Getting a Start in Reality TV

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://www.realitystaff.com/

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!

THE SECOND GREATEST REALITY SHOW ON EARTH

So, a few months ago I made the case that the Olympics were the biggest reality show on Earth. I’m going to add to that a tie for first place - The US Presidential Election.

For anyone crouching round a tv anywhere in the World this week you would have seen something pretty amazing. But, the election of Barack Obama wasn’t the only amazing thing you might have seen on Tuesday night.

 

You would also have seen a LOT of the footage being made which you’ll see in archive clips in movies in the future. Imagine all those clips you see of JFK talking about ‘choosing to go to the moon’… or FDR talking about wanting to build a lot of bridges.

But, it wasn’t so much the history making moments on Tuesday that have scored their mark in TV history. From Obama’s use of buying enormous amounts of airtime, to his understanding of the language of TV. For my money, it wasn’t any of the technological or Gen-X elements of Obama’s campaign that proved the most powerful, it was the fact that in this day and age it’s still the simplest understanding of TV language that I think for me stands out the most.

I want to talk today about the role that the different approaches to televising the candidates may have played in this historic election, and how having a basic, yet clear understanding of how people watch tv that can make the difference.

First, we have to agree to ignore WHAT is was the candidates saying in this little breakdown, because we’re talking about how things looked - how the quiet tv in the bar, or the hubbub of CNN passively in the corner of the living room, still managed to project an idea of power or weakness, into the brains of the voting public.

This is the very language of TV we’re talking about - this is the same language that governs Reality TV whether we’re thinking of Rock of Love, a Survivor episode - or electing the most powerful dude in the World.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to ensure that the press-pack was always placed somewhere BELOW her eyeline. The result was that every photograph or TV news shot of her ended up looking up at her. And what would a psychologist say about this? He’d say that subconsciously to the viewers at home she looked powerful and we felt subject to her.

So, let’s think about some of the iconic moments of the election.

My favorite was those much vaunted Town Hall meetings, and principally the Town Hall Debate, which the McCain camp had lobbied for and been ‘victorious’ at getting. Do you remember these? These were the debate which occurred ‘in the round’ with audience members all around, and with none of the familiar officiousness of a regular debate, allowing the candidates to walk around, pause, or hang off a bar-stool like Tony Bennett. In my view, watching these debates avidly as a reality TV producer, I thought these were colossally BAD for McCain. He looked shorter, older, and more distant and less at ease than Barack Obama, who calmly swooped around the stage, walked like a young man and, frankly, looked better from behind.

Now, content-wise, who knows, they stuck to their talking points - but the distinct impression I took away was that like him or not, the people watching at home would somehow feel that Obama was a stronger leader. Somewhere, something in their minds would have tripped.

The second most important moment in the race was Barack Obama’s fantastic acceptance speech on Tuesday night. First off - get extras - for any epic you’re going to need extras. If you can count Oprah in amongst them you’re all good. He had 250,000 people there, he had, I counted, 6 cranes, a blimp and as many helicopters as they have available in Chicago. McCain’s camp had a good number of extras, and only an endless supply of Country and Western singers rather than Oprah - but there was something restrained about it - almost like those times I’ve produced the last episode of a series nobody expects is coming back. It’s all there, but not quite.

The important thing about Tuesday night’s speech was to unify, to project Presidential qualities, without too much fanfare, because this was an acceptance speech rather than a victory party. That was smart producing, anyone who wanted to party was already partying - it’s the glum faces flicking over from the McCain concession speech who Obama’s event was aimed at impressing.

My final - extra special favorite tv moment on the trail was Sarah Palin’s Katie Couric interview… I think even more people saw that interview than who watched the acceptance speech. Now, in this case let’s definitely not forget the amusing content, or the absolute twaddle spoken. Just because here, the TV made more of an impact on the race than any number of posed debates, or spun press conferences. Here’s tv at its very best. No amount of editing could possibly have rescued that mess - indeed, I suspect the editors at CBS news did their very best to clean that interview up to make it clear they weren’t trying to totally trash Palin. They had the material they needed.

I LOVE TV.

So, I’ll keep it short this week - I’m off to shoot a nature show this week - something I’ve not done in a while, I’ll be looking forward to filling you in next week!