Screenwriter Alex Epstein points to an interesting article in the LA Times about the role of writers in reality television:
Many of the shows that supposedly follow the real lives of real people are really scripted by real writers, many of whom were unemployed because their sitcoms got replaced by reality programs. […] Through sources I cannot reveal but would definitely not go to jail to protect, I got hold of a 19-page, single-spaced outline of an upcoming episode of « Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. » Every moment is planned in advance, including a few specific lines for the straight guy to deliver, which Bravo says is not unusual for any reality show.
You don’t believe that this stuff can really be scripted? Check out this script from Meet my folks, available on the WGA web site, or read this fascinating article published in Maisonneuve about the way things are set up in advance in The Apprentice (the article itself is a great piece of writing, by the way).
It’s a big issue for writers these days as producers are being lured by the low production cost of reality shows. The problem is, since nobody wants to say that this stuff is actually scripted, the writers on these shows are not called writers and are not covered under the agreements of the Writers Guild of America (I’m assuming we have the same problem in Canada but I’ll look it up later). The WGA makes things very clear on their Web site, in an article asking for help from its members:
We don’t need help being convinced that there’s writing on these shows. Calling these shows « unscripted » is an insult to the men and women who work the 14-hour days and seven-day weeks writing these shows. We’ve seen the scripts and we’ve met many of the so-called « segment producers, » « researchers, » and « script consultants. » They’re us. They’re writers.
Last August, The Washington Post interviewed writers, producers and the WGA about this issue.
A guild member working on a reality show — because, she says, she’s got to pay the bills, union or no — understands that reality shows are hybrids. « We’re not sitting in a room writing dialogue, » she said. Instead, typically, « we write outlines, with beats. We write specific jokes. We contrive comedic situations and then we help edit them, and we go back and reshoot scenes to bring out the various stories. And sometimes we just tell the contestants you’re mad, you’re happy, whatever. Act that way. And if they’re not getting it, we feed them a line. »
In an interview for the same article, Daniel Petrie Jr., president of the Writers Guild of America-West said:
The reality shows are not written in the traditional sense, like an episode of « Law & Order » or « Will & Grace. » But he points to the Paris Hilton-Nicole Richie Fox hit « The Simple Life. » « The writers craft the scenes that put the two heroines in fish-out-of-water situations, » he said. « When people think of a screenplay or a teleplay, they think of dialogue. But scripts are stories, and storytelling is the most important. It’s structure, situation, character.
The issue is far from being resolved: it looks like reality tv is not going to go away and will continue to hide the writers’ contribution. I like the conclusion of the LA Times article:
We wanted to believe reality shows were real because they made us feel like other people’s lives were more messed up than our own. Though that may not be true, at least we know that without writers they’re just as boring as we are.
You want more details? Learn about the technique? Check out the Slate article: Virtual dictionary, A guide to the language of reality tv, where a writer explains the different scripting tactics used on these shows.