As a viewer of reality shows, you might be curious about the behind-the-scenes stories of their production and how they are filmed as well as how "real" they really are.
Let's explore the behind-the-scenes of reality TV programs below.
The BTS Stories of Reality Shows
Despite depicting the "real life" of its subjects, reality TV productions still have a large crew involved with cameras around all the time and producers making decisions every single minute on the flow of the shoot.
For example, in The Bachelor, former executive producer Scott Jeffress admitted that producers influence who stays and who's out of the competition.
"We would say, ‘We’d like you to keep this one because she’s good for TV, and this other one we’d like you to get to know better,'" he said.
Aside from that, the producers also decide on the order of the rose ceremony even if it might seen on the screen that the contestants have power.
While the cast that we see on screen seemingly have a great time doing their activities and tasks and is happening at a fast pace, shooting actually takes several hours.
Bachelor in Paradise bartender Wells Adams revealed, "So yeah, I’d get up there, go set the bar up, and then they’d start sending people down to my bar. And it depends — if it’s a rose ceremony, then that’s a night shoot."
The 'Real' Truth of Reality Shows Behind the Scenes
Reality shows always give us the impression that the situations that we're seeing are "real" and the interactions are genuine in some ways.
However, for the most part, they are still manipulated and the events did not take place in the exact timeline that was presented on screen.
For example, the filming of the dates in Love is Blind takes place for many hours, not minutes which is what the finished product looks like.
"As the time prolonged and as people started to get connected and matching up, the dates would get longer, maybe four to five hours. But then you'd still be dating multiple people, so dating total a day could be 16-hour days," former contestant Lauren Speed revealed.
Another example is The Masked Singer as it was revealed in a behind-the-scenes story that the contestants who unmasked freshen up their hair and make-up before they get revealed. In the version that we see on screen, they seamlessly make an impression that they're happening back-to-back.
As much as we want to believe that reality shows are "real," the behind-the-scenes stories that we're hearing show us that they're still curated and the "reality" aspect is still bent to fit a certain narrative on screen.
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