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This is a brief report of The Paley Center's "Same City, New Borough: The Real World Does Brooklyn" public program on Dec 5.
[CENTER][B]Why Brooklyn?
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“Why not?” is Real World co-creator Jonathan Murray’s reply.
The cast, executive producer and creator of “The Real World: Brooklyn” met the public last night at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan in one of the center’s recurring Public Programs series. All of the cast were present: Baya, Chet, Devyn, J.D., Katelynn, Ryan, Sarah and Scott, along with show executive producer Jim Johnston and show creator, Jonathan Murray. The host and moderator for the evening was Jeff Gordinier, editor-at-large of Details magazine.
The evening began with a video which probably approximates the first 15 minutes of the new Real World Brooklyn season’s first episode expected to air the second week in January, 2009. As in past seasons, the opening sequence seeks to acquaint the audience with the cast and the house in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, with its spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty. These first few minutes, though, contain many hints that this is not a hard drinking, hot tub hungry group. There is something different about them; it appears they all have interesting and even compelling back stories. But, if you are a recent watcher of the MTV series, you immediately wonder who will be putting phone numbers in a drawer, which ones are the loud, obnoxious drunks, who will attract the groupies, and who will christen the hot tub. An hour later, it was clear that this cast is one the older generations of veteran watchers will appreciate. Welcome back 30 something viewers…
Before introducing the cast, Gordinier, a long time Real World follower, provided a few general historical observations that largely mirrored his article in the magazine Details, [URL="http://men.style.com/details/features/full?id=content_6746&pageNum=3"][B][I][U]The True Story of Seven Strangers…and You[/U][/I][/B][/URL]. Three that seemed to stand out were his following observations:
“It hit me that we knew these people and that we’ve come to think of them as friends in our lives, strangely, as classmates.”
“It almost goes without saying that The Real World blazed a trail that led to the new world of reality TV.”
The show “pioneered the ‘friending’ of America, a world in which everyone is famous on ‘facebook’ and everyone is on a first name basis with everyone else.”
Here are some of the things the panelists had to say”
Jonathan Murray on the hour format and other stuff:
“After 19 seasons of doing the show as a half hour, in the 20th season, Hollywood, we were talking with MTV and we always felt we could tell stories if we could do the show in hour. And they said yes. We noticed that on Bravo, a lot of their reality shows are an hour and working really well the audience seems to hold from 10 to 11 PM and so we went to an hour.
Moderator: “Why Brooklyn?”
Jonathan Murray: “Why not? We done the first season down in Soho. We did the next (New York) season in the West Village, and Brooklyn has become a real place a lot of New Yorkers live in, and so why not?“
“There was no hot in the first season in New York; but, when we came to LA, LA is all about hot tubs and so in that first LA season, Venice, we put a hot tub in. It didn't produce that much the first season and we didn't have one in San Francisco. We didn't have one in London. It was kind of in Miami where the hot tub became a story.”
Both Murray and Johnston commented that they were seeing the opening video in HD for the first time. The show is edited in "low def." Both said they saw things in HD that they had not noticed before and were going to have to revisit the show before it was ready for broadcast.
Jim Johnston on the 8th cast member and production challenges:
“From the crew perspective, it seemed like one extra person was a lot of extra coverage for us.”
“We didn't give that group job this season. We go pursue their own desires all over New York. We a people going in eight directions all around Manhattan and basically two cameras to try and follow them. It was hard.
“We had nearly 1000 places across New York cleared (to shoot in)... whether it was a volunteer facility or a restaurant or a bar…”
Random cast responses to moderator and audience questions:
Devyn: “I think we can all say we’ve really grown. For me (The Real World) was a great opportunity, a great platform. It was the perfect vehicle to get me to New York to do what I want to do…that I probably wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.”
Chet: “I’m straight.” (His casting tape shows him sitting at a sewing machine). He thinks it is crazy that people would judge him by what he wears. (In person, there is no question he is straight.)
Baya: “For me, I never thought about making hooking up an issue. I wasn't looking for anything. I came out here to pursue my goals, if something was going to happen it was going to happen, but that's not what I came out looking for it all.”
Baya also related a very funny incident about her parents walking in one her watching an episode of Bunim Murray's "Bad Girls Club" at the time she was involved in the casting process and was worried that The Real World was much the same.
Katelynn: “We grew up in an era where it was inevitable that you were going to watch at least one season of The Real World.”
Katelynn's clear purpose in coming to the house was to be an advocate with a social agenda of gender identity, but she talked about being respectful and careful in recognizing that not all her cast mates might respond warmly to her. Yet, it was obvious from the entire cast that Katelynn enjoys immense support personally. She is a powerful speaker with a big voice that frequently dominated the hall (in a good way).
Ryan: In responding to an audience question, Ryan said his Brooklyn family was similar in many respects to his military unit, in the he came to rely on the cast as he had with the people in his unit. He comes across as a fun loving guy, but well grounded.
J.D. “I’ve been watching the show since I was a kid, and even though we have our ups and downs, you see it through every season and through … The Gauntlet, the challenges, they end up being a family, and that is part of the reason I wanted to be on the show, I wanted to experience the family that I never had.”
Ryan: “I was familiar enough with the show that I knew what it was about. I really didn’t watch much of the show until I was in the casting process… That (Hollywood) was actually the first and only season that I saw.”
Sarah: (I didn't write down anything she said. On reflection, it's not that she had nothing to say, but that when she talked it was like the audience was in a one-on-one conversation with her, and note taking would have seemed rude.)
Scott: In responding to an audience question about "fame," Scott reiterated what others had said, that this cast came with agendas that didn't include their "15 minutes of fame." He talked about going home over Thanksgiving and going to his favorite bar where both people he went to high school and college with hang out at Thanksgiving. He said he wasn't interested in talking about himself. He wanted to know what his friends had been up to for the past four months. Katelynn talked about Scott using the cameras in a club as a way to identify people he didn't want to know. The groupies were attracted to the camera lights, but Scott's interest was on the people elsewhere in the club who couldn't be bothered the with the cameras. Those were the people he wanted to meet. He is obviously a well-grounded guy -- albeit one with incredible abs.
Jon Murray on the casting process: "If you don't have flaws, you probably aren't going to be on The Real World." The objective is to put together a diverse group of people who, over time, will discover that they have things in common with each other. He says they have learned over time just to pick great people who have lots of layers to them. "There isn't a formula." His experience is that it takes about 1000 people to find one cast member. He only sees the final 65 tapes and looks for on-camera charisma. One question he asks is "are we going to tire of this person in a couple of weeks?"
It was an interesting event which provided some good insight into the cast and their character. One topic of conversation the first night in the house may tell you about the substance of this group. The topic: the human genome project. Next time you have the opportunity, bring that subject up with someone from the Austin, Denver, Las Vegas or Sydney cast and anticipate the blank stare coming back at you.
