When Bunim/Murray Productions was developing its 2003-2007 reality series The Simple Life, about two wealthy young socialites navigating the world of everyday working Americans, the initial stars were supposed to be Paris Hilton and her sister Nicky. When Nicky eventually dropped out, Paris recruited her best friend, Nicole Richie, and with their comedic chemistry, a hit was born.
“I don’t think anyone saw that coming, that they brought out the best in each other,” recalled Julie Pizzi, a coexecutive producer on the series who is now president and CEO of Bunim/Murray and president of 51 Minds Entertainment. “It was really surprising. You would automatically think that siblings would be a better story, but it didn’t end up that way.”
The twists and turns of reality television — participants who become breakout stars, the unpredictable storytelling of real life and other compelling elements — were the focus of the Television Academy’s You Can’t Write This Stuff! Event, held February 26 at the Academy’s Saban Media Center at its NoHo Arts District headquarters.
Pizzi, an Emmy Award winner as an executive producer of Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, joined in the evening’s panel discussion with fellow Emmy winners Wayne Brady, star-executive producer of Wayne Brady: The Family Remix and Whose Line Is It Anyway?; Jazzy Collins, CSA, casting director for The Traitors and Big Grrrls; R.J. Cutler, director-producer of Elton John: Never Too Late and Martha; Dwayne Fowler, cinematographer-camera operator, Life Below Zero and The Story of God with Morgan Freeman; and Charles Little II, ACE, picture editor, Welcome to Wrexham and Last Comic Standing. Michael Schneider, TV editor at Variety, moderated.
Casting in reality TV is, of course, crucial. “Obviously, we want really great personalities,” Collins said. “But I think people don’t realize how much storytelling goes on behind the scenes: What story are you looking to share, and is it beneficial for this specific format that we’re doing?
“We’ll do phone calls [and] Zoom interviews with people, and that’s when you actually build those stories, seeing who this person is, what makes them tick. Why would they be great for the show? Why would they be a good competitor? We build what you are watching on TV.”
Collins looks for authenticity, a key component as well when Brady was developing The Family Remix, a reality series about his blended family.
“We all made a pact that there were certain things: If this works for the story, warts and all, it is going to be, because I don’t think you can win at the reality-show game, especially now that the audience is savvy to it — you can’t be too shiny,” he recounted. “You can’t be shiny; you can’t be fake. You can’t go, ‘This is what I’ll show you.’ Then nobody wants to watch you. So, we made a pact that, yes, maybe we can go in and veto things and influence the cut, but at a certain point, let’s just let it be.”
And when that authenticity yields participants who are charismatic, clever and funny, that’s reality gold. “They are the driving force why people watch — they get addicted to these personalities,” Collins said. “They continue to surprise us and the audience.”
Indeed, for Cutler, “The unexpected is everything — that's the joy,” he said of making his documentaries. “It can’t be about what I want or what I need or what I want the person I’m filming to do. I just have to experience and see life as they’re living it and see it as clearly as possible. Nothing is planned. Life happens. It’s there. It’s always going to be thrilling and surprising.”
Cutler’s subjects are ready to have their stories told, he noted; lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart approached him, for instance. And sometimes someone in a supporting role emerges as a compelling focus alongside the intended main subject, such as Vogue creative director Grace Coddington in The September Issue’s portrayal of the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.
Capturing these people on screen requires a professional working relationship based on trust, Fowler said. In the case of the remote Alaskan homesteaders of Life Below Zero and Port Protection, the camera team, embedded with the talent, also developed a personal connection.
When in action, “You don’t always get the shot that you want, but you have to get something. And being in the moment, seeing what’s unfolding, you have to both be reactionary and anticipating what’s going to happen next, all while maintaining the visual style of whatever show you’re working on,” Fowler noted. “You’re making sure you're getting a good shot — it’s in focus; it’s framed correctly. So, when you’re really in the moment like that, and improv-ing on the fly, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
Spending hours editing footage, noted Little, comes to know show participants intimately. “You get connected with them as the character, and they take on that life, and I feel like I know them, even though I’ve never met them,” he said. Sometimes, though, those participants don’t live up to their casting promise, so he cuts around them or minimizes their screen time.
And then there’s what Little calls “toning” a show: “Making scenes feel a certain way, or always toning a certain character with either sound effects or pieces of score, or the way you frame — you might do little weird push-ins. You learn their idiosyncrasies. You get out of the way of their little specialness that they bring to the table, and the ensemble of all that specialness is what makes this big salad that, hopefully, our viewers just can't get enough of.
Looking ahead, Pizzi said her companies are focusing on “what is that next incarnation of unscripted format, and trying to build new franchises. We’re developing worlds that we’ve never seen before.”
Megan Chao and Scott Freeman, governors of the Documentary Programming and Reality Programming peer groups, respectively, spearheaded the idea for the program. Dawn Porter and Joseph Litzinger are the respective peer group co-governors.
