Reality TV shows aren’t as real as they seem, something that most of you are aware of. This might come as a shock to two or three of you? The weird and unforgettable behind-the-scenes activity that camera operators film is what is real.
We have traveled all over the internet to bring you some of the craziest reality show camera operators to talk about what goes on in shows when nobody is watching. Sometimes the trade secrets and industry insights are more interesting than the shows. Remember to upvote the stories that you liked the most. Do you like reality shows? You can share it in the comments. We are big fans of everything related to Gordon Ramsay.
1.
The most amazing thing I saw while looking through the camera was a female gorilla feeding. She held the butterfly up to her eye to see what it was. She almost raised her eyebrows before releasing it and watching it fly away. Many things I witness but fail to capture on video. If you like what you see on TV, there is more to see and witness.
2.
Colby once freaked out at a female assistant, who coughed during a shoot. The audio guys tried to tell him it happened when nobody was talking. It turned on him because his freak out ruined the shoot. He said that he was still right even if he was wrong. No one will give her a ride back or out of here. She laughed at him and said, “Good idea to freak out at someone over a cough since I am the one who texts your girlfriends back for you. I own a car.’ She factory reset his phone after coming back a half-hour later.
3.
I followed some homicide detectives with Las Vegas Metro on a missing person case. The case stayed with me for a long time. We, as well as the officers, are affected at the end of the day and something people forget.
Mike, who is based in Los Angeles, sheds some light on the world of reality TV shows. “Reality TV shows are mostly not real. 60% of what you’re seeing on screen is faked, scripted, manipulated, staged, or heavily edited to present a storyline,” he explained.
4.
I was a photographer for Shipping Wars on A&E. High Profits for CNN, Life for TLC, North Woods Law for Animal Planet, and others.
The worst was on My 600 Lb. Life. A family was moving out of their apartment while we were shooting a movie. They were filthy. They put plants on top of the dog’s sh*t in the small apartment. We had to use oil on our lips. The grandma was asleep on the bed. There were thousands of bugs in the room when they flipped the bed over. A woman is sleeping on a bed that is covered in roaches and she knows what other bugs are. It was the worst thing I have ever seen.
5.
Every teen mom shoots, I would want to call the police. Dog poop on the floor, bloody tampons sitting in a corner for months, weeks old food everywhere are some of the filthy houses. One of the worst people I’ve met is Leah. When feeding her twins, she would spill a bunch of cheese puffs on the carpet and the girls would crawl around and suck up the cheese puffs.
6.
Between film jobs, I was shooting segments for Inside Edition. The producer who wrote the questions in the car on the way to the interview talked about how he had to make the woman cry. “They love it upstairs when you can make them cry,” he said. “It’s the gold ring.”
We go to this woman’s house, get the gear, and set up the interview. The woman saw her husband and son die in front of her when the motorcycle they were riding on was hit by a drunk driver. The segment was about drunk drivers who killed people. He lived in Canada for ten years after running to it.
The producer got her to cry after asking a lot of emotional questions. It was very sad. He was so happy when we drove away.
The producer of Strange Universe wanted my sound person to drive the van through a funeral procession so we could shoot it from the side door. We said no. Where do they get these people?
Reality shows are on a spectrum. Some of them are as close to reality as reality TV can get, however, others are so heavily scripted and edited, they are more akin to streaming shows than anything remotely resembling reality.
“Any reality shows about families or dating and ‘finding love’ are the most staged. Examples would be all versions of the Kardashians, The Bachelor, and Love Island. The least staged reality shows are those featuring medical afflictions such as Hoarders or Botched,” the expert said.
7.
Pulling out old appliances like grills and fridges was the worst, seeing old, rotted raw chicken and mice that died in the grease sludge underneath.
8.
An obese man said he wanted to clear the walkway to his front door so that an EMT could get to him in case he had a heart attack or his wife tried to stab him. He said that both of them were normal events that happen to him frequently. His wife was not nice.
The man with the enormous scrotum used it as a table to eat. I’m not sure if that made the final cut.
Dating and love-related TV shows are mostly staged because they wouldn’t be all that entertaining if they weren’t.
“Dating and finding love can be rather tedious, except to maybe the people involved,” he said. There is a need to change things to make the content more interesting for the audience.
9.
I have become close to many subjects while working with them. Some are great people that are a pleasure to hang out with, and some are not. I had a great time playing Wii with drug dealers. I hope they can find their way.
