The real thing

[muckefuck]

So I've been brought back to Project Runway by that tool of the Devil, the Sunday afternoon rerun marathon. Lifetime either learned the trick from masters Bravo or hit upon on its own during the 99.9% of my lifespan during which I ignored its existence entirely. As per usual, monshu was looking for twenty minutes' distraction while ironing and I began by looking for the same when I had some laundry to fold and ended up losing two hours to manufactured drama plus another forty minutes or so to the wickedly funny wrap-ups on the recently rechristened Project Rungay blog.

At least it gave me an opportunity for applying some of the lessons learned watching a lovely dissection of the sausage-making behind reality television by some cynical Brit bastard named Charlie Brooker, which I stumbled upon from rewatching a bit of Stewart Lee on YouTube. He won't tell you fellow overintellectualising knobs much that haven't figured out yourself from critical examining a reality programme instead of simply yielding to its mindless distraction, but it's entertaining to have it all laid out there nonetheless.

If you enjoy Brooker's abrasive style enough to want to invest a bit more time into seeing him behave like a truly massive prick, check out his breakdown of creation of a contestant show starting with this clip: Screenwipe S4E5P1.

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

nice, and edited just snappily enough to make it seem interesting.

I think Runway rather tips its hand during the "coming up next segment" sequences, where they deliberately toy with your expectations. If you didn't know you were watching a story constructed during editing before the ad break, those bits pretty much rub your nose in it. OTOH, I haven't seen any non-fashion-specific product placement in it yet: I'd've thought that would be a natural extension of the format.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

BTW, I would describe Brooker's style as "school of Jeremy Clarkson." cf. Is it just me or is everything shit, a sort of "Stuff White People Like" without the racial get-out clause.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Ouch! Although Brooker lets the cynical mask slip more often than I've seen from Clarkson; sometimes it even falls off completely, as in this heartfelt tribute to the creator of Bagpuss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAftt3UnzoI.

[wwidsith.livejournal.com]

Brooker – for whom comparisons with Clarkson seem unfair – peaked too early with his masterpiece take-off of TV listings magazines (particularly RadioTimes), TV Go Home (http://www.tvgohome.com/). I don't think he's ever done anything quite that awesome since, although his Guardian TV criticism was always worth a read. He once described Ann Robinson as looking "like a woman slowly pushing her face through the taut skin of a tambourine", a phrase which stuck in my head

[lifeandstuff.livejournal.com]

This was good. I've forwarded it along to friends who are really into reality tv. It's one thing to *know* they do that and another to see it shown like that.