Chapter | six
Producing Reality
Despite common misperceptions, producers in reality television are just as important to the quality and outcome of unscripted programming as they are to its scripted counterpart. Like the storytellers behind dramatic and comedic television, reality producers often need to plot and point an entire season of “storylines” before network executives will so much as green-light a simple pilot. Naturally, this trend begs the obvious question: If reality television is so “real,” how can a producer outline an entire season’s worth of storylines and cliffhangers?
Understandably, television executives are reluctant to purchase projects without a clear trajectory of evolving storylines throughout an initial run of episodes. ...
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