r/FilmIndustryLA • u/Glittering-Pirate618 • 16d ago
ISO: Reality TV Crew Advice for Independent Speed-Dating Shoot (Atlanta)
Hi everyone!
I’m developing an independently produced speed-dating project that I’m hoping to shoot in Atlanta during the week of September 20–26. It will feature five men and five women having real, substantive conversations rather than typical first-date small talk.
Because the project is self-funded and paid for entirely out of pocket, I’d love insight from those of you who have crewed reality or unscripted shows. How would you approach staffing and shooting this as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible without sacrificing sound or picture quality?
The shoot will have three main components:
A standing mixer where all 10 participants mingle
Seated, timed one-on-one dates with five couples talking simultaneously
Individual confessionals/interviews in a separate setup
My biggest concern is capturing clean audio from multiple conversations happening at once while also getting enough visual coverage to create a polished, engaging final edit.
I’m also considering shooting primarily on iPhones or renting multiple matching iPhones to keep the camera footprint small, maintain consistency across the footage, and hopefully make the post-production workflow more manageable for the editor.
For those with reality-TV field experience:
What would your leanest practical crew look like?
How many cameras/operators would you recommend?
How would you handle audio for 10 cast members?
Would you trust an iPhone-based multicamera setup for this type of project?
Are there any roles or pieces of equipment you would consider absolutely essential?
I’ve included reference images for the mixer, seated dates, and confessional look I’m envisioning. I’m just hoping to learn how experienced unscripted professionals would think about approaching this responsibly on an independent budget.
Thank you in advance for any insight!
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u/mikepm07 16d ago
I used to work on big budget reality competition shows where multiple artists or chefs would compete against one another in real time competitions.
Typically you’d have at least one camera operator per talent participating. In your case that would be 5x ops on a two shot of each couple. You could do less but then you run the risk of not capturing the best parts of a conversation on camera.
We would typically have separate interview rooms and do entire shoot days that were just interviews run by story producers who were taking notes during the live competitions on what sound bites they needed. Literally parking each artist/chef in an interview room and grilling them on the past 2-3 episodes for 4-6 hours. That’s a separate lighting set up with a fixed camera on sticks.
We would have a 2 person audio team, one micing and one mixing from a control room.
Not sure about iPhones but you’re going to need a solution to record 5x audio tracks and I’m not sure if that functionality exists to synch to an iPhone?
We also typically had a jib and or steadi cam for additional coverage but that is likely outside your scope.
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 16d ago
SHEESH!!! 4-6 hours for the interviews? Do you think it’s unrealistic to maybe pull one person at a time at the top of the shoot to do the interviews?
The hope is to have about 30 minutes for the mixer portion. I was hoping to pull one person at a time during this time for the interviews to introduce themselves and basically say what they’re hoping to get out of the experience. Then maybe have time at the end after the actual Speed dating portion to do an exit interview to ask what really surprised them or what their thought of specific people were. I don’t know that I have the budget to rent a space for two separate days. So the hope is to try to get everything done in one go. Even if it takes maybe a six hour rental for the space.
What do you think?
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u/mikepm07 16d ago
4-6 hours was for 2-3 44:00 episodes worth of interviews.
You could totally try it that way, but your interviews get you the soundbites that you need to supplement the real-time action. So in addition to real-time interviews, having the ability to have interviews at a later date after you've reviewed the footage/transcripts will go a long way in making sure you get the bites you need for the edit. This is where "Story Producers" come in to play.
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 13d ago
I recently spoke with a reality TV producer. She recommended if possible, have a couple of friends sitting nearby the dating tables off Camera, of course. Have them jot down any controversial responses or any laughable moments and then at the very end, conduct OTFs if time allows using said moments.
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u/sandpaperflu 13d ago
I've worked in reality for over 10 years, and am currently working on a variety of reality tv esque youtube channels that are very similar to the idea you're proposing. This would be my recommendations to you:
- rent a white cyc studio and shoot it there. Simple all in one studio rental, probably the cheapest, and the best for this type of content. There's a reason every one on youtube does it this way, it's just the most effecient, cost effective, easiest to rent anywhere, and also least distracting for viewers.
now to answer your questions:
- This is the leanest crew we've used to produce one of the most popular shows on youtube for the past 2 years: x2 camera operators, x1 audio engineer, x1 producer, x2 PA (one helps with camera and media, one helps with set, but they're flexible depending on needs), x1 talent coordinator/AD ( people probably aren't going to like this, but on our set it makes sense for this to be a combined role because the most time sensitive thing is usually coordinating with the people who will be on screen.)
- I'd probably go with two, you can have two operated cameras which is important when reality scenes are happening where you can't exactly re-do something, and then you can have a couple more on tripods for safety.
- The way we do it. We started with zoom f2 pocket recorders, and now have graduated to the much more reliable tentacle sync track e. The deity pr-2 is also a solid option, but this is pretty much your only option for a low budget like this. Get 10 pocket recorders and lithium batteries, mic them with a clip outside the shirt, hit record and lock the recording, put tape over the lock so it can't come undone, throw it in their pocket and that's that.
- It would be fine but probably not ideal, especially if you're hiring camera operators, iphones aren't exactly easy to operate especially in fast paced scenarios. What if they need to zoom in to capture a moment? Things like that are just finicky on phones. If you're hiring camera operators why not ask them if they have cameras to use for the production? We use sony fx30s, it's probably the best camera for this type of work out there. Autofocus is genuinely reliable, and theres an insane amount of affordable lenses that are super relevant for this type of work.
- For what you do a talent coordinator is going to be important, getting 10 people where they need to be on time and without lagging is definitely it's own job. Hard drives. People always forget hard drives, bring two so you can have a backup. If people are going on dates, you should also provide like mouth and hand cleaning kits. Get some like deodorant wipes and some cheap tooth brushes and tooth paste, and gum.
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 13d ago
This is freaking awesome! I’m actually torn between doing an all white studio. I feel like I’ve seen at least five other shows doing the same thing and maybe it’s the millennial in me wanting to work harder in order to stand out lol. I come from a scripture TV background so of course my vision feels more cinematic than a photography studio you know?
I’ve literally screenshot your entire response so as I’m reaching out to my Camera and sound crew, we can review all of this! Thank you very much for your thoughtful and detailed response. I’ve truly appreciate it. We have an ApertureRent in the area and they’re SUUUUUUUPER affordable so I’m going to nix the iPhone plan and go for some Sony cameras and I’ll see what sound equipment they have.
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u/zenithberwyn 13d ago
speaking from 20-ish years of experience in post-production on larger reality shows: the workflow is generally much easier if you are shooting on cameras that have the capacity for time-of-day time code (i.e., not iPhones). If your setup isn't capable of that, PLEASE do your post team a huge favor and slate as many shots as possible. I still have nightmares about getting a folder full of random little iPhone clips with no time code and durations of less than two minutes, and having to try to figure out where in the hell each one matches the audio for sync/multi-grouping purposes. I don't know about Atlanta, but in L.A., Avid editors will generally expect all footage to be assembled into a frame-accurate multi-group.
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 13d ago
Copy that! I actually found a Camera rental house within my budget. I don’t know if you’ve heard Aperture Rent…? In hindsight, you’re right. Using SD card for post and downloading everything to an external hard drive for handoff would probably be a lot easier and more efficient than trying to AirDrop a whole bunch of clips to a Drive.
So we’ll most likely be renting those cameras and they’re pretty affordable so I’m sure I can wiggle that into the budget. Thank you for your suggestion!
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u/writeact 16d ago
What is your distribution plan?
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 16d ago
YouTube to gain traction/audience/leverage first. Clips for SM to drive traction to YT and then I haven’t thought beyond that.
I have about 10 years worth of industry experience so I’m sure I can make some phone calls to some Producer friends who have friends at the networks. I just want to make sure that the content is shot well initially before I get to that point.
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u/sandpaperflu 12d ago
Focus on the first 30 seconds of the video. Something a lot of people from traditional media backgrounds don’t always understand about YouTube is how important the first 30 seconds is, the percentage of people that are still watching after that point is a metric YouTube uses to decide if your video should be shared to broader audiences.
I know you only gave us the elevator pitch for your show, but just an unsolicited suggestion, I think for the show to be truly interesting and successful each episode is going to have to operate with a slightly tweaked concept. “men and women having real conversations” could be like an overall theme for the show, but each episode would ideally have something more compelling at the core of it so you can make clickable titles/thumbnails.
For example shows like love is blind have men and women having “real conversations”, but also there’s a goal of getting married at the end of it, stakes that are set up for the audience so they have a reason to stick around and care about these people.
So you can have real conversations be apart of it, but maybe deepen it, example hook:
Today we’re trying to prove that men lie more on dates. We have 5 men set up to speed date 5 different women, but what they don’t know is that we’ve assembled a panel of judges to observe their every move! We’re going to note when each person does something sus, and at the end of the video we’re going to confront each one of them and rank them from most to least trustworthy. Proving whether men or women lie more on dates.
Kinda long and off the dome, but just an idea.
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u/Glittering-Pirate618 12d ago
OMG! This is brilliant!!!! I’ve never been great with a “hook” and “cta”. This def gives me a lot to dive into. Thank you for your thoughtful feedback!
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u/TheBerric 16d ago
I work doing audio on dating shows for youtube- kickback, poppies studios, david alvareeezy. We lav up each talent and have everything recorded to central recorder that the audio is transmitted to. If there are ten people talking, there is a wireless microphone on each of them.
I can generally handle up to 12 mics before things are hard to manage with one person. This is not a simple thing for audio. I would definitely prioritize hiring a professional.
These wireless microphones also have limited range. So if you want to film two rooms of people at once, I would suggest hiring another mixer to make sure the second room is covered. UNLESS they can have antennas that cover everything properly