Learning to be real on reality TV

Keen to appear on TV show “Big Brother”, the 51-year-old therapist and mother of two enrolled in New York’s new Reality Television School, one of a growing number of people on both sides of the Atlantic seeking help getting on reality TV.

“I want the 15 minutes of fame that everybody wants,” Bolton told Reuters during a break in the three-hour course, one of about 30 people who paid up to US$140 to attend the second session held by the school.

Bolton, who said she also liked “The Amazing Race” but was worried about the stunts, was aware of the irony of taking a course to learn to be real. “You say to yourself ‘What do you need that for, when reality really means being one’s self?’ Why do you need to go to school to be yourself?”

But she and many others are lining up.

In London, the Central School of Speech and Drama — which has made its name teaching traditional theater to the likes of Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench — has been deluged with reality television wannabes.

It received 4,000 applications this year for 47 places in its undergraduate acting program. Geoffrey Coleman, head of acting, said most of them had come to the wrong place.

“There are quite a lot of people who are, unfortunately, quite frankly, deluded,” said Coleman. “There is no 15 minutes of fame here. This is about a lifelong career, a lifelong journey into their art.”

But acting coach, performer and producer Robert Galinsky saw a gap in the market. He opened the New York Reality Television School after helping animal groomer Jorge Bendersky prepare to compete on Animal Planet’s “The Groomer Has It.”

Bendersky came third and now gives students at Galinsky’s school his top 10 tips, which include learning how to do makeup, preparing outfits, and alerting cameras of what you plan to do so they don’t miss it.

Galinksy said criticism that his school was training people just to be themselves was naive.

“Reality TV is not reality TV, everything is concocted and contrived and it’s just an unscripted drama,” he said. “So if you think you’re watching real people being real, then you’re already way off base.”

Galinksy dishes out “eight commandments of reality television” to his students, which include: “show confidence not cockiness,” “say ‘yes’ as often as possible” and “never say ‘I am an actor.’”

Five television cameras film their every move and screen it on large televisions around the room, preparing students for the intensity of being watched constantly.

A producer who casts reality television gives audition “do’s and don’ts,” and they are tested in a speed-casting session. An exercise, modeled on the police parading of a suspect known as a “perp walk,” tries to help students deal with the range of reactions they might encounter.

Billy Garcia, a former contestant on U.S. series “Survivor,” told the students reality television was a good way to have fun and make money. “Two years later, I’m still making a buck off it,” he told them.

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