We all know reality TV isn't actually real, but how fake is it exactly? The answer varies widely, depending on the show and the cast for that go around.
And while cast members have the 411 for their stints on screen, people working behind-the-scenes have a long-term view of how these shows work, and all of the drama - both organic and scripted.
In a popular Reddit thread, people who have worked on reality shows shared what it's like behind-the-scenes.
In the very first episode of Top Chef they ever filmed, Tom Colicchio flipped out because the dishes the contestants had cooked were getting cold while the film crew took "food porn" shots of them.
From then on, all the contestants have to prepare two dishes. One for the judges to sample, and one for the cameras to pan over and show the audience.
Producers speaking to contestants off screen telling them the type of performance they expect.
One of the first production jobs I took was on a reality show TV Pilot called, "Life Begins at 40". It was a show that followed the lives of a couple who put their dreams on hold for their kids, and the show helped them pick up where they left off after the kids left the nest. Really sweet idea, as the husband wanted to run a car garage and the wife wanted to own a bed and breakfast. There were a few things that come to mind of how contrived shows are:
During segments where the couple were talking, the "director" of the show was behind the camera guiding them through the conversation. They arrived at the house they were staying at, and the husband noticed the wife over packed. The director, off camera, would tell the husband, "Wouldn't you say your wife packs too much?" to which the husband replied, "Yeah, Honey, you packed way too much!" The director then said, "Wouldn't you say that she packed up your entire closet?" "Yeah, yeah, sweetie, did you pack the entire closet or something?"
During another segment, the husband sends the wife on a mission to go buy an auto part for the garage he is working with. The producer was going to send me to basically pre-plant the part she needed, that way she wouldn't have to pay for it. Turns out the segment was scrapped because she asked so many questions to the husband she knew exactly what she was supposed to get (as opposed to the "drama" that would unfold when she was supposed to call the husband about the part at the store).
The couple didn't know, but they were going to another state for the second part of the show. I created their plane tickets (they would get real ones when they got to the airport). So, over dinner, when their bill arrived, they opened it to find the plane tickets. I had a little fun with them the night before when they asked me if I would be with them for the entire production. I responded, "I'll be with you the entire time you're in Florida", which was true since they were only there for one more day. After the reveal, they realized what I did when I was driving them home and we had a nice laugh.
Those are the only stories that come to mind (that was nearly ten years ago!) It was a lot of fun, and everyone was really awesome. Definitely had more of an "Extreme Makeover" vibe rather than the catty, angry and drama-filled reality shows.
A close friend of mine worked in casting for several shows. Most notably: Pawn Stars. She told me one night while we were drinking that around 90% of the time the people bringing items into the shop were NOT the true owners. They would scour the internet for people selling interesting things and then hit them up to see if they wanted to bring it on the show. If the true owners were total duds and not suitable for camera work, they would pay them a few bucks to take the item and have a trained actor bring it to the pawn shop for the purposes of the show.
She also said that Adam Richmond, the guy from Man Vs. Food, got so sick and out of shape from all the crap he ate all the time that he could no longer be insured. They had to change the format of the show so that he would coach people in eating competitions, as opposed to doing it himself.
I worked as a fake contestant on a game show, it was my job to screw up various contestants as much as I could.
Before each episode shoot, they would tell me challenges and ask me to practice being terrible at it. Finally being good at being terrible paid off.
MTV did a reality special on my hometown in the early 1990s, profiling it as "the worst place in the world to spend spring break." They came for two weeks with a comedian host and made fun of us constantly. For one episode they wanted to showcase the town's music scene, so they got a dozen 3rd graders to play Hot Cross Buns on recorders. I was one of those 3rd graders. The comedian came in the day of and was super serious.
He told us this was our big break and would be broadcast to a million people. Naturally, we responded by taking it VERY seriously and felt that we were representing our town. When the cameras started rolling, it was obvious that it was total bullshit. The comedian kept jumping up and down behind the cameras shouting "POOPY LIGHTBULB" to make us laugh. Then he gave us fake Ray Bans and t-shirts.
I'm a Production Sound Mixer based in LA and I frequently find myself on reality gigs. The pay is pretty good but the days are very long. Minimum work day will be 12 hours (the most I have done is 20 hours in a single day) with the only real break being a half hour to an hour lunch. This is pretty typical for most LA based productions.
So what do our days consist of? Well, yesterday I started a new reality ENG style doc for a major network which pretty much fits the typical "reality shoot" mold. Usually a day or two day before picture is up, the crew will receive a call sheet. The call sheet has a list of the cast, crew and shot list along with other details about that particular production day. The shot list details which talent will be in each scene along with details of when and where the scene will take place...AND what we are there to shoot in each scene.
Every scene is shot under the guidance of the director and producers and not unlike scripted episodics or features, the scenes are shot multiple times. This means that when you actually watch something happen in reality television, not only was that scene and the actions/conversations within planned days before, you're likely watching the forth or fifth time that "real" event actually happened. Very rarely can any of these untrained actors nail a scene on the first take. If there's time to shoot another take, you can bet your a*s the director is going to call for it.
Have you ever been watching a reality show and after a cut from one angle to another you think, "well, gosh... Shouldn't a camera guy be standing right there? The previous angle just one second before that cut was from the exact direction I'm now looking directly in!" Well, that's because that's from another take after the crew has repositioned to run the scene again for coverage.
Next would be the audio element...my world. Ever been watching the new hit reality show "Hardcore Midget Pawn" and out of nowhere an angry customer bust in the store screaming and yelling with sound as crisp as can be and in perfect frame from multiple angles? Well, that was 100% planned. Before that, a tech like myself would have placed a lav mic and transmitter pack on the angry customer's person, tested levels and RF reception while still having a little time to make any adjustments as the camera department established the action of the scene, the lighting, camera lens selection and all that jazz. So buy the time that angry customer bursts in the door, we have already prepared everything, have slated the take and called "ACTION!" And now await their surprise visit which we will shoot numerous times.
Funny story...just a few months ago I was on a BIG reality show where we shot a fight between two ladies about an argument they had not had yet. The argument they were fighting about had not yet been shot and was scheduled for a completely different day later that week. So there we are shooting two grown adults going at it over sh*t they haven't even said yet.
Ahhhh, show business!
Believe me or not, I have no actual proof but a friend of mine's uncle is a barber in Jersey who during the first season of Jersey shore did Mike's haircuts and I think also Vinny. He said they had a script that basically said stuff like 'get drunk--flirt with girl (insert name) is dancing with---start fight---gossip about soso' etc etc.
I wouldn't be surprised if more shows had loose scripts like that. Not exact lines and such but plot lines they want you to do to/with unsuspecting people.
A friend told me that one of those reality tow truck shows tried to hire him to play a crazy customer. The staged shot was that the crew was going to try and take "his" rusty pickup truck from his lawn, but he was supposed to come at them in just a wife beater with two sawed off shotguns. I believe that a big black woman on the crew was supposed to run at him and knock him out with a wrench, but I can't remember the exact details. Even though I think he turned them down, it goes to show how much of "reality" shows are staged for those who didn't know it before.
I just recently talked with a guy on a cooking show. He said a lot of what you saw is what went on.
They did do some editing here and there. They did make it look like they just got there food in the morning, but if anyone needed more time to cook they could get it the night before.
He said several of the people he competed against were just like how you see them on TV, but there were plenty of "characters" who were edited for TV but were actually doing really amazing things that never get mentioned.
No real dirt on anything but it was really interesting to listen to all the details behind the scenes.
My old boss had a reality show. While I wouldn't necessarily call it scripted, many scenes were staged to some extent and they would often film multiple takes. There were also a lot more "friends" and celebrities (office was in LA) stopping by on the days they were filming.
So I used to have these two American co-workers. One of them was signed with an extras agency and would occasionally get small roles in films and TV.
One day I hear the extra telling the other guy about a London club which for the opening night had an open bar after a £20 entry fee. They decide to go and the other guy says "hey why don't you come Martlar?" So I agree to go to this club.
The extra finds me later to say it's actually part of a show here called The Real Hustle that shows how cons are pulled off. His agency has asked him to invite people who wouldn't recognize the presenters and spoil the con. So I go along with it knowing I'd get my £20 back at the end of the night.
Afterwards the producers took us to a bar and bought us all a drink. Talking to the other people there, about two thirds of the people "conned" were in on it.
My TV moment!
Former reality TV producer here, chiming in but probably buried at the bottom. There are tons of different types of reality shows. There are celebreality shows that pick a person and follow them around or follow the wackiness of a store/workplace/group of teenagers (Kardashians, Real Housewives of Anywhere, Anonymous Pawn Shop etc.) These shows generally fall in the lightly scripted to very scripted category. Most early seasons of a show are lightly scripted, with the scripting getting tighter as more seasons are produced to accommodate production schedules and create story lines.
Some shows try to be more "real" by taking events that will be happening over the next 6 months of a persons life and then setting them up so they all take place over the next 3 weeks of filming the season. It's stuff that would really happen, they just make it all happen at an accelerated pace. Keep in mind when you watch a 3 month season of the Kardashians, all that stuff happens ever the course of 3-5 weeks. It's too expensive to hire crews and equipment to be on standby to just film whenever something happens in the person's life.
Competition reality shows (like Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother, etc) are not scripted at all. They used to ask contestants to re-live the argument they just had for a better camera angle, but most shows got away from that. Now they have "Story Producers" (watch the credits, that's an actual title) whose job is to follow everything that is going on. They then create the story in two ways. First they conduct interviews to let the contestant talk about an incident in their own words, and focus more on the story they want to tell. Secondly, they create the story in post production. How? They actually have transcripts of every word that was said on tape. They then string together the live and interview sentences to make new ones. Occasionally they have to take two different sentences and cut them together.
This is called a Frankenbite. If you have a good ear you can listen to when the tone/pitch of a persons voice changes mid sentence. On some shows where the sound editing isn't that good, it becomes really obvious. Those are the main differences in scripting. Some other stuff...on cooking shows that involve "everyday" cooks and not necessarily famous or professional chefs, there are usually puke buckets close to the judges to spit food out. Also cooking shows that give a challenge and they say "Go!" actually take a 5-10 minute break to give the chefs time to plan their meal and reset cameras.
Then they put everyone back in a line and have they start again. On competition shows people online talk about how the producers wanted a certain contestant to win. There are very strict rules in the U.S. regarding competition shows that are played for money. All shows have to run their challenges through a legal department, and a lot of them have a legal rep on set when filming. Fixing a competition or game show is ground for jail time, and from what I've seen, fairness is taken very seriously by the producers that create the challenges. That's all I can think of for now. I produced reality shows for 6 years (and worked on a few scripted shows starting out), so ask some questions if you want.
A few years ago my parents owned a restaurant where an episode of an MTV "reality series" was filmed. It was totally staged and MTV gave them details about what would go down in advance.
I wasn't actually on a reality show but I almost was. We had to sign paperwork agreeing to "re-film" scenes that didn't look good the first time or things the camera didn't catch. We also had to agree that our words could be edited however they wanted (so they could basically take things out of context/manipulate the way we came across). Dropped out at the last minute though, so I guess I'll never know what it would have been like to be on TV.
Alcohol consumption. Talent gets plastered, producers get results.
All special events, trips, etc. are planned and paid for by the production. During those moments, there's incredible pressure on everyone to deliver good material.
The crew is overworked and underpaid. I clocked on average 100hrs a week. On one show, I worked over 30 days straight without a day off (I was on a weekly contract, not hourly, so they could get away with it).
A genuine, unaltered moment in the final cut of an episode is as rare as a unicorn. (It doesn't exist).
I've worked in TV and film for a decade. Here are some I can mention:
Remember that show MTV Cribs? Most of the rappers houses were rented specifically for the shoot. Actors and sports stars were their real houses for the most part.
Gordon Ramsey is actually a pretty nice guy. The Hells Kitchen restaurant is a set in a soundstage. The customers are usually friends and invited guests of the show and its crew.
Most reality shows are scripted to an extent, and the cast is usually coached to say certain things during a those interview style shots to help tell or shape a story. They are cut together and manipulated as needed to tell different stories. Most of the time they are talking about something totally different than what is happening on screen.
Most reality stars don't "decide to part ways" with the show. The money is too easy. 75% of the time there were asked to leave or not return. It's easier on everyone if we never say "fired" unless you are Donald Trump.
MTV was illegally using music for years and years for all of its shows. MTV was a major source of exposure in the 80's and 90's for music, so they took advantage of their position and illegally used copywrited music in all of their TV shows, especially reality shows without permission or compensation to the publishing and sync rights holders. They were eventually sued by all the major record companies in the late 90's/early 2000s when they ceased to be the music player they once were and had to cease use of copywrited songs. Cheaper reality shows had to resort to library songs while the bigger shows had to pony up licensing fees for major artists.
Award shows like the MTV movie awards, Kids Choice awards, etc were merely created as cheap ways to get big names and big ratings. Artists are not compensated for showing up at these events and look bad for not showing up to accept the made-up award. Easy money.
I've never worked on Dr Phil, but he is a giant douche to everyone especially his crew. Needlessly and entirely for his own ego.
I worked on a stunt/challenge game show earlier this year. Game play was very, very real. There are hundreds of people working their asses off to make sure everything goes off without a hitch the first time. It's actually unbelievably impressive especially considering the high stakes and threat of danger with the types of stunts we pulled off.
That being said, pretty much every time you get a close up of the host talking to contestants or excitedly commenting on a stunt that's going down, he's talking to a group of unenthused PAs or staring at an empty obstacle course.
Not as juicy as some of these, but it always made me laugh.
My friend was on that old show "Taildaters" on MTV way back when (a guy would go on a blind date with a girl, and his best friend would be spying on them from a monitor and I believe was able to occasionally page them. Yes, with a pager).
In his episode, the date was going really well = boring. My friend told me that the producers pulled him aside and smoked him out and gave him some liquor - which led him to act weird and eventually get a glass of water thrown at him by his date. Now, I took this as BS and thought it was a way for my friend to spread an anecdote of how MTV smoked him out, but after watching his episode I noticed that in one scene he was his normal charming self and the next he was kind of slurring his words, had droopy eyes and started eating off his date's plate with his hands.
My cousin was on the B-team of the Apprentice ages ago. Before challenges go on the air, there's a B-team who runs them to check they are achievable goals. I've never seen the show, but I'd imagine it would be something like "Open a business with $30" and the B-team would try to run the challenge to ensure it is possible. If not, they'd go back to the drawing board.