Filming a Reality TV Show Reunion

Last night, along with the help of a colleague, I filmed a reunion for a reality TV show produced by a student called Love in the Macon. The entire show, except the reunion episode, was filmed on the producer’s Iphone. It is extremely impressive how this student got all of these people together and then recorded a quality show through is phone. Anyways, I have never recorded a reality show. While very challenging, it was a great experience.

The first problem we encountered was having enough room to frame the establishing shot. The set included 2 couches and 3 chairs. There were 4 people on each couch, and 1 person in each chair on either end of the couches and the host in the chair in between the couches. There was plenty of room in the venue but there was a staircase and a couple of pillars that were placed inconveniently for what we were trying to do. So we rearranged the set 3 or 4 times before we could fit everyone into the frame how we wanted to.

We had 2 camera (no iphone this time). One was stationary (the establishing shot) and the other was mobile trying to capture close-ups of whoever was talking. The stationary camera was a no-brainer, but having to move the other camera constantly as the people on the show were going back and forth was very difficult as they would argue and interrupt one another and a couple of fights almost broke out. Needless to say, it was intense.

Despite the struggles in getting the set right and trying to capture the close-ups of everyone when the time was right it was a great experience that I won’t forget. Every time I film something I am reminded of how much I love production and everything that goes along with it, even if I’m just the guy holding the boom mic. I would be more than happy to do something like this in the future.