In David Rupel's article, he organizes the workings of reality TV with a set of rules. He begins by describing the first rule, where there are two categories of shows. One category where shows are "followed" or aren't planned out beforehand. These include reality shows where there is a long time period of filming, and then interesting parts are found and edited together to form an episode. The second category is where a show is highly planned beforehand, and everything is predetermined. The period of filming is typically very short, since it is all planned out.
The second rule describes how people's lives are typically not as interesting as they may seem on the screen. 30 minutes of somebody's life on reality TV is usually a very interesting compilation of portions in their life, rather than an event that would occur naturally, and often. The community of viewers often ask for the producers to put out a 30 minutes episode of raw, unedited footage, but this typically is not very interesting to watch. This is simply because 30 minutes of a person's life usually is not very notable or interesting. The producers have to work to compile the interesting parts of someone's life, into a 30 minute episode.
The third rule describes how a person's day in real life is often unorganized and doesn't follow a very "story-like" pattern. People who watch reality TV expect the person on the screen to lead a highly story-driven life, where they wake up, have many meaningful experiences and talks, and then end their day. In real life, this is often not the case. Therefore, producers need to take various experiences of the from other times that are about the same topic. Then, they are able to compile it into an episode for reality TV, and satisfy the viewers. One of the primary workings of reality TV is taking experiences of someone from other times in their life, to fit the current situation. This kind of strays from the definition of "reality" since it seems a bit fake how they are editing in experiences from other times, but it manages to satisfy the audience successfully.
The fourth and final rule describes that writing and producing are intertwined during the production of reality TV. Often, during the producing process, the producers need to maintain a writing mentality where they need to think of the setting, characters, and storyline. The setup of people in reality TV is often formatted by the producers, just like a writer would format characters who interact with each other in a fictional world. The two are highly comparable in terms of how reality TV is changed and altered by the producers, just like a writer would edit his own work.
Do you agree with this? Do these different "rules" accurately depict the workings of reality TV today? Is there anything that may have been missed, or is inaccurate to modern reality TV? The rules seem to be rather theoretical, and easily subject to change seeing that so many different reality TV shows are aired today.
One way I can relate to this article is the cutting the footage and rearranging it to make it more interesting. There are many shows that producers edit a boring scene into something more interesting. For example, a fight over what to watch on TV could be rearranged to look like a fight about stealing someone’s boyfriend. I remember watching a special on TV that shows how reality TV can be rearranged into something it is not. I can also relate to the idea of wanting the people on the show to follow a story like day. My family was almost on Wife Swap and during a lot of the interviews they asked us what a typical day for us looks like.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedshift/career-confidential-a-reality-tv-editor-reveals-t
ReplyDeleteI found this article to be very interesting, especially when it mentioned that the producers are the ones who approach the contestants on reality shows and stimulate the drama themselves, saying things like, "they were looking at you funny, what do you think about that?" It's kind of upsetting to see how the producers are the ones creating all the drama that's seen on the TV by the viewers, just so they can gain views. This article also touched a bit on how the producers are really the ones who choose winners for shows like Project Runway & American Idol. I think that's wrong and I wish the viewers had full control over who they wanted to win but I don't think it'll ever come to that, just because the producers know which contestants the audience tends to like through keeping an eye on responses to the show, and then keeping those specific contestants in the show no matter what, regardless of if they're not very good. I wish reality shows weren't so scripted, especially with shows like Project Runway where the contestants are actually competing in a constructive competition, but I agree that without the added drama created (by the producers, that is) then these shows wouldn't get as many views.
I completely agree that reality TV should not be so scripted. It is kind of like producers are brainwashing the viewers into thinking what happens on their shows is real life. The other fact that they stimulate drama is sickening. If they’re going to have reality TV it should be somewhat real. If they give people the chance to actually interact with each other organically than I’m pretty sure there will be drama no matter what. Rigging the outcome also seems very wrong especially on shows where people vote for the winner. When the audience of a show has the chance to vote for their favorite contestant, the contestants should have a fair distribution of air time and “sob story time”. Countering all of this without these things in place nobody would watch because it wouldn’t be interesting but I think they could market the shows differently so that people weren’t being deceived of the shows actual content.
DeleteThese rules definitely depict the inter-workings or reality TV because when the producers follow these they can come up with a pretty good show. It is all about the editing with the producers because they can take the star's everyday life and make it more interesting. This is why people have their negative views about reality TV because on top of it being semi scripted, it is completely edited so that the producers can create these crazy and drama filled story lines. Like the article said people look for a story like format and so in each series the producers create these characters and stories for people to follow along to keep them watching.
ReplyDeleteThese rules can easily help viewers depict the reality from the non-reality. Such as the show The First 48, this show is compiled of real events and crimes from various cities but all of these events don't occur in on period of time but from a long time of shooting and following the detectives around multiple and various cases. On the other hand their are shows such as Big Brother where there is a script and a plan drawn out so that a show can shot and televised in a short period of time, much like a factory line. If people understood these rules then they could depict themselves what show is actually a reality TV show. But when you think about it, people don't really care, they will watch it no matter what, that why it is okay for these producers to do this, because they know people will watch and they will have high ratings. Is it real? Is it fake? No one cares as long as it is entertaining then people will tune in and watch these shows.
Deletehttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManipulativeEditing
ReplyDeleteThis article was very interesting to me because it also spoke about how editing can be manipulated in very common reality t.v. shows that we see today. The third rule that Ryan talks about in this blog post matches up with the number one type of editing manipulation, which I found to be very interesting. This is when events or script recorded at completely different times or even days can be edited into one scene in order to make up a scenario that may not have even truly happened. I think that this is very true in reality television that we watch today. Every episode is filled with conflict and interesting events that keep our attention. These things cannot simply happen in a day, they must happen over time. Over all I think that this article adds a lot to this blog post because it backs up a lot of what was talked about as well as adding more to the subject.
There are a lot of good points that was made throughout this and I feel that it is the sad truth of TV. There are numerous shows on the air that seem to be a day in the life of so-and-so but in actuality they tend to leave out the other bits and pieces that actually show their real life occurring. That is pretty cool that you (Madison Cochran) were almost on Wife Swap. But I mean though reality TV uses these snippets from all of their filming, you can’t really blame them for doing that. I mean they have to condense, in the Wife Swap example, like a whole week into a mere hour and accomplish showing the outcome of what the results of this swap were. With that being said there really is no time to put every single piece of their day into the show unless you like wasting a week of your time watching a week’s worth of film.
ReplyDeleteReality tv has a lot of different factors that make it up to be what it is, entertainment wise. Even the best cast actors can't keep up enough interest in their daily lives to be must-watch tv from week to week. So I do believe this type of pre-planning and film editing is done every single day after filming because when stories aren't there, producers aren't just going to let the show have a bad week and be boring. They will create a story they can build on and do that in whatever way they can. Pretty ruthless in a sense, but for the bigger picture it's clever.
ReplyDeletehttp://electronics.howstuffworks.com/reality-tv.htm
ReplyDeleteThis article was really interesting to me because it stated how when searching through channels on TV, you try and find the one that’s most intriguing to you. We ultimately find that dramas catch our eye the most. And nowadays all that is on TV is reality TV shows. Why is this? Possibly because some of it relates to our everyday lives and we can put ourselves in their shoes. We find that reality TV alters the shows to fit the needs of people and are also known as “fake”. This article says that reality tv shows are run by producers and editors and the actors are mostly just told what to do. This is kind of contradictory because reality is supposed to be real life and the way they produce reality TV does not depict its description. I think this relates to that reality TV is now seen as “planned” and its not a secret anymore.
Good things were touch on throughout this article and its the evolution of TV. Todays shows' seem to air days of the main persons life but they leave out all of things that happen in normal day to day lives. Reality TV uses bits from all of their filming and you can't blame them. They usually have to smash together a whole week worth of filming into about 30 minutes to an hour, and to accomplish good ratings they have to show what the audiences usually want to see which is drama. Thats why you really is no time to put every single piece of their day into the show.
ReplyDeleteI found this article to be very interesting because it seems true to a certain extent. I agree that producers cut out certain scenes and that are not interesting and maybe make certain scenes different to catch the attention of the audience. There is nothing more important than having a lot of viewers. I do not believe that the show is completely predetermined it just does not seem plausible for a reality show. I definitely believe that the producers might say something to antagonize participants to create drama within the show. Producers will do anything to make the show interesting so they have to improvise certain situations at times.I agree with Luke that its tough for a producer to accomplish good ratings because their shows are only 30 minutes long plus the inconvenience of commercials. To make the show interesting they have to fill them with drama and suspense in that short amount of time in order to keep viewers.
ReplyDelete