★★★★★ 0/5

Eyes wide open for the tricks of Reality

The Block's Shaynna Blaze says contestants shouldn't expect to have control over editing and to go in with their eyes wide open.

9
Leave a comment

2014-02-28_2357Reality TV contestants need to realise they won’t have control over the editing process and that benefitting in the long run sometimes comes at a price, according to The Block judge, Shaynna Blaze.

Speaking to TV Tonight following criticisms from contestant Steve O’Donnell, Blaze suggests that as a Fan vs Favourites entrant he should have been well-informed.

“It’s surprising that he’s a massive fan of the show and there have been enough Reality shows around to know that things do get edited. You do about 20 hours of TV and it gets condensed into 30 minutes,” she says.

“Everything that you do is recorded to make it entertaining.

“Unfortunately the thing with going on a show is you have no control over that. As a judge I make a lot of positive comments that don’t get put out, and I accept that because that’s what the show is.

“Going into it it’s unfortunate that he didn’t have his eyes open in the process.”

But despite the angst, there’s usually a nice reward at the end, with a potentially lucrative auction to soften the blow for contestants.

“They get a big fat cheque and us as judges go ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of that money!’ Unfortunately in that type of thing there are a lot of plusses and crosses that go with it. So if you want to walk away with a big cheque in your have, you have to realise it’s not going to be light and fluffy the whole way,” Blaze says.

“I think at the moment it’s still a bit raw for him. They only finished 2 weeks ago and there’s a massive amount of exhaustion, physical and emotional. You’ve got to think he’s just a little bit frayed.

“He’s been cooped up in this place and come out to this normality that he doesn’t know. There’s a lot of social media reaction to them and it’s a world that he doesn’t know. So he’s come out punching because he’s getting defensive and we don’t know what we’d be doing in that situation too.”

O’Donnell has said his Facebook comments meant only for friends to view had been given to the media.

9 Responses

  1. It would interesting to get a look at the terms and conditions and unsigned individual contracts that contestants are required to sign?

    Especially the glossary of specific words, usually listed at the beginning of such contracts, with the definitions of those words, ie. Editing, Intent, Tampering, Complicit, Reconstruction of events and conversations and possibly Naivety and Ambiguity.

    But lets not forget these newcomers were supposed to be big Fans of the Block, and anyone who is a fan of the Block, would know that Editing is a major factor in its production, so it probably depends if editing has been done constructively or maliciously under the banner of entertainment and had been properly defined as such/either in their contract.

  2. “They get a big fat cheque and us as judges go ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of that money!”

    … I’d guess if it was reduced to an hourly rate not a single one of these judges would want it.

  3. This is a simple question for the producers.
    Did they utilise grabs from a seperate conversation to a different party and represent it as this contestant states?
    If so then own up to producing bastardry
    But if, as I suspect, the contestant is having selective memory and isn’t happy with what his friends and family think now after the fact, then suck it up princess. You said it you wear it. From experience contestants have exceptionally selective memories,
    But now raised it would be good to know.

    It’s a a simple Yes or no question for the prodco (cavalier I think ) ? Was the conversation broadcast as it happened, albeit cut for effect, or a different conversation with a different supplier at a different time as suggested and as such a misrepresentation?

  4. It’s not surprising all reality is edited in a way to create drama, emotion etc. otherwise it would be boring and no one would watch.

  5. So basically what she is saying is that although it goes under the banner of”reality” it is anything but.
    And if any viewer or contestant is misled it is their own fault because of their naivety.
    Networks and Producers off the hook!

  6. There is always going to be editing to condense, select and construct narratives and drama.

    But editing bits of a separate phone calls and conversations with different people together to make up a totally fictitious conversation is another matter. The contestants should have some control over what they shown to say, and the audience needs to believe that is what they did say or do. Or what is point.

Leave a Reply