Reality TV: An Insider's Guide to TV's Hottest Market (10 page)

Even if you’re one of the lucky Story Producers who works with a show from start to finish, much has already been accomplished by the time of your arrival in the preproduction process.

By the time you walk in the door, your Casting Department and Producers have already selected the show’s participants and “cast for conflict,” ensuring that your castmembers won’t be happy get-along campers. A classic example of casting for conflict involved the signing of Ron Jeremy and Tammy Faye Messner for season two of
The Surreal Life
, a VH1 series whose premise was built on filling a Los Angeles home with oddball celebrities to see how they’d get along. The pairing of Jeremy, an adult film star, and Messner, a career Christian minister and televangelist, became one of the most interesting in the entire run of the series. Why? Because there was no way the two could co-exist under one roof without being at odds about
something
… and the friendship they ultimately forged was a surprise to everyone in the end.

Of course, making the most of those kinds of pairings takes some engineering, which is a big part of your first step in the process.

Reviewing Past Episodes and Casting Materials

If you’re working on a series that’s already got a full season or two in the rearview mirror, spend your first day watching old episodes and getting a feel for what the production company and network expects. Unless you’re asked, don’t try to reinvent the wheel — just get to know what kind of final product everyone wants to see from you.

Additionally, if they’re available, review casting materials, including application forms and videotape for the final cast. If you’re dealing with a celebrity cast or anyone with an Internet presence, check them out online. Get to know your characters and start thinking about where the potential for conflict lies, because without conflict, you’ve got no show.

Now sit down with the people who are going to be making everything happen for you once the cameras start rolling (or, perhaps, just did)… your Producers and Field Producers.

Downloading With Your Producers

Just as you’re probably going to check out a map or enter your destination into a GPS before a long trip, it’s always good to know which way you’re going before you hit the road when it comes to story.

If your show has Field Producers, they’ll be hard at work organizing the shoot to come, as they play the major role in corralling and capturing story material for you on the front lines of production. They do the bulk of the story legwork on-set, and will have (or have recently
had
, depending on when you come aboard) the most face time with the cast. If you’ve got a good team in place, you’ll have little to do but take notes and offer a handful of suggestions once you’re shooting. If you’re
not
asked to be in the field, their take on how events went down will be invaluable in helping you sort out your story.

For now, though, ask them about the challenges and scenarios they’re setting up and for any insight into the cast and planned activities that they can offer. They will have plenty to relate.

Sketching Out Your Profile Interviews

On or about the first day of shooting (and almost surely within the first week), time will be set aside to conduct “profile interviews.” The purpose of the profile interview is to introduce your characters to the audience in a way that makes them instantly relatable and helps the viewer decide who to identify with and root for. As a rule, good interviews ask questions that can’t be answered with a “Yes” or “No” and push your subjects to answer thoughtfully in full, complete statements. As the interviewer’s voice is seldom (if ever) heard in Reality shows, responses that come in fragments like “Yes” or “That’s correct” do you no good as they can’t stand alone in edit.

Now let’s imagine we’ve got two contestants that we need to set up in wildly different lights to make conflict pop if and when (hopefully) it happens. How can we get the most mileage out of their profile interviews?

Frank is a surfer on the comeback after an injury. In reviewing his tapes, you find him to be all smiles, gregarious, and likable.

On the other hand, there’s Penny. She’s a sarcastic big-mouth in her interview tapes, her audition paperwork tells us she’s very particular about where she surfs, and she can’t stop namedropping or talking about her wealthy family.

Prior to the interviews, make a list of what you feel are important questions to have answered. Beneath each question, imagine the perfect response in italics, always in the form of a statement. Why? Because being in front of the camera can be intimidating for some people, and if they need help coming up with an answer that fills your needs, you’ve got one right there for them.

Remember, since profile packages are usually pretty short, your goal is to formulate interview questions that will help the viewer get a feel for the character as quickly as possible. You can ask as many questions as you have time set aside for, but be aware that only a handful will make it into the profile package at the top of the first episode!

Let’s start with Frank’s first five questions. After reading his application for the show and reviewing his audition tape, here are some questions designed to bring out his personality while conveying his real backstory:

Don’t you like Frank already? I know I do.

Now let’s look at the first five questions we might ask Penny, who we need to establish as someone likely to be an antagonist to Frank:

Penny’s personality sure comes across in just a few statements, doesn’t it?

Once you have your profile interview questions worked out, pass them along to your field producer. They’ll fold in several of their own before they set out.

Will you end up getting the answers you’re hoping for? Maybe. I’ll tell you more on how to make sure you do in the next chapter.

The Preliminary Outline

Once you and your Field Producers are on the same page, write up a single-sheet outline organizing the activities that will take place over the shoot dates for your episode. It’s one thing to have a set of call sheets and objectives lined up (which they will), but having the full episode laid out is a big help in remembering that you’re not just shooting a bunch of separate events and hoping a story unfolds — you’re hunting specific story beats that will eventually come together into a meaningful story. Pleasant surprises along the way may provide for some great moments — but for now, keep the big picture in mind.

Here’s what one of my outlines might look like.

Now your story team in the field has their marching orders… these are the story beats you expect to see, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Now that you’ve mapped everything out so fastidiously, you can just insert characters and wait for the story to happen just as you wrote it, right?

Not so fast. Just wait until production gets under way.