Betty TV for images from Freaky Eaters
MM
My story: narrative structure Drawing in the viewers by showing me to be
a fairly normal and likeable guy begins my story with equilibrium. The disruption is my meat addiction and the four weeks I have to change my diet and my life sets up a story for the viewers to become engaged with. Can he do it? Will his vegetarian girlfriend keep putting up with him? Stay tuned to find out. Over the following week I spent two days in
London. I met the experts in Leicester Square; Dr Stephen Briers the psychologist and Nathalie Savona the nutritionist. Stephen I immediately recognised from the Wife Swap series and Nathalie I remembered from Series 1 of Freaky Eaters. It was during my introductions that I started to notice how much I was being required to perform for the camera. After meeting the experts once, the camera set-up would change and I would be expected to ‘act’ in the same way as I had done in the first take. For a nervous guy like me, this meant in the first take I was very nervous to meet them but then in the next few takes I felt calmer but had to act just as nervous. Very strange! I was then taken to a screening room to
witness my friends and family appealing to me to eat like a sensible, normal, healthy person. This was emotional and I could feel the camera was close up on my face waiting to catch any tears. I then had about half an hour on camera with the psychologist. He had obviously read through all the researcher’s notes and knew what was needed out of me for the programme. This felt rushed and by the end of the day I
34 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre
felt disillusioned with the programme making process. It really dawned on me how little time I would actually get with the experts, and how much time I would be sitting around waiting for the crew to set up. The next day was spent with Nathalie the
nutritionist trying new foods. A horrible and stressful experience, let alone with a camera in my face and a director wanting more close-ups of me trying things! When I got home after the London shooting
I was expecting a rest and a break from filming. However, the next day we were throwing away my freezer drawer full of meat and starting my new meat-free food schedule. This was a terrifying night and I did not do a video diary because I was in no mood for sharing my feelings with the country. Four weeks with no meat! I was prepared to cut down but this seemed unrealistically drastic. The whole process took up most of my free
time when not at work and I developed even greater respect for the people who work on these shows. They work very long hours and often work late in the evening and on the weekends. They do not rush and are absolutely committed to perfection, no matter how many shots or re-takes are required. By October 7th I was tired, hungry and ready to complete my final challenge: eating a totally vegetarian meal with my friends and family! Despite a long day of filming, I survived and even ate the whole meal without retching! For many people there, the meal was a quick lesson in the unreality of reality TV as the director constantly asked people to repeat
themselves (for close-ups) and got us to walk in the house about six times to get the shots he wanted.
Post-production and
aftermath A month later we had one last day of filming
to see if I had kept to my new diet. And then began the agonising four month wait for the transmission of the show. How would I be represented? Spoilt? Childish? Ridiculous? On the day of transmission, I watched the
programme with friends and was pleasantly surprised. I think I came out OK. I heard myself being ridiculed on Scott Mills’ Radio 1 show the next day and was then teased some more on Harry Hill’s TV Burp. Somebody has posted Freaky Eaters on
YouTube so there really is no escaping it now. I have learnt a great deal about making factual programmes, which has been incredibly useful when teaching on the BTEC National Diploma in Media. I have made useful contacts in the media industry and had first-hand experience of the making of a reality TV programme and would therefore recommend it to anyone… as long as you can handle the humiliation!
Peter Turner is a Media Lecturer at Bracknell and Wokingham College.
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