The Reality TV World Summit

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Speaker 2 You're standing on the beach when you notice something strange. The horizon doesn't look right.
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What would you do?

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Speaker 2 I'm Jane Marie, and this is the dream.

Speaker 2 One big dream a lot of people have is fame.

Speaker 2 Either by, you know, becoming an influencer of some sort, or maybe you get cast on a reality show. And then that reality show spins off a show all about you, which is another show.

Speaker 2 And then you find someone to get married to, and then that's its own show. Fame is a universal pursuit.
But the pathways to that fame have really changed over the last few decades.

Speaker 2 We wanted to talk to someone who was there from pretty much the beginning on big shows like Big Brother, Love Island.

Speaker 2 Before we were watching TikToks all day, every day, swiping, swiping, doom scrolling, watching YouTubes, YouTubes, YouTubes, YouTube shorts.

Speaker 2 When there was just a couple of television shows on, what were we amusing ourselves with? And who was on those shows? And why did they want to go on those shows? Did they want the dream?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I am Danny Vikrambell. I'm kind of like theoretically a TV producer.
I kind of like work on things that get filmed.

Speaker 2 Some of them are TV shows. Some of them are events.
Some of them are just random as fuck. We'll go back to the beginning.
Where are you from? You sound funny.

Speaker 2 i i my funny accent is i'm from the north of england um

Speaker 2 so i live in london i've kind of like my career has always been i've worked all over the place but my career has always been kind of based out of london went to film school dreaming of like making films went straight from film school into a graduate trainee thing with this with this at the time really influential really cool tv company in london called planet 24 and they were like they were co-owned by bob geldoff

Speaker 2 and they were who is is way more famous over there than here but But yeah, like

Speaker 2 this kind of company. And they were called Planet 24 because the average age of a producer there was 24.

Speaker 2 So it was this really, really aggressive place to work that everyone kind of forced to get into.

Speaker 2 And they had this graduate scheme there that like 5,000 people a year would apply for for one or two places. And I was like, I applied for that, not thinking I'd get into it.

Speaker 2 And then ended up being the last ever graduate trainee there. And they, they made a few, like, in

Speaker 2 UK terms, kind of European terms, a couple couple of really, really influential shows. They made this sort of late night talk show, music show called The Word.
They made Survivor. Okay.

Speaker 2 And it was one of the first iterations of Survivor. They did that.
But the main show they did, which was the one I got trained up on, was this breakfast show called The Big Breakfast.

Speaker 2 And it was this two hour a day, daily two hour live show that was absolutely mental.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that'd sort him out.

Speaker 3 Here's a letter for you. The England rugby team's answer to the All Blacks hacker should be the birdie song with Richard Cockrell leading the actions.
That's from Jim Watson.

Speaker 2 I really can't tell you what's happening on this show, but it looks a little bit like TRL, the live show on MTV,

Speaker 2 mixed with Pee-Wee's Playhouse

Speaker 2 and a lot of clothes from the Delia's catalogue.

Speaker 3 Families awoke yesterday to find digestive biscuits taped to every house, wall, and road sign in Trinity Street, Norwich.

Speaker 3 That's the sign for the pensioner revolution, isn't it?

Speaker 3 It's so obvious. They've been been gone.

Speaker 2 The team on it was really, really young. And this is a pre-internet.

Speaker 2 So you were having to come up with constant, kind of constant ideas, like little formats basically on the show and interview and kind of interview concepts.

Speaker 2 And just as I got my job on it, they announced it was going to get axed, which in a weird way worked out really well for me because

Speaker 2 all these people had worked on it for 10 years, really competitive show to work on. And they all started leaving.
to get new jobs. And I started as a trainee.

Speaker 2 I'd never been in an office before, never been in a production company before, never been on a working real set before.

Speaker 2 And they just threw me in to direct and produce loads of things. So it was just like amazing.

Speaker 2 So you got thrown into like, I remember the first, there was this, there was this segment on there called Snap, Crackle and Pop, which is where they interviewed like bands and musicians.

Speaker 2 And I remember it was like my first couple of days in the office. And they sent me out to direct and produce this interview with Brandy.
And then one with this band called The Hives.

Speaker 2 So this kind of big punk band from Sweden. And they didn't tell me what I was meant to be doing on this thing.
And I got there like with my 19 pages of research I'd written out.

Speaker 2 And he's like, this band that obviously just been out all night the day before were wheeled in to do this interview.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, so you come from a town called Fargestar in northern Sweden, where the biggest industry is steel mining and da-da-da-da-da. Like, and they just started laughing at me.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, well, 20% of the town do this. And you decided to do this.
And then you went to school. And they just started laughing.
And we're like, he was the fucking nerd doing it.

Speaker 2 It ended up being like a really good interview because they were just like, what? And it's like, and then the managers just like, ask them about the single, ask them the date the single comes out.

Speaker 2 And I, and it was just like getting thrown in. And then like a few hours later, it was like interviewing Brandy.
And like, the boy is mine had just come out.

Speaker 2 And I was just like totally starstruck and like in a room with Brandy. Yeah, and it just got thrown in to do all these kind of mad things.

Speaker 2 Coincidentally, at the beginning of the Boy is Mine music video, Brandy is watching Jerry Springer.

Speaker 2 And what was amazing, I say amazing and horrific about that environment of working there is it was like the, the most aggressive place I've ever worked. There was always someone in tears.

Speaker 2 So I turn up in this, I've just gone through this like three-day interview process to get this graduate trainee job. Like brutal.
Go in on my first day of work.

Speaker 2 I've never been like in a production company before. She gets taken into this office and it feels like an active live newsroom, just like rows of desks, stress, people screaming at each other.

Speaker 2 Like the woman from HR like walks me in. No one looks up.
No No one gives a fuck about me kind of walking in.

Speaker 2 She puts me down in this chair in front of someone's office and she's like, someone will come out and get you in a minute. Just like stay there.

Speaker 2 So I'm just sat on this chair being ignored by everyone. Half an hour later, I'm like, no one's come and got me.
I don't know. Should I go and tell someone? I don't know what I'm meant to do.

Speaker 2 So I'm just like sat there. I feel this tap on my shoulder and look up and there's this guy and he looks across the room and he goes,

Speaker 2 Has someone lost a cunt? Someone seems to have left a cunt here outside my office. Who's this cunt?

Speaker 2 Is this anyone's cunt they've left here? And the woman from HR sees him doing it, like runs across the room and he's just murmuring under his breath, going, little fucking cunt.

Speaker 2 Like grabs me and she goes, I'm really sorry about that. That's Ben.
He's your boss. Oh, no.

Speaker 2 And I was just like, here we go. He wasn't joking.
No. Like.

Speaker 2 That was the environment there. I think they'd have to have these meetings there every day, like whatever level you were at.
Have these meetings at 5 a.m.

Speaker 2 where you'd have to go in and just pitch a look. You had to have read all the newspapers before then, go in at five and pitch in ideas.
And even if you were just like a trainee like I was then,

Speaker 2 if your ideas were bad,

Speaker 2 like you could get punched in the face. Like they'd throw something at you, like they'd kick you out of the room.
So the level of just like competition in that room to just not be like attacked.

Speaker 2 What was that about? It was just, it was like that kind of period. This is like the early noughties, coming out of the 90s, early noughties.

Speaker 2 That period of time in london particularly was everyone got jobs by who they were out with in a private members club at 5 a.m

Speaker 2 the day before like the whole environment was like super aggressive and culture then i don't know what it was like over here but culture in london then was like it was lads mags and everything was like it was magazines like loaded and fhm fhm

Speaker 2 like that like the culture was just like super aggressive then and that was just the environment everyone worked in and it was just and like and like the whole vibe then was

Speaker 2 Was there any women? There were a few.

Speaker 2 But it was mostly dudes. Mostly men.
This is like very typical of the industry,

Speaker 2 the industry now and the industry of that time. Like I'm from like a council estate in the north of England, went to a normal school.

Speaker 2 Like when they, on my last day of the three-day interview to get that job, the guy who ran it, who was this like super posh boy, aggressive, like,

Speaker 2 we had this really aggressive final interview with him where he just basically tore me apart. And in the interview, he went, what do your parents do for a living? And I just went, you know what?

Speaker 2 It's none of your fucking business. What do my parents do for a living? And he's like, oh.
And I was just like, if you want to interview them for a job, interview them.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I'm not telling you to do for a living.

Speaker 2 And this just sums up the place. He was like, oh, that's when I decided I'd give you a job because you fought back.
I'm like, whatever.

Speaker 2 And he was like, I've never given anyone a job before who didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. Why should I give you a job? I don't know.
That sounds like a you problem.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I'm like, you decide whether you want to give me a job or not. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't care at this point, particularly.
I've been brutalized for three days.

Speaker 2 I want to work here.

Speaker 2 Like, just, yeah, like, just, yeah, and that was like, that was kind of the value. You endeared yourself to them by just not putting up with their shit.

Speaker 2 I think I was like very different to the other people there. And I'm confident in myself.
Like, I didn't care what he thinks. I didn't care what you thought of me.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, I know I'm pretty good at doing

Speaker 2 like what I do. And just, yeah, i was just a very different person and i think that point of difference was good

Speaker 2 um yeah i mean the whole industry has always been a kind of posh boys club it particularly was then yeah um i don't think it's the way it is out here yeah the thing is i think it's different it's like there was a period then in britain where it was like

Speaker 2 getting those like now it isn't like this but getting those tv jobs then

Speaker 2 it was a real stepping stone to like oh and then i'll run a media empire like i'll go in and run the end up you know the dream was like to end up running the BBC. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And now it's like, it's sort of embarrassing to say you work in TV.
But back then it was like, that was the stepping stone.

Speaker 2 And this, this was the beginning of the wave of reality TV becoming like an international juggernaut.

Speaker 2 And we were like,

Speaker 2 as a country, on the, on the forefront of doing a lot of those shows. Yeah.
So Big Brother in Britain at that time was like the biggest show on TV, was enormous. Right.
It just came out of Holland.

Speaker 2 Like the British one when it broke was one of the, one of the biggest ones. It was this massive, massive show.
Yeah. And that show got axed, which was like a big deal when that got axed.

Speaker 2 And the company that made it ended up just kind of collapsing. So I went straight from there to this massive, massive company called Endemol.
Oh, I know Endermol. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So Endemol were like a format machine. Yeah.
So Big Brother was the big one. They were making loads of shows of that type.
big formatted reality shows. There was this kind of big international group.

Speaker 2 Kind of main office was kind of in Holland, but the London office was really big.

Speaker 2 Very different vibe from the place I've just come from. So there was like a lot of like really smart people there doing really cool things.
Yeah. And I kind of ended up in the reality space there.

Speaker 2 So I ended up working on Big Brother, kind of generally on the creative side, did a load of different jobs.

Speaker 2 I was on it for a few years. And I just got on really well with like the guy who was my boss there.
And they really trusted me

Speaker 2 and promoted me a load of times really quickly.

Speaker 2 And then there, like in that time of doing Big Brother, there were a load of other shows of that type that we made that I got to to do a bit of work on like one of them was this was this show called space cadets we um put on a fairground ride of a of a spaceship and convinced them they were in space no and they thought they were in space for a week and then um wow so like this show space cadets right they got these people

Speaker 2 the first thing they did with them was took them to a military airbase put them on a plane circled the plane around for like five hours. It landed in the countryside in Britain, like 20 minutes away.

Speaker 2 We told them they'd landed in Russia.

Speaker 2 So we landed them on a military base in the middle of nowhere, had dressed this military base as Russia, employed a load of actors who talked like this, and met them off the plane.

Speaker 2 They were like, Welcome to Russia. And like in this military base, we'd like put Russian number plates on the cars and bought Russian cigarettes.
And like, it was just like it was weird.

Speaker 2 And then we gave them loads of like lectures on space travel by actors in Russian accents doing this they do all their lessons and then we put them in this it was like a fake space shuttle that we rented in it was the special effects company from hollywood that like brought this space shuttle in that had been used in a couple of big sort of space films and it was like on hydraulics and sort of shook up and down there were like massive screens in front of it like broadcasting space into it and then one of the lectures they had was And now we've invented this new thing that's an anti-gravity box.

Speaker 2 So you think you're going to be floating around, but you're not going to be floating around because we pressed the anti-gravity box.

Speaker 2 And they lived on the ship for a few days thinking they were in space. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
How did it get? So sorry, how did the ship get to

Speaker 2 get noises? They go on it and it vibrates and shakes like a, like you're a Disney or something. It's a prop.
It shakes, yeah, to prop to prop.

Speaker 2 And there's like, and the big screens in front of it are showing like them hurtling through space. And then it settles in and they think they're in space.

Speaker 2 And like, and my, my job on that was like coming up with just like weird challenges and stuff for them to do, like thinking they were in space. And then

Speaker 2 it it ended every time you say thinking they were in space it's just like so amazing and then it like then it then it ended and it landed you know the the spaceship shakes and it lands and they open the door and a load of people are clapping out them going ha ha ha you're not in space and it was just really cruel and weird and these people just like

Speaker 2 thought they were applying for an unnamed reality show didn't think they were applying to go to space they just wanted to like go to a villa on a beach and do you know what i mean do like reality show stuff i remember like some of the some of the shows we pitched back then and i think back in it and i'm like we actually went in a room and said this and this nearly got made you were like one of them was like

Speaker 2 ugly boy band so we get a load of really ugly people and we form a boy band but it's like an ugly boy band and then we try and make them famous and everyone's like cool yeah cool cool yeah

Speaker 2 Like, and you'd go into these like meetings and network and pitch this stuff in.

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Speaker 2 So I ended up working on Big Brother. It was like mainly working on Big Brother, but doing all these other kind of random shows.

Speaker 2 And my main job on Big Brother, the one that I spent the most time on, was like running all of the challenges and games and the formatting and working on the formatting of the show.

Speaker 2 So every year, the whole, the show would have a different theme. Like one year, it would be evil.
The next year it would be like something else.

Speaker 2 And then like all of the content within there would have to fit around that theme. Got him.

Speaker 2 And like, and that was like a really, really tough job and a really, really amazing job because the show was on daily. Right.
So you'd be throwing in like challenges and tasks every day.

Speaker 2 And the show would last 10 weeks. So did you guys like invent that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we, we, I mean, because I think like most reality television has turned into that just to get some

Speaker 2 not b-roll, but like those are the parts of the Real Housewives that I fast forward when they're like on the beach and we're going to do a sack race or whatever.

Speaker 2 You know, they're like doing something just to like have more

Speaker 2 hours in the show or something like love islands like that it is i think yeah i think big brother back then

Speaker 2 it was it was like the days of still thinking these shows were like social experiments and in some ways back then they were right because the thing that's really interesting about big brother that still has a level of purity about it is there's not producers in there on the floor you're you're in a house fixed rig cameras you're in there for weeks and weeks at a time and you go into like a diary room and talk to big brother but there's not producers on on the floor there's no people there's no people doing it so it is a relatively pure show in that they're in this bubble it's being filmed like people are much more savvy to it now but back then particularly like

Speaker 2 yeah you were watching them just

Speaker 2 going about their lives in this weird environment so there was like a level of purity to it yeah but like and but back then people thought what they loved about it is and people would always go yeah just put normal people in and leave them just doing their stuff and making their breakfast the reality of watching that is it's tedious yeah Yeah.

Speaker 2 So like, so the way the producing work there is, you had to get them to do things, not invisibly, but get them to do things without going in and producing them on the floor that was still going to drive content.

Speaker 2 So every challenge, task, game. What was that coming to them? Like on a piece of paper or something?

Speaker 2 Bit of paper, like a voice of God, which is like when you talk to them through the speakers as Big Brother. So part of my job was being Big Brother.
I was Big Brother.

Speaker 8 Big Brother has gathered housemates at the dining table for today's task. Housemates must collectively shed enough tears to fill one teaspoon.

Speaker 10 Okay, Craig, try and take yourself to that dark place.

Speaker 10 Big Brother may try and help you get the tears flowing.

Speaker 2 I was big brother. Like, what was quite interesting is because I've got quite a distinctive voice, anyway,

Speaker 2 and I just did all the challenges and stuff. Generally, when you're Big Brother, there's a load of rules that you have to rule by of like you've got to be big brother, kind of personality-free.
Okay.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? You're not a person, you're a big brother. Because I was doing all the weird stuff.
Had you read 1984 at that point? Yeah, it's like super 1984.

Speaker 2 Because I was doing all the challenges and stuff with them, I was allowed to mess around a lot more. Oh, okay.
So I could kind of say whatever I wanted. I had this like...

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it was like, because it was very much my voice. They knew when it was my voice, they were going to be doing something weird or fun or whatever.
So I could like do kind of whatever I wanted.

Speaker 2 And then there was a point point in there where the biggest magazine in Britain at that time was Heat Magazine. It was a gossip magazine.

Speaker 2 They started getting,

Speaker 2 and they did loads of content about Big Brother. Big Brother was like the biggest media entertainment story at the time when it was on.
So they did loads of stuff about Big Brother.

Speaker 2 All of their covers would be Big Brother covers when we ran. And they started getting fan mail about my voice.

Speaker 2 So they were like, oh, we want to interview you about the weird Geordie Big Brother who does this, says the weird stuff to them.

Speaker 2 And basically my boss got really jealous and was was like, No, you can't do that interview because Big Brother's meant to be anonymous and

Speaker 2 so they did. So they ran that surprise.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so they ran an article on me, but I couldn't input into it that was like about the weird, the weird one with the with the northern accent who does the stuff. Some of the clips,

Speaker 2 I've ran every so often. Someone will send me a clip they found me, and I'm like, I was allowed to do that.

Speaker 2 I mean, like, like one of the challenges we did was like, you could win a date with Big Brother, which basically meant you won a date with me.

Speaker 2 So they'd go into the diary room and we'd set it up. There's like a bottle of wine in front of them and a table or whatever.
And I'd be like, hi.

Speaker 10 Anthony, under the table is a bottle of champagne and two glasses. Big Brother, seriously, I know your game.
You're trying to get me drunk, aren't you?

Speaker 2 And they're so just starved of doing anything normal or normal human. They get like dressed up to go in this date and they're like, hi.

Speaker 4 And this is like with men, women, like all of them, whatever.

Speaker 10 And I'm like, and what do you want, Anthony?

Speaker 11 I was in sex now.

Speaker 11 Let's go to the room immediately. Let's get it on.

Speaker 10 Big Brother thinks this has been a wonderful date, Anthony.

Speaker 4 Aye.

Speaker 10 The meeting of two hearts and minds.

Speaker 4 Oh, classic.

Speaker 4 Woo!

Speaker 4 You feel

Speaker 11 like I do, baby.

Speaker 2 This date went so well. He was so happy in this date.
He's like, remember, he'd stripped down to his underpants. Oh, my God.
He's hammered, because like we'd left a bottle of wine in there.

Speaker 2 He's like, stripped down to his pants.

Speaker 2 And like, and I remember like, and I'd kind of set up things in there that I knew I had licensed to get away with the stuff that no other producer would be allowed to do.

Speaker 2 So it's like I'd intentionally put a couple of props under the table in the diary room when he was in, so he had to bend down to do stuff.

Speaker 2 So I'd get him to bend down to do something and I'd be like, fuck while you're down there, mate.

Speaker 2 And I remember he left the diary room and he was was like, oh, I've just had the best date ever big, brother.

Speaker 2 And like, yeah,

Speaker 2 I was just allowed to do like weird stuff with them.

Speaker 2 And then, and then a lot of those ideas we were coming up with, Endermole used it as a way of, because they're very smart business people, testing out mini formats.

Speaker 2 There's a few ideas I came up with that I have made no money at all from doing this. It's my just my wages as a junior producer or whatever.

Speaker 2 But ideas that I came up with for challenges and games in there, they got turned into into tv format like i remember i was i was an assistant producer and i had and i was i was always just meddling with the creative and just like sending over ideas like unsolicited ideas and all that stuff and i had this idea for something and it's this is probably still the thing i'm the most proud of coming up with in my career and this is like a long long time ago and i was like all right i've got this idea i sent it over to my boss and i was like right imagine it because the whole show is is formatted around you get voted out there's a big live eviction show and you get kicked out of the show or that's a big Friday night, big live show.

Speaker 2 And these shows were getting like back then, seven, eight million viewers live, which for a country with 60 million people living in it. It's everybody.
You know, it's like massive every house. Yeah.

Speaker 2 In there, big Friday night shows. And I was like, what an idea.
What if people were voting for them not to be evicted, but voting for them to be taken out and put in a secret house?

Speaker 2 And then in that house, they could see a stream of what was happening in the real house.

Speaker 2 So as soon as people left, everyone would go, I mean, I hated them anyway, which now every reality show uses that mechanic. No one had done that then.
No one had done it. So

Speaker 2 yeah, no, that's that's

Speaker 2 there's after the 90-day fiancé has it on every reunion show. Every reunion show and the housewives all have it.
All done it. And this had never been done in a reality show before.

Speaker 2 And I was like, you take them out, put them in another house, and they just watch the telly. And what they're watching is everyone telling them what they really think about them.

Speaker 2 And my bosses were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? No one could get their head around it. And I'm like, they're watching like effectively the show.
That's it all.

Speaker 2 And then, and I send this idea, didn't hear anything back. A few weeks later, my boss takes me out and was like, can I have a cover word? Takes me out to walk me into the

Speaker 2 car park, parking lot. And I'm like, have I done something? I'm going to get fired here.
And he goes, remember that idea you told us a little while back? And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And he went, yeah, we've built a secret house. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 He's like, nobody knows. We've built a secret house.
We're going to do it. I've given you a bonus this month.
There's extra money going to your bank.

Speaker 2 Like, got a little, got a little bonus for doing it. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, thanks for that.
Yeah, we're doing it. And they did it.

Speaker 2 And it ended up just being like the most explosive driver of story that had ever happened. These two girls got evicted, go in a house, watch these people, like slagging them off, telling the truth.

Speaker 2 They ended up keeping them in this. They went to be in there for like two days.

Speaker 2 They kept them in there for like a week or a week and a half because the content they were getting was just so insanely good.

Speaker 2 And then they put them back into the house live.

Speaker 2 And after they'd found out everything people were saying, them going back into the house live caused this thing that's still known as fight night on Big Brother, where the whole house went berserk and fought each other and the police ended up being called and coming to the house and the show got hold of it.

Speaker 2 I remember at that point watching it and I was like, we have just killed the show. We're going to like, this is it.
This is the end. We are watching the end.

Speaker 2 No coming back from this. Actually, what happened is it became the most talked about biggest news story in the country that week.
Right. Show did amazingly well.

Speaker 2 Like, it still goes down in history as one of the most insane nights on television ever. But that was like all because of that secret house, watching the footage, going in.

Speaker 2 And that now is like, that's the basis of making reality shows.

Speaker 2 So, Love Island, Love Island actually existed years ago as a show called Celebrity Love Island that was made in the UK. Okay.
And that only lasted one season and it was good.

Speaker 2 It was like a load of celebrities on an island. It was a bit slightly different to the format now, but kind of the same show.
Then years later, it came back as Love Island, reformatted as Love Island.

Speaker 2 And that's the Love Island that we know now. Right.
So effectively, the show I worked on was the first Love Island. It wasn't the celebrity one, but it's the first Love Island as we know it.

Speaker 2 So I got a call from...

Speaker 2 This will probably give you an idea of the type of shows I'd worked on. I got a call from the woman who was like in charge of that bit of ITV who were making the show.
And she's like,

Speaker 2 Danny,

Speaker 2 everything you make is a fucking car crash. So I've got a challenge for you.
I've spent all of my budget on this new show and I'm scared it's going to be boring.

Speaker 2 Can you just crash it into a wall for me? Can you just crash this show into a wall? She's like, if this isn't in the news every day, we failed. You're trashy.
You do all that stuff.

Speaker 2 Just smack the show into a wall. And I was like, bit offended, but I get what you mean.
Yeah, yeah. So, like, there was a really amazing team of people on it kind of making it anyway.

Speaker 2 It's very much their show, not my show, that, like, to develop this show. That's impressive that you had already had that reputation.
Yeah, like, I was out there.

Speaker 2 Like, they were like, we got, we had the fight. I was the one from fighting.
Yeah, yeah. I became the bigger one from fight night.

Speaker 2 I'm like, if you've seen a reality show where a load of people go into a house and either have sex with their or have a fight or both, I was probably responsible for like something on that show. But,

Speaker 2 yeah, and they were just like, crashing all.

Speaker 2 So my job was like, I came in as the sort of, the sort of fly in the ointment, the sort of grit in the machine of just trashing it up a little bit, which was a pretty fun job to have.

Speaker 2 There were other people who were doing the hard work and it was like their show. Do you know what I mean? And they'd come up with the format.

Speaker 2 Like, my job was just like you're suggesting some weird things. And, and I think like,

Speaker 2 and I think

Speaker 2 that friction between me and them was a really important part of. that series becoming the series that became.
Yeah. That I think like, you know,

Speaker 2 and this is not criticism to people working on it at all. Some of the ways they want to do it was like a bit straighter than some of the shows I've done.
The shows I did were a lot more,

Speaker 2 you meddle with people, you're twisting it, it's action-packed. Well, you were experimenting at that time too, prior to this, right?

Speaker 2 Like, you were coming up with weird stuff that who knew what was going to stick. You were just throwing stuff out, right? And then a bunch of it ended up sticking, and it was weird.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a lot of criticism thrown at reality shows that's like you're really exploiting people and making them do humiliating things. And there there obviously is some truth to that, especially

Speaker 2 on some shows. But a thing I have always been very conscious of, and this is my argument back on these things, always is, it's like those people want to be on television.

Speaker 2 And a thing that no one kind of, the people don't talk about enough now is like they're coming to you as a producer, asking for a story like say you're in Love Island or say you're in one of these shows in there.

Speaker 2 And they're like, what should I do? They come up to you and they're like, am I making the edit? Am I making the edit?

Speaker 2 Like, they don't want me to leave them alone to be boring, to not make it into the show. And then they've given up six months of their life and achieve nothing.

Speaker 2 So when they say to you, am I making the edit? What should I do? What do you say? I think it's like different shows, different groups, different shows, different things.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, on some of the trashier shows I've worked on and stuff, you're just like, now you need to ramp it up a bit. You need to like, I know that you don't like him.

Speaker 2 Stop saying it behind his back, say it to his face. I know that.

Speaker 2 Like they want, they want to be in the show.

Speaker 2 Like the worst thing for them would be that give up their job, do this show, come out, sit with them friends and family to watch it, and they're not in the edit. Right.

Speaker 2 That is the worst thing that could happen. Right.
You kind of go like, what they want is the guidance on making a really good show. Right.
That's going to be watched. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I think a lot, yeah, a lot of your job as a producer is like, it's creating that show. And I think it's like helping them be good on the television.
Yeah. Like fundamentally.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because they're not actors. They're just attention seekers.
Yeah. And they need to be directed.
Yeah. Just like actors who are attention seekers.

Speaker 2 And it's all just like, you know, most overused word, ever. It's all just storytelling, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Everything's just like, it's just helping them tell a story that's going to work in the format that they're in, the show that they're in on camera.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 In the peak of me working on Big Brother, and at this point, Big Brother being like the biggest TV format in the world so like so big brother and this is the this is one way the industry has changed a lot it used to be back then pre-streamers if you came up with a good idea for a format for a tv show it would then get made in loads of countries all over the world every country has their own version of that show right so there was a point where big brother was being made in like 40 countries at once it's very much a time of show's big it gets made in loads loads of countries so big brother at this point probably the biggest tv format in the world at that time getting made in dozens of countries all over the world endem are producing all of these shows.

Speaker 2 And they held this thing where it was like, uh,

Speaker 2 I think, I have to think, yeah, this genuinely did happen.

Speaker 2 I didn't just imagine this happening. They held this like conference once a year in different parts of the world every year.

Speaker 2 And they'd fly in all the kind of like top-level creatives from that country's big brother.

Speaker 2 And they would meet in this like kind of conference thing, like the UN, all these people from all over us, like two or three people from, you know, from each country.

Speaker 2 And you'd sit and have this conference around a massive round table, literally like the UN looks like.

Speaker 2 And everyone would just talk about what had happened on their big brother that year. So you'd learn from each other's people doing it.
And it was like, in one year, they asked me to do it.

Speaker 2 And I was quite surprised. It was like, I was like, I was too junior theoretically to do it, but I was massively involved in the creative.
So we flew in for this conference.

Speaker 2 And even the people you're meeting are weird as fuck. Like these producers from all over the world, that on its own is like, this is a reality show.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like these people getting flown in. So like, we're all in, go in for day one today, go to this conference.
And we're sat around the table. And it's like, one at a time, everyone goes, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 So, you know, I'm from the UK. Our big theme this year was big brother being evil.
And then this happened. And then this happened.
And the figures were like this.

Speaker 2 And some of the stories these people had, I'm like, what did he just say?

Speaker 2 What did he?

Speaker 2 What did he just say? And as I'm saying this, right,

Speaker 2 this is for you why my career is not where it should be. I shouldn't be saying any of this.
But like, go around and I remember.

Speaker 2 I remember like one country. I'm not going to say which country it was.
Maybe that protects me slightly.

Speaker 2 Was like, but I'll probably do a probably offensive accent of the guy that was like, dude, so he's like,

Speaker 2 in our big brother this year, the twist is we put in this woman and she's a gypsy. And everyone hates her, not just because she gypsy, because she really annoying.

Speaker 2 Like, what did he just say and it's like so they all hate the gypsy yeah and then it goes to the next one and the guy from belgium is like yeah yeah really successful show this year like figures her up whatever uh at the beginning though i mean what we did for casting this year is we did the casting tour picked the people who were going to be in didn't tell them if they'd made it in the show or not then we just like sent a van round where they worked to their house and some masked men just kidnapped them threw them in the van and like took them to the show.

Speaker 2 But obviously, like when we did that, people saw that happening and phoned the police. And then like armed police turned up and surrounded the van.

Speaker 2 And you're all going, and no one thought this is a risk of this happening. And you're like, okay.

Speaker 2 The Australian guy was like, oh my God, yeah, to God, disaster, disaster this year, yeah, disaster. I mean, viewing figures are really good, you know, until the incident.
What is it?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 Um, and he goes, basically, what happened on the show is

Speaker 2 having a good year, good cast. Everyone's just like, you know, messing around, locking around, having fun.

Speaker 2 There are these people in there, they're all friends, like, I think, I think two of them were kind of a couple, like this boy and this girl, the usual reality show stuff or whatever.

Speaker 2 And the messing around got a bit out of hand. And one of these, one of this guy

Speaker 2 sort of held this girl down, but in a laughing around the pool way, like joking around the pool way.

Speaker 2 And then the other guy balanced his bolt on her head. No!

Speaker 2 No! Tea-bagged her. On television.
On television. And it's like they're sort of laughing about it, but then, you know, like, however it plays out.

Speaker 2 However, it plays out, it plays out, but it's obviously not good. Right.
Because it's not good. It's just playing out.
And then, like, and I'm probably getting the details of this wrong.

Speaker 2 It was a long time ago, but like

Speaker 2 the show, I think the season continued, but after the season the show got literally referenced up to parliament level in australia and then taken off the air for a year or two while they figured out because of that yeah while they worked out what was going on yeah

Speaker 2 there are massive teams now welfare teams care teams whose job is to look after these people who are going to these shows before during and after the shows

Speaker 2 And obviously, that's a really good thing that those care teams exist. Yeah.

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Speaker 2 I think that's been a massive shift in the way shows work from when I worked on them to now, and this is a really big shift is, when I was doing those shows, people applied to be on them.

Speaker 2 They would apply. And when we were doing it, we would do like on Big Brother, we would do open real-life auditions.
People would come and stand in a line for seven hours.

Speaker 2 And our job back then as a tutors was telling them constantly, they probably shouldn't do this. Here's all the things that will happen.
Like, it's a bad idea to do.

Speaker 2 There's a big thing called a talk of doom we do with them of like, we were very open about like what they're getting into to do these shows, but they'd all applied. They'd come to us.

Speaker 2 They wanted to do these shows.

Speaker 2 Now, there's teams of people finding people. Because some of those people get, it's absolutely, they want to be on these shows.
They're doing it. They're like, it's part of their game plan.

Speaker 2 They're like, you know, you build social followers, then you get put on Love Island, then you get a brand deal, then you like, boom. But others, you're like, no, they're getting like

Speaker 2 hit up by producers repeatedly just being asked and asked and asked and asked and asked and convinced to go on these shows and that's the area for me where I'm a bit like hmm

Speaker 2 what feels different to you it's like if you're if you're if you're being asked multiple times to go on a show and saying no and then on the seventh time you say yes I've got a bit of an issue with that why because it's just like They've said they don't want to do it six times.

Speaker 2 Maybe take the hint that they don't want to do it.

Speaker 2 But what does that lead to? So say they say yes on the seventh time. What what does that it does it is it an integrity thing? Like what is it?

Speaker 2 No, I think it's just more like if if for whatever reason in their gut is they don't want to do that show, maybe they don't want to do that show and maybe it's not right for them to do that show.

Speaker 2 Right. I'm really glad that I did work on them.
I'm really glad that I got that experience of working on them. At that time, they were like, they were pop culture.
They were driving the culture.

Speaker 2 They were like front page of news every day. They were creating these people, turning them into stars for the first time.

Speaker 2 Really big thing that I'm actually really genuinely proud of at that time is when we were doing Big Brother particularly, we were casting types of people who you did not see on television at all.

Speaker 2 Okay. And putting them on a massive TV show being watched by millions of people.
So we had the first black winner of a reality show, the first gay winner, the first transgender winner of a show.

Speaker 2 And these are people who like... from communities that were not represented on television.
At the time Nadia, this transgender woman, won our series The Big Brother, they weren't trans people on TV.

Speaker 2 There wasn't trans representation on TV. Right.
We put this woman in, everyone loved her, she won the show. And like those things make a difference to culture.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like when we had the first black winner, that makes a difference. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you mean like like, so actually like in the casting of those shows, and I'm like, and my background is I'm half Indian, half English, my background's Indian.

Speaker 2 I still think South Asian people are massively underrepresented on those shows.

Speaker 2 If I was making those shows now, there was absolutely no way I'd be sat in a room that didn't have South Asian representation in it. Like doing this.

Speaker 2 I think those shows back then particularly were really good actually just putting like giving, you know, giving you airtime with people that you wouldn't know. And that's also how reality, like,

Speaker 2 what was MTV's show? Oh, The Real World. The Real World did the same thing here.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, where you had people who were like HIV positive and young and old and professional and not professional. And, you know.

Speaker 2 And the thing about that, that period of shows, like the real world, the Big Brother back then, you cast them for conflict. So you're like, oh, here's the fundamentalist Christian who hates gays.

Speaker 2 Here's the gay.

Speaker 2 Great. Yeah.
Just cast them for conflict. But what you actually saw then was real world conversations about these issues that often you saw people changing their opinion.
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 So now it's like, so back then you go, you know, the person who's like homophobic, you'd never met someone gay before. And now they're best friends.

Speaker 2 So you'd be living with them and after they'd end up being best friends. And you'd see it play out.
Yeah. And you were like, that's a really positive storyline.

Speaker 2 But now you couldn't have that first bit of the story that would be me going, I don't want to be around them or whatever. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, you couldn't have that bit of the story play out because you have to edit the picture.

Speaker 2 They'd be kicked out for having that opinion oh i see so you don't get to see these real-world change of opinions i see and i and i and i found back then watching those change of opinions really enlightening yeah yeah a it was a window into what people really thought so you get a good temperature check on the country good and bad do you mean after seeing people really saying what they're thinking

Speaker 2 um and not self-producing themselves and then often you saw these stories where it would play out and actually like people who you you'd think would hate each other end up being really close and getting on really well and the idea now i mean you it's so transparent now that you you watch the people like it's as if i'm watching someone watch themselves on tv like they're aware that they're on tv all the time and so it's really hard to know if someone's ever being genuine you know like they want more like you said when someone comes up and is like am i gonna make the cut am i gonna make the cut it feels like literally the entire world is trying to make the cut now with tick tock and stuff going on

Speaker 2 it's like we should stop calling them reality shows because they're not real. They're something else.
What else do you want to talk about? Anything?

Speaker 2 Thing I would say to you is, right, and you know this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's sort of insane that this isn't on video because to get traction now, you're going to get traction through a video clip, not an audio clip. Come again.

Speaker 2 Like, like, like, like, you're a producer. You know, this is the truth.
This needs to be on video.

Speaker 2 But I don't want to be on video. But it's like, but it's like now, the only way things get picked up and get traction is through video clips and social.

Speaker 2 That is like, whether we like it or not, that is the way promo. That is promo.
I don't want to. I want to just go to work.
Why don't you wear like a helmet like Deadmouse?

Speaker 2 Put a paper bag over my head. Bag lady.

Speaker 2 Call yourself bag lady and put a paper bag on your head. There you go.
Everyone's a winner.

Speaker 2 Shut up.

Speaker 2 The Dream is a production of Little Everywhere. You can email us at hello at Little Everywhere and get ad-free versions of this show at thedream.supercast.com.

Speaker 1 An An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

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Speaker 5 Hey, dream listeners, it's finally here. The dream plus, where you can get every single episode of our show with no ads.
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