MassMedia: Entertainment: Is Reality TV Real? (U7-P2) Fa14

Within entertainment television, one of the increasingly popular genres is reality TV.

Reality TV: "a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors.”

Unscripted?  Really?

In the video clip below, pay particular attention to the comments about writing dialogue, creating a setup and conflict.  Sound familiar?




More on the writing and creating of reality TV shows.  In the video below, pay particular attention from 1:09 to 3:15.  Note the speakers mention of archetypal roles and frankenbites.  What does he mean by a frankenbite?




The clips above suggest that during the production of a reality TV episode, "writers" sometimes write dialogue for the "actors" and do things to create conflict.

However, it is in post-production, where a lot of the creating or writing of the story happens.  In post-production, the producers and "writers" have to put together the best material to tell the best story.  The post-production process would begin with (1) the screening of 100s of hours of raw footage, (2) identifying a story that they want to tell, and (3) try to thread that story through the acts of episode.

The common parts of a story: introduction of character, explain the problem or need, face the obstacles to overcoming that problem, the character does or does not solve their problem.  This sound familiar?

One of the videos above, suggests that it is in post-production where some creative editing can happen. Frankenbites, for example?

Could you write a reality TV series?  An interesting challenge, yes?  How would it be similar to and different from the writing of fictional TV?


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