who walks into the New York Investment Bank and tells the CEO that he thinks he’s ready to take over the reigns now.
I don’t know what it is that people hear about reality TV producers, but it can’t be that they’re all wealthy and pretty much rule the TV roost, could it? If this is the case, I hope they’re right… because that would be cool.
You see, here’s the thing about Reality TV. Say what you want about it’s low moral value, its outrageous working hours and it’s treatment of the public, (I know I do), but at its heart is an industry run by people who LOVE what they do. They’re passionate about it. Some of them are even GOOD at it.
Often this goes unnoticed, due, in large part to the general lack of appreciation for the art of the work. Yes. I just said art. Doing what we do is a skill, takes practice and experience and that takes time.
Now, we’ve all heard the stories of the kid who came up with this show and made it big, they’re definitely out there. Here’s a true story. A cameraman friend of mine was working on a big network show with some snotty kid as a PA one year, who didn’t know his arse from his elbow, but was hired by the same kid the very next year. He’d come up with some massive reality tv hit show, one you’d have heard of. This time my friend doesn’t call him snotty kid, but ‘Executive Producer’.
So, it CAN happen. Keep working at it - and then please hire me. But, don’t expect it. It really does take an enormous amount of luck, cash or nepotism to get you to that point.
So, back to where we were - “what do you want to DO in reality TV?”
My suggestion for places to start would be office or on-set PA if you’re just out from undergrad, or research or Associate Producer positions if you’re post grad. Be keen, be smart, listen and ask questions. Don’t take my job and we’ll be just fine together.
Remember the two routes to tv and film production - the production route and the studio or network route. So this is a very important decision. Which way do you want to go?
You might decide you want to start right at the top, you can’t be doing with the rough and tumble of getting coffee and carrying flight cases, so you want to go to where the desks are well polished, the lunches are long and the logos outside the skyscrapers are enormous. The networks. Where the real money is and where the greenlight power resides.
But, be careful what you wish for. You can start your path in a great gig at a tv network and eventually become a fantastically gifted TV executive over many years… but if all you really wanted was to direct or produce TV you’ll likely have missed the boat. TV execs are gifted at a great many things, (I’m told some of them can juggle), but knowing how to MAKE producers MAKE tv shows for them, and actually MAKING a tv show are poles apart. Something that I often imagine I can hear in the tv executive’s voice when he’s asking how difficult it would be to change something or other.
But, if what you’re after is a career developing ideas, handing them off to be screwed up by producers who spend their lives making yours’ more difficult, when taming prima-donna talent gives you a buzz, when poaching some big show from another network is what gets you up in the morning, then I’d say get yourself into a TV network immediately. But don’t forget your security pass, or to fill in all that paperwork, the weekly development meetings when you’re told the budgets have all got to be cut again, and that none of the shows you’re bringing in fit the new corporate tag-line of “OUR NETWORK (Insert network name here): WHY JUST WATCH TV WHEN YOU CAN LITERALLY SMASH IT OPEN AND LIVE INSIDE IT?” Oh, and don’t forget that your boss, the person you attached yourself to for four years of hard work to ensure that you’d get a promotion to a VP of Something title, will almost certainly get canned after only a year in the post. It’s the circle of life.
I remember a joke a very experienced reality TV producer told me last year… “What does a TV executive call ‘six months’? …. A career”.
Anyway, good luck to you. I hope if this is what you want to do that you pick up my shows and even better, lobby for your bosses to give me an overhead deal to pay for my team. Here’s the biggest secret to being a TV executive in my book, one which will immediately set you apart from most of those out there working today… Actually watch tv, and if you could avoid giving a note simply because you feel you have to, do SOMETHING you’d earn the undying trust and respect of the producers out there working hard, extremely long hours to try to make you look as good as they possibly can.
You might also get lucky and work with that rare breed in network TV; an extremely experienced independent producer who has taken the bait and given up life on the road to come work for the network. Money’s great, kudos and hours are fantastic… but they get stupendously bored. They’ll make a great splash, turn in some mindbending shows that get critically acclaimed but seldom watched in large numbers, and then who get fired or they jump ship because they’re going insane with the parking passes and the sound of the photocopier, and the inevitable drum-drum-drumming which signals the end is near. These guys don’t last long.
So, what if you want to go into production, the practical side?
This week I worked with a great young Producer who had worked her way up from in-house AP to producer in six months, she’s hard working and sharp as a nail. She also came from Harvard, so that helped. She’d seen a posting on a message board and applied, got her feet behind a desk as an assistant researcher for a few months before bagging the gig as an AP - and proved herself. And now, here she is working with me this week, filming on a tropical island (I’m serious, it’s lovely!). Sure, she’s got a ton to learn, she’d be the first to tell you that, but she’s proven she’s ok with that, and she wants to hear what she’s doing wrong at every step. She’s going to go far. And take my job soon. I should probably not let her come back from this island… I should… er… ‘vote her off’…. Text or call in to register your vote… Press *1 to have her ‘disappeared’…
So, this would be the first port of call, check out your school or alum message boards, put up postings yourself asking to be hooked-up, (you never know who you went to school with who might be Mark Burnett’s secret love-child), and try not pitch yourself as anything other than simply smart and eager to learn.
Seriously, it doesn’t matter how many student films you’ve produced, my advice would be to not use that as justification for calling yourself a Producer when you apply. Let that stuff drip out as you work, your employers will be thrilled to think they have someone on their staff who is also a filmmaker. It’ll take them back to their roots and they’ll probably take you under their wing. But save it for the wrap party, not the interview.
Secondly, I’d suggest you take a spin around Craigslist. Production companies are generally on the prowl for a deal, and they’re very likely to try a posting for interns, PA’s (especially short term pick-ups for a quick shoot or for an out of town production visiting for a short period of time). Go and spend time on sets. This is great for networking, but, more important for getting an understanding of on-set etiquette, the hierarchy. Nothing is more likely to end your employment than stepping on someone’s toes, and you won’t even know you’ve done anything wrong until they just don’t hire you again. The easiest way of stepping on toes is to dis’ someone on set, so get to learn how to behave on set.
The other position you could take would be ‘ON-SET PA’. This is the hardest job in show business - if you’re good. If you’re bad, you’ll definitely have some great gigs, some awesome times, travel all over and you’ll think you’re the bees knees… then suddenly it’ll dry up because enough people know all you do is slack off and take too long to buy sharpies. Unless you have something else to fall back on after that, you’re done. And you’ll forever say that you were unlucky you worked with such terrible production companies, that’s why you were prevented from moving up.
So, while I’m here, let me speak to any of you PLANNING on becoming a lazy on-set PA - yeah, please listen up. Just tell me when you come to the interview that all you really want to do is slope off and not-so-secretly smoke weed, that your car is only a lend-er from your mom and you aren’t insured to drive it, or that you’re incapable of reading a map and you possess no initiative whatsoever, that you always misjudge distances when driving and have a predilection to scraping production vehicles as you drive close by them… that you can’t read your own lunch orders list and that your reaction times are so slow that when an executive producer turns a corner and clearly catches you goofing off and not doing what they’d asked you to be doing, that you only have time enough to laugh a smile and a look that says ‘ok, you caught me’… Because it would really help me not have to live through all these true-life scenarios ever again.
To the rest of you, here are some great resources to finding work on shows.
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/tfr/
http://jobs.myspace.com/a/ms-jobs/list/q-Reality+TV
…and here are some links to some UK resources, they’re all shooting over here, and might be keen to have some resumes from people over here ready to work:
http://www.productionbase.co.uk/
http://www.walltowalltalent.co.uk/Default.aspx
http://www.broadcastfreelancer.com/broadcast/Home.do
Ultimately, I’ll go return to my mantra, if you watch tv, watch to the end of the shows, see which companies make the shows you like, look for their logos - then look them up on line. Most of them have a page for contacting them, or for submitting a resume. Then, if you live in LA or NYC keep reminding them you’re out there, perhaps every month or so, (but don’t hound them), if you don’t live in LA or NYC and there’s no TV production going on near where you live, then try a local TV station, check on-line for bigger productions who might be filming near you, and go over to volunteer, (they’re going to turn you away, but keep at it, finally they’ll not be able to resist a keen, free pair of hands I PROMISE you!).
Alternatively, if you’re ready to commit, really ready to go for it… I’d suggest looking on line for the cheapest possible flight you can find, give yourself a window of 6 months to open yourself up to as many deals that are out there, then; book it. Find a friend in LA on Facebook or My Space who you know has a couch… then try to book a gig, even for free, for that period you’re here. This option TOTALLY blows. I know. But it could be your only way of doing it - and it might just work. And if it all works out, you’ll get one lead. Maybe that one will even pay! And then, if you’re good, keen and work hard without complaining, I know you’ll one day be on a desert island, with me wondering how to dispatch you before the shoot ends… Good luck!
