Jul 31, 2008 11:23 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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What more is there to say about The Hills? Since its turgid, overly-lit debut in 2006, the MTV reality gloop—about pretty dim things wandering the echoing halls of Los Angeles—has captured the fancy of a small and annoying group of Americans. Debate has raged about the verisimilitude of the ladies' (and even-worse gents') exploits, because they all seem so staged and wooden. Every possible story has churned around the media washing machine, and now Entertainment Weekly has a cover story this week in which they promise "The Most Intimate Look Ever" at the show.
And, I dunno, it's probably not so much EW's fault as it is the tight-lipped and withholding producers' and stars' that the article doesn't really teach us anything new. The two most interesting tidbits come when we learn that Lauren, arguably the star of the show, sometimes wakes with a start in the middle of the night and thinks she's being filmed, and when they provide a little rundown of the show's "scheduled reality" (like that turn of phrase) production schedule. That description is below.
As with most scenes on The Hills, the cast knew ahead of time that cameras would be present at the barbecue. Almost everything is planned in advance, which is why production of The Hills has always faced tremendous skepticism — is it contrived? Is it fake? The answer is...to a point. The Hills is, essentially, scheduled reality. A typical week begins with producers calling the core cast members on Sunday and getting intel on what's happened to them over the weekend. An e-mail update is sent to the staff that night so everyone can prepare for Monday's ''story meeting,'' in which the producers and story editors sit around and dissect the Hills girls' personal and social lives. From that, they determine whom to film during the week. (On average, it takes editors four to six weeks to cull through the footage and put together an episode.) Lauren and her costars are forbidden to attend these meetings. ''I would love to sit through one of those,'' says Lauren, ''because it's really them being like, 'Yo, did you hear what this person said?'''
Send an email to Richard Lawson, the author of this post, at richardl@gawker.com.
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