People are stupid. This was the only conclusion to be drawn listening to Lindsay McCurdy complain about her experience of participating in Channel Five's Brand New You in Turner Prize nominee Phil Collins' press conference on reality TV, as featured in a Channel 4 News report last night.
McCurdy was moaning about the fact that cameras were shoved in her face as the plastic surgeons went about their work. Er... WTF? You agreed to have plastic surgery for a bloody TV show, what did you expect?
Admittedly, some of the other reality TV show participants featured in Collins' presser seem to have more genuine grievances about the way they were treated by programme-makers.
But still, it never ceases to amaze me why anyone agrees to take part in such TV programmes, or fails to understand that they hand over control of whether they are portrayed in a positive or negative light to the programme-makers.
Programme-makers rely on people's desire to be on telly, to have a stab at fame, and in the end, ego - 'I'm a pretty/kind/go-getting/good person, I'm liked and loved by friends and family, so I'm going to come over well on TV, right?'. Wrong.
TV producers will say anything, promise the earth, to build trust and get access. Once they're in and the cameras are rolling, they know people are very unlikely to throw them out, so they can get away with pretty much anything.
In a reality or factual show, they are looking to cast strong, easily recognisable characters - goody or baddy, winner or loser, happy or sad, rich or poor - as part of a narrative that can hook viewers. Their subjects will be shot and edited to fit the needs of character and narrative - or else discarded.
Anyone who goes into one of these shows not understanding that this is how they will be treated needs to wise up. For starters they should get their hands on the book being written by Robert Thirkell, the troubleshooting producer whose credits include Jamie's School Dinners.
Thirkell is still writing The 100 Rules of Television, but he gave an insight into how reality TV and documentary-makers operate in a session at the Sheffield Doc/Fest earlier this month. Here are some of his rules:
5 - Pick a story and stick to it
7- Pretend it's new every time 'I make the fairytale - here is the hero, something happens, the hero sets off on a journey, there's up and downs, then triumph,' Thirkell said in Sheffield. 'Sometimes I make another film, about someone who is really really pleased with themselves, gets even more pleased with themselves, but gets their comeuppance. Which is called a tragedy.'
9- Drama needs heroes and heroes need opponents
19 to 22 - appeal to contributors' vanity, never give contributors the chance to say no, don't ask contributors to marry you too soon (ie stall on the access agreement and start filming - they're unlikely to pull out once things are underway)
61: you have to make contributors look bad to look good
One final thought. At another Sheffield Doc/Fest session nearly a decade ago, Grant Mansfield, executive producer of one of the first hit docusoaps, Driving School, was asked how you prepare contributors for the overnight fame/notoriety that can ensue. His answer? "Buy them an answering machine."
