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Reality TV
A Study
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unknown individuals rather than professional actors.
Reality TV shows thrive on conflict between the contestants. Theoretically, the conflicts are all the more gripping because they are real — no scripts, no second takes, and little editing. Everything that happened really happened, just as it's shown.
Use This Technique From Reality TV to Heighten Drama In
(an extract-&links) by Michael Chaskes
As an editor for reality television, I’ve come across some techniques for punching up drama during the edit that transcend the genre and extend to other forms of unscripted productions. In the unscripted television world, editors frequently see a certain note from story producers, showrunners, and executives at both the production company and the network: “Make a meal out of it.” Or, alternately, “make it a moment,” or “make it land.”
This note can refer to any important moment in the story—an individual line, a brief exchange of dialogue, a sudden realization, or the split-second before a physical fight breaks out—and it invariably means the same thing: stretch out the moment, and squeeze out every possible ounce of suspense and drama. (Unless it’s a comic scene, in which case you should squeeze out every ounce of, you know, comedy.)
Sometimes this note will simply require accentuating a moment that is very dramatic (or comedic) already. But at other times, you may be asked to highlight an important revelation that should be “landing” like an anvil, but instead is simply floating almost invisibly past the viewer, like a feather in the breeze.
Either way, it’s critical for all editors to possess a bag of tricks for “making moments” when that note arrives. In fact, if you’re sharp enough to figure out which moments deserve special treatment while you’re still cutting your first version of the scene, you may avoid receiving the note in the first place.
https://blog.frame.io/2017/10/25/4-reality-tv-editing-techniques/