I know most of y’all tune in to BillCammack.com to listen to me talk yang about women & dating, but I’ve been preoccupied recently with the clown show known as United States Politics.

I’m over it now, so we’ll be returning to our regularly-scheduled programming.. joined in progress.

What had HAPPENED was…

Why Did I Bother?

A little over 4 years ago, I had never heard of Barack Obama. EvAr.

At some point, I became aware that the first VIABLE black candidate was running for the Presidency of the United States of America.

The rest of the people who ran were clearly merely symbolic. They had never had anywhere near resembling even the slightest, most minute, miniscule chance of coming anywhere close to being nominated as a party’s candidate, much, much, much, much, MUCH LESS having any inkling of an opportunity to come close to winning the general election.

None.

So then, I was like “Hmm… I might be witnessing history here, so let me pay attention.

So I found out he was going to be running against John McCain, and I was like “That figures”. John McCain fit that mold that you expect from people that Republicans nominate to be President.

McCain got caught looking angry a couple of times, but I didn’t see any footage of him actually looking stupid, so it was a toss-up to me.. Let’s say that I felt like Obama had a 35% chance of winning the election and becoming the PotUS.

Next thing you know.. And, for me, this was like one of those “Where were you when Nixon resigned? o_O” or “Where were you when you found out about 911″ situations.. I became aware from the television that the Republicans had selected a female to be the Vice President if McCain became President.

Without knowing anything at all about Sarah Palin, whom I had never heard of until that very news report, because I don’t give a flying **** about politics, I immediately thought that this was some sort of tactical error on the Republicans’ part.

I felt like they had been planning on Hillary Clinton becoming the Democratic nominee, so they decided to split the “I want to vote for a female” vote by sending their own female to the big dance, negating the “You can be a part of history by electing the first female as President or Vice President” effect which would have occurred if they had selected another white male to run with McCain.

I figured that maybe they had made promises that they couldn’t back out of when Obama defeated Clinton.

So then, I started hearing news reports about Sarah Palin, and I suddenly had zero doubt in my mind that if the election occurred fairly, Barack Obama was going to be the 44th President of the United States of America.

None.

No doubt, whatsoever.

It was literally impossible that America was going to vote for a ticket that included Palin as VP with McCain being in (according to pundits) questionable health at his age.

This would have been tantamount to electing Palin President, which will never happen, so I was absolutely certain that barring ridiculousness, Obama was going to win, which, of course, he did.

I immediately became interested in the next election. I’ve never been interested in a Presidential election ever, before 2008, and I wanted to make sure I was aware of the scenario when 2012 rolled around, so I wouldn’t be like “I guess the Republicans didn’t have anyone viable to send as VP, so they threw up a Hail Mary, sending Palin”.

What I’ve found out (albeit, through television punditry and internet research) is that the process doesn’t work the way I imagined it did.

Money Talks, But Bull**** Doesn’t Have To Walk

My impression was that each team selected who they thought the best person was and then sent them to the general election. You know.. Like in hockey, when you have to decide the game by a shootout, you don’t send Herbs to try to score. You send your best players.

So I was prepared to see and hear from the best & the brightest of the Republican party during their nomination process, and instead, I was treated to, to use my cousin Nigel’s term, and pardon my French for a second, but “an embarrassing shitshow”.

I’m an Independent. I vote for whomever I feel like voting for. I’m not a Republican, yet their candidates suck so badly that *I* feel embarrassed when they say such stupid, uninformed, and generally assholeish things that week after week they alienate more and more of the American population that they’re going to have to turn to for votes in the general election.

I’m now aware of what had happened in 2007, and it’s happening again in 2011.

Basically, running for President costs money, for advertising, entry fees to places, travel, etc. If you have enough money, you can run for your party’s nomination ’till the cows come home. You can’t get ejected for lunacy or idiocy. Nobody from your party can stand up and say “This person is an idiot. Remove them from the roster.”

To mention hockey again, it’s like you’re the captain of a team, but YOU don’t get to choose the players on your team, and you get stuck with a bunch of Herbs. What was the point of your being captain, if you don’t get to decide who plays and who doesn’t? o_O

To make matters worse, the requirements are different for winning the Republican nomination than they are to win the general election. The things you have to say to get people to clap at Republican debates are the exact same things that you would NEVER SAY if you wanted anybody else to entrust their well-being and that of their families to you by voting for you to be the PotUS.

This is why I’ve maintained from the beginning that Mitt Romney is the only candidate that’s currently on the roster that has even a remote chance of defeating President Obama in the 2012 election.

Nobody trusts what Romney says, because there’s just as much footage of him saying THING as there is footage of him saying -THING.. Like two different things that can’t possibly BOTH be beliefs of the same person, there’s videotape of him swearing up and down that he believes in both, depending on the crowd he’s speaking to and what he’s trying to get them to do.

That might seem to be a liablity. In the general election, it isn’t, because Romney can say he’ll do similar things to what Obama would do if we just replace Obama with him.

None of the rest of the Republican candidates can say that.

The only one that sounds like he has any sense, and who definitely has the experience to be a decent President, in my opinion, is Jon Huntsman, but he’s never been polling well, so we’ll see if he ever gains traction.

Actually, Ron Paul has sense too, except it’s not the kind of sense that’s going to prompt anyone to elect him PotUS.

In fact, even though Paul has been CONSISTENTLY hovering around #3 in every poll I’ve seen since the Iowa Straw Poll, which he barely came in second to Michele Bachmann in, the Republicans consistently talk around him and never mention him, even as the other candidates surge and soon fall off.

So, His own party won’t back him, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens if he decides to run anyway, after not receiving the nomination.

All of the nominees other than Romney have painted themselves into corners that are going to cause them to get DEMOLISHED when the Democrats start running attack ads. They don’t even have to make things up. All they have to do is play back the tapes of what the candidates have said over the past several months that they’ve been having debates and otherwise running their mouths to the press.

I Am Jack’s Complete Lack Of Interest

However.. My sudden and complete lack of interest in this process isn’t even the fault of the horrific Republican candidates. It’s actually Congress that has made me realize that none of this actually matters.

I thought it would be obvious to everyone that allowing America to default on its debt was entirely unacceptable. Instead, they waited until the last day to decide what they were going to do, which they could have decided way before that.

Imagine your wife tells you to take out the garbage, and you’re like “Nah”.

Imagine she keeps badgering and pestering you, and you’re like “Nope”.

Let’s say you don’t take out the garbage for days, until the whole house smells and she’s about to take it out on her own, and then you go “Psych! :D HAHA I’ll take it out! :D”

You think you’re getting laid anytime soon? o_O

Since your ass KNEW you wanted to screw your wife, you should have known was was going to happen TO YOUR HAPPINESS if you played that situation down to the wire and done the right thing.

Congress played that game and America’s credit rating got downgraded.

In fact, there were Republicans, including Bachmann, that are very happy and proud to say that they voted AGAINST the “Final debt deal” => projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/112/house/1/votes/690/.

This made me relatively suspicious. Upon researching the situation, I found out that some Republicans have made it their top political priority to deny President Obama a second term:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/2gM-1HbK4qU

When I found out about this, I was sure they were going to send Romney, because sending anyone else from that cast of characters is an automatic LOSS for the Republican party.

If McConnell was serious (and, of course, he was) about denying President Obama a second term, it was imperative that the Republicans field viable candidates and then back the strongest one, with the best personality, most intelligence, best Presidential demeanor, and best handle on the things a Presidential nominee would need to know about WAY. BEFORE. HE (or she). BECAME. A. CANDIDATE.

So then, I watched as Romney couldn’t get past approximately 25% (1 out of every 4 people saying they’d vote for him) in the polls.

Upon researching the situation, I found out that Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

This is automatically a problem. Listen to this dude that’s down with Rick Perry:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/7aF2Cnhr5jQ

In case you can’t see the video, here’s what dude said:

Perry Supporter: The decision for Conservative, Evangelical Christians right now, is going to be “Do we prefer somebody who is truly a believer in Jesus Christ, or somebody who is a good moral person, but he’s a part of a cult?”. And it’s not politically correct to say, but it’s true, Mormonism is a cult.

If you look at the states that Romney won in his 2008 campaign (marked in yellow):

Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008

none of them are in the South (also known as The Bible Belt)

On top of that, he only got 11 states, vs 31 states that McCain won, who subsequently got SMIZASHED by Obama in the general election.

Since Romney’s rich, he gets to run for President again, because as long as you have money, you can be involved.

That, by the way, is what Herman Cain is still doing in this race also. He’s backed by infinite funding from his “brothers from another mother”:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/lv4GGbK60J8

Anyway.. Once I found this out, I was like “The Republicans are going to have to get over this Mormon thing if they’re going to back their only hope for a 2012 victory, since preferable people like Chris Christie and Paul Ryan refused to run.

Unfortunately, this is where Congress comes in.

All Your Decisions Are Belong To Us

If you listen to “regular” Republicans talk about the Tea Party, they say that they’re just a minority and don’t make any decisions… However.. Every time you turn around, some Republican decision has been influenced by the Tea Party => huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/04/tea-party-gop-2012_n_948348.html.

To put it plainly.. Let’s say you have 20 team members and the other team has 15, so that every time you vote on something, you win.

Now.. Let’s say that 7 of your team members consider themselves a group. That still makes them a minority, as you still have 13 team members, but if that “minority” refuses to vote with you, whether they abstain or vote with the other team, you can’t defeat 15 with 13, so, suddenly, you’re beholding to this so-called “minority” for your voting success.

According to the pundits, we saw this play out during the “Debt Ceiling Crisis”.

Apparently, we saw it AGAIN, during the so-called “Super Committee Failure”

Granted.. “Regular” Republicans who have pledged that their #1 political priority is removing Barack Obama from office can’t afford to do *ANYTHING* that causes the economy to improve before election time, so it’s most likely going to be another 12 months before most of y’all even catch a whiff of a job.

The point, however, is that the pattern I’ve seen over the last several months is of the Republican majority FOLDING beneath the will of the Republican minority.

This is the main reason I’ve lost interest in this process. It’s a setup.

The Tea Party, AKA the “minority” that’s pulling the strings, bills itself as Conservative.

Romney is not a Conservative. He’s an “I’ll say whatever you want to hear so maybe you’ll elect me”.

He’s also not going to get any light in the South, like he didn’t get any light in 2008.

The same game plan that makes you believe that you’ll be ok if America defaults on its debt obligations also makes you believe that the best thing for your party is to nominate a generally unelectable candidate.

In other words, The Republicans may very well decide to LOSE BIG by running a definitely-Conservative nominee instead of untrustworthy Mitt Romney.

Last Straws

Speaking of untrustworthy, that reminds me of the last two elements that have totally removed my interest in this farce.

Romney just ran a clearly unethical television commercial where his team took something that President Obama reported John McCain’s campaign as saying and only played the part of the audio that makes it sound like Obama said the statement himself.

As an example, it would be like if someone said in an interview “Steve said I took the money, which I didn’t”, and the only part that made it to the commercial was “I took the money”.

That’s CLEARLY unethical and underhanded and desperate.

It’s also a bad idea to set a precedent of misleading campaign commercials, because REAL VIDEO EDITORS can and will make you look very, very, VERY STUPID if we feel like it, so your best bet is to run ethical ads before we quantize and autotune that azz and have you singing entire songs about things you never said.

The second element was that last night, Newt Gingrich said something to the effect of creating review committees to decide which illegal immigrants get deported.

This flies in the face of the unspoken Republican candidate stance that they’re totally scared to actually verbalize, because they know they’ll automatically lose the general election, which is that if they’re elected, they’ll deport 12 million illegal aliens, quick, fast, in a hurry, Flavor’s vision ain’t blurry.

The reason that statement was important is that Gingrich has recently enjoyed a surge in his poll numbers, now that all the rest of the Non-Romneys have fallen off.

Also.. Gingrich’s statement occurred *after* all the candidates except the two Mormons attended the Iowa Thanksgiving Family Forum:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/aY8Zw5NzUXQ

It also occurred after this:

businessinsider.com/ron-paul-evangelicals-iowa-pastors-secret-meeting-11-2012

Evangelical powerbrokers hosted a secret meeting in Iowa for conservative religious leaders last week to take a second look at some of the candidates who might be a viable alternative to Mitt Romney, Business Insider has learned from sources with knowledge of the event.

According to a source, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul all spoke at the event, which brought together some of Iowa’s most influential evangelical pastors. Organized by the powerful Christian activist David Lane, the two-day conference was a feeble attempt to recapture some of the evangelical energy behind Mike Huckabee’s Iowa caucus win in 2008.

Last week’s meeting in Iowa should have been an opportunity for Perry and Gingrich to finally make real comebacks in the first-in-nation caucus state. Both candidates lack organizational support in Iowa, sources say, so mobilizing churches is their last hope to win over the state’s Republican primary voters, 60% of whom identify as born-again Christians.

But a source at the conference told Business Insider that the meetings only confirmed that “evangelicals have lost their cohesion — they don’t trust their leaders.” Pastors who favor Michele Bachmann didn’t even attend the event, the source added, an affront that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

The importance of the combination of those three events is that it’s clear that the fix is in. Gingrich is now campaigning for the general election, NOT the Republican nomination.

Without the South and without Conservatives, Romney can’t possibly be nominated. If you exclude Romney from the pack, Gingrich doesn’t have to campaign against the rest of the Republicans. Huntsman is Mormon. Cain is selling books and amping up his lecture circuit fees, and while he knows a respectable amount about business, he knows nothing at all about some really important things that an actual President would need to know about. Bachmann was never honestly a frontrunner, but instead was the only non-Romney available until Perry entered the race the next day, after which she was finished. Santorum doesn’t count. Perry manages to say something stupid every. single. week., so he’s not going anywhere unless Gingrich implodes from all the historical baggage that he brought with him after YEARS of being in this game. Paul can’t be nominated because he’s a loose cannon.. a Libertarian, not a Conservative.

Of course, Romney’s not aware of this, so he’s creating advertisements against President Obama instead of against Newt Gingrich. :/

Done

It’s really disgusting, how incompetent these people are, and I’d really, HONESTLY like to know why none of the viable Republicans wanted to run this cycle.

I mean, imagine that you know you’re a great dodgeball player, but you refuse to join the game, and then sit on the sidelines and watch your team get SMASHED by opponents that you feel that YOU could have easily defeated… Talk about the wrong side of history. :/

I’m no longer interested in watching this stupid process where people say idiotic things and then their pundits defend them as if they’re viable candidates for the most important job on the planet.

I’m tired of watching partisan pundits refuse to say “Fill in the blank” is unelectable and should get off of the Republican nominee stage.

This whole situation is embarrassing, and now I see how they ended up selecting Palin in 2008.

That’s what I wanted to learn. That’s what I wanted to understand. I’ve been waiting for this knowledge for four years, and now I have it.

The point of the nomination process is *NOT* to send your best and brightest, but rather to send whomever is actually WILLING TO RUN, and whomever has enough money to stay in the race.

That sucks. That’s not interesting. That’s not American Exceptionalism.

Unless a good political sex scandal occurs, I’m done with blogging about politics.

Good Luck to the unemployed Americans that y’all get jobs before the year 2013 AD.

I would personally like to see Jon Huntsman get the Republican nod, because I think that would actually be an intelligent contest between him and President Obama.

Barring that improbability, the Republicans need to send Mr. Unreliable, Mitt Romney if they want to have any chance at all in the general election.

The way I see it now, Conservatives are going to rally behind Gingrich and take their chances, which I consider to be an automatic, forfeit win for Obama.

At least they can say they went down swinging. :/

I’m over it.
–
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Related Posts

• Obama vs. Romney 2012
• 2012 Iowa Caucus Results
• Brokered Conventions
• Republican GOP Presidential Candidate Debate 2011 [Part 02]
• Republican GOP Presidential Candidate Debate 2011 [Part 01]

I’ve been writing my critique/roundup/recap series about MTV’s television show “Jersey Shore” for quite some time now.

If you’ve been following along, you’re aware that I’ve been complaining (as has everyone else that I know that watches the show) about how it’s been getting worse and worse.

The storylines suck (yes, there are WRITERS on “reality” shows. They’re responsible for deciding which footage gets aired, creatively crafting a character, by, for instance, showing every instance they can that make him or her look like a stone-cold IDIOT and deleting all the evidence that this person is actually very smart, but just does stupid things once in a while). The content sucks. What they choose to focus on sucks. What they choose NOT to focus on sucks.

I’ve also been trying to figure out WHY Jersey Shore has been so worthless recently.

I personally edit shows and segments for television, so I’m aware of how these shows are produced and aranged. It’s obvious to me how they could have made each episode a lot better, but elected not to.

This isn’t the editor’s fault. The editor does what the producer says. The producer does what the Executive Producer says.

Unfortunately for my previous critiques, this is as far as I followed the show up the food chain. I’ve been complaining about how the EP could possibly suck so badly that they let lame episodes like these air.

Having heard and read some recent opinions from viewers, I now believe that I “wasn’t seeing the forest, for the trees”, and that my being a fan of the show’s initial concept has blocked me from a) seeing what’s been happening, and b) applying what I know damned well about the television industry to the technical part of my criticism of the show.

Jersey Shore

I was INCREDIBLY HAPPY when I found out about the concept of “Jersey Shore”. The show was clearly based on an earlier MTV True Life documentary, “I Have A Summer Share”:

Can’t see the video? Click Here.

If you have a spare hour (plus the time it takes to rewind and laugh over and over), I suggest that you watch the entire thing:

MTV Full Episode Link => mtv.com/videos/true-life-i-have-a-summer-share/1628251/playlist.jhtml

I really enjoyed that documentary, but also realized that in telling the story of one particular person, MTV wasn’t going to really be able to show the grind of being in the trenches in the dating game.

This is why I was looking forward to Jersey Shore. They were going to take people that were on the cutthroat dating scene and follow them around with cameras while they put in work.

If you listen to the sound bites that they use for the opening of the show to this very day, you get the picture of what the show was about when it started:

Pauly D: Scratches a record that says “Get Crazy!”
Nicole: Screams “I’m going to Jersey Shore, Bitch!”
Mike: “Alright. We’ve got a situation.”
Sammi: “I’m the sweetest bitch you’ll ever meet.”
Ronnie: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
Jenni: “After I have sex with a guy, I will rip their heads off.”
Vinny: Somebody chanting “Go Vinny! Go Vinny”
Deena: Yells “Do you like the boobs?”

Youtube Link => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbgpftoSV7A

This is obviously a show FOR GUYS.

The girls are calling themselves bitches right off the bat, asking dudes how they like their bodies and claiming that they have sex with multiple guys. Meanwhile, the quotes about the male housemates don’t say anything at all about their characters.

This is where I bought in and locked in. I was like “Thank YOU… A show for MEEEE!!! >:D”

Season 01

Season 01 was exactly what it was supposed to be.

Mike: Team Leader, Show President. Attracted girls by showing his stomach. Decided who got which girls when they brought multiples back to the house.

Pauly: Second in command. Only one with actual talent (DJ’ing). Attracted girls with his super-gelled Guile from Street Fighter hairstyle. Eventually moved to #1 when Mike fell off due to fumbling his own chicks and being an HORRIFFIC wingman.

Ronnie: Should have been the top dog. Way more potential than Mike or Pauly. Sold out to Sammi instantaneously, and has been a rap game non-factor for the entire three seasons. The only time he’s effective is when he gets drunk and Sammi’s not there, and he goes berserk, making out with multiple chicks and doing whatever else he feels like doing at the time.

Vinny: Hired as the “regular guy” and the narrator. Nice guy. The voice of reason. Complete non-factor in getting girls. Received trickle-down (extra chicks) that Mike and Pauly blessed him with.

Jenni: Eye candy. Had a boyfriend when she walked in the door. Messed with Pauly on the first night they were all in the house together, IIRC. Boyfriend eventually came to visit and brought her flowers while all the guys were doing confessionals calling him a sucker.

Sammi: Eye candy. Messed with Mike first, then started dating Ronnie and never did anything of import ever in the entire series. Credit awarded for getting punched in her face a few times by Jenni, and causing Ronnie to get into two fights, one of which, he was arrested for.

Angelina: Supposedly had messed with Mike and Pauly before the show started filming. Pretended to be “not that type of girl” and ended up screwing Vinny in season 02 before getting kicked off the show for two seasons in a row. Dated some Herb and juiced him for dates and presents while she was making out with and giving it up to Vinny.

Nicole: Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty girl. :D Tried to make out with all four of the male housemates in the hot tub on day 01. Unsuccessfully threw sex at any guy she thought was attractive that would allow her to speak to him for the entire season.

A typical episode in season 01 included some fluff about them hanging out together or going to work in the t-shirt shop, since it’s owned by the guy that owns the house they film in (the two are connected), scenes of them getting ready to go to clubs, scenes of the guys hunting in clubs, bringing chicks back to the house and trying to have sex with them.

Perfect. A show FOR GUYS. Thank ye very kindly! >:D

Season 03

Season 02 was ineffective because they filmed it in Miami. Nobody’s checkin’ for guys like this in Miami. Their best bet for pulling chicks is Seaside Heights or any area that emulates that type of Jersey nightclub social scene. You could have put any three random dudes in Miami and it would have been the exact same season.

I was looking forward to season 03 because the guys were returning to their proper hunting grounds, PLUS they were now equipped with a full year of being international television stars. There was NO. WAY. IN. HELL. that they weren’t going to rip through the grenades this season, and I couldn’t wait to watch the carnage! >:D

To my ultimate dismay and absolute horror, someone dismantled this series, and Jersey Shore, Season 03 went down like a Led Zeppelin.

Mike: The stomach-thing seems not to be working. He can’t pull girls… at all. Every time you see him leaving a club, he’s by himself. They threw him a bone by filming some chick that he screwed last year and showing him bringing her home, as if they were continuing a relationship.

This doesn’t make any sense at all…. I’m not famous. I can pull chicks just by walking into a party. I can go +4 or +5 on Facebook (exchange contact information) in less than an hour. It’s literally IMPOSSIBLE that an internationally-known television personality can walk into a club filled with girls, some of whom are his actual FANS, many of whom have seen him on television, and be so damned ineffective.

He either lost his mind or MTV’s deliberately not showing him hooking up…

Pauly: No dice… Ever since he dated that chick Rocio in Miami, Pauly fell off. Not only do you never see him bring a chick back to the house, but MTV never even shows him even TALKING to girls at the club….. Except for a 1-second clip they let slide of him walking away from a club one night, holding hands with some chick, while a second chick talked to her. In that situation, we never saw HOW he met that girl, and we never saw her ever again. The next scene Pauly’s in, he’s sitting on the couch in the house, socializing with the housemates, not saying he hooked up, and not even acting like he was ever even AROUND a girl that evening.

My speculation up to today (and I still say this is possible) was that he never stopped dating Rocio… However.. At this point, I believe that MTV’s deliberately not showing him hooking up.

Ronnie: What happened to GTL? (Gym, Tan, Laundry) .. What happened to showing the fellaz hanging out and doing what guys do? Oh no! Can’t have *THAT* in season 03! :/ All we get is Ronnie crying every. single. *******. episode. because he’s so emotional over his relationship to Sammi. In season 01, we got to see Ronnie knock some Herb out in one punch for being an asshat. In season 03, we got to see Ronnie get sucker-punched in his face by his girlfriend.

Are you starting to see the pattern here? o_O

Reality shows are crafted by the decisions that are made about what will be shown and what won’t be shown. I wasn’t looking far enough up the food chain to be able to understand who’s making those decisions, and for what reason…

Vinny: Far and away, the CLEAR LEADER OF THE PACK when it comes to pulling girls. The only guy left that MTV will allow to be seen rapping to girls, pulling girls, bringing them back to the house, and getting under the covers with them.

Vinny deserves all credit for using this year to his advantage and making an ABSOLUTE COME-UP in his skillz, style and confidence with women. Props to Vinny! :D .. Granted, Mike & Pauly are being muted/Herbed in the edit, but that takes nothing away from Vinny’s personal progress in The Game.

Jenni: After a full year of not being effective as far as dating (other than hooking up with Pauly in season 01, which they both admitted in one of the after-shows to season 03), she goes directly from being one guy’s girlfriend to being another guy’s girlfriend. *YAWN*. Strangely enough, contrary to her sound bite in the show intro, there hasn’t been any ripping of heads. Jenni has been absolutely docile. A model citizen. A doting girlfriend…..

Sammi: Although she’s never served ANY purpose WHATSOEVER on this show, other than Eye Candy, which Ronnie reminded her of by screaming in her face about how she’s a “useless, selfish bitch” who’s never even cooked for him… In Season 03, Sammi has become the poster child for denial, or, perhaps “You are what you THINK you are, not what you ACTUALLY are.”

It’s interesting to watch her mind shut down while she gathers her thoughts and reassures herself and then picks up the conversation as if she never heard what the person talking to her said, like how Ronnie had to tell her several times in several different ways that he was DONE with her as a girlfriend, and she never got the picture until he broke all of her possessions, including her prescription glasses that she probably needs to read or use her computer.

Deena: Replacement for Angelina. Trying too hard to be a character instead of just being herself. Kicks it to a guy in the club, brings him home, puts on her bikini, gets in the hot tub with him, *AND THEN* asks him if he has a girlfriend. Of course, he says “No”, even though Ronnie had already said on camera that he knows this guy’s girlfriend. Deena proceeds to hook up with him and finds out he has a girlfriend when Sammi sees her escorting the dude out of the house in the morning. Deena keeps dating this guy and eventually Mike “The Snitchuation” reveals to her that he overheard the barber telling Ronnie that the guy Deena hooked up with said that Deena had asked him if she could rim him.

That’s pretty much her entire storyline, other than getting drunk and falling down while walking, getting drunk and falling off stages while dancing, and getting drunk and falling out of hammocks onto her dome.

Nicole: Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty, Thirsty girl. :D This season, however, she has help from her friends, and has been getting dates with several guys, who, unfortunately, all know each other. The two interesting things about her this season are a) that every time she hooks up with a guy, she claims that she hasn’t had sex in 4 months, and b) that she’s walking around calling guys grenades as if she doesn’t realize that beggars can’t be choosers.

As you can tell from my description, the vibe of this show is all ******-up.

This is what I’ve been complaining about for weeks now. I believe I finally understand it, though, and I see the method to MTV’s apparent madness. I had been wondering how such horrible decisions were being made about how to put the shows together, but the fact that I’ve been a fan from day 01 has been clouding my perception.

Television Business

Television is a business. It’s not entertainment.

This is why those sappy daytime shows are called soap operas. They were developed to get people like you to sit still and watch or listen to COMMERCIAL ADVERTISEMENTS about SOAP.

That’s what’s really going on. The money comes from advertising. The advertisers pay because a show can demonstrate that X number of people watch the show, a percentage of whom are in the advertiser’s target demographic of people who they would like to buy their products or services.

Stations buy shows from production companies because they believe that that series will pull in the demographic that the station will be able to sell to advertisers.

It’s the same principle as movie stars. You pay Tom Cruise $20 Million USD to be in your film, because you know that his fans will pay you $100 Million USD to come see him in theaters and buy the DVD and rent it from stores and watch it online, etc. Your other option is to NOT pay Tom to be in the movie and hope that your no-name actor attracts $80 Million USD in revenue.

So, I wasn’t looking at the BUSINESS of the show… What threw me off was that it was clear to me what the show was about when it began, but I didn’t consider what the numbers said at the end of season 01, and how that would prompt executives to make changes in the show.

If I’m cutting a commercial for an ad agency, I don’t get to tell them what I want to be in the commercial. There are Ad Execs and Art Directors and Producers and Executive Producers and representatives of the company that the commercial is for (the client) and a lot of people that have a lot of ideas about what’s going to go into that 30 seconds’ worth of television.

What comes out of that cloud of ideas is several test commercials. They probably won’t be done with video, but rather with pictures drawn by artists like a comic book storyboard. Those are given to me and I create moves between them, emulating a video presentation. This is called an animatic. If it’s done with pictures, it’s called a photomatic. Several test commercials are sent to Focus Groups.

Focus Groups are made up of average people. You show them the commercials and ask them questions afterwards. The goal is to gauge the average Joe/Josephine’s retention of facts that are important for the client to convey. If you’re selling medicine, and most of the takeaway from the test commercial was about the bed someone was sleeping in or how cute the kid was, that commercial is most likely not getting made.

The ones where people say “I would try that product if I had a cough (or whatever the medicine fixes)” have a chance to be made into a real commercial by hiring a production company, telling them what scenes to go film, having them shoot several takes of what they were asked for, and getting that footage back in the editing suite to be scrutinized and argued over AGAIN before the final version is approved and the commercial goes on television.

This is what I believe happened to Jersey Shore. :D

Girlie Shore

What I missed, because I wasn’t following the money and I wasn’t looking far enough up the food chain to figure out who’s really pulling the strings, is that right out from under my nose, MTV changed Jersey Shore from being a GUYS’ show to being a GIRLS’ show! :D

I had never experienced this before as a fan who was emotionally invested in the original format of a show. The *ONLY* thing I liked about Jersey Shore was that people were going to finally get to see things that I had been telling them about for years, and they just didn’t believe it.

People were finally going to get to see behind the scenes of what hunters do, what they say, and what they have to deal with in order to pull chicks.

That’s what we received in season 01, right according to the perfect plan. Making out with multiple chicks, deciding who’s going to hook up with which chick AFTER getting them all back to the crib, never repeating chicks, GTL, getting your gear and haircut proper, arguments, friends stealing girls from you, the pecking order, selling out, lying, gossip, reputations getting around… Season 01 had it ALL!!! >:D

However.. Like I said.. Television is a business. Nobody cares who’s enjoying the show. Everybody cares who’s watching the show, who’s buying products, who’s following on Facebook and Twitter, who’s commenting on the blog posts and videos, who’s creating their own fan pages for the characters, who’s purchasing the eBooks, who’s showing up to the live appearances, who’s in the crowd at concerts or parties, who’s in the line for autographs…

And you know who that is?

GIRLS! :D

That’s right… Jersey Shore has been repurposed to appeal to females.

Don’t believe me? Look at the gigs the cast’s managers have lined up for them:

Ronnie’s doing weight-loss commercials:

You know who cares about that?… Females.

Pauly’s doing Justin Bieber commercials:

You know who cares about that?… Females.

Is Mike on some kind of athletic program or even a workout program? Nope. He’s on “Dancing With The Stars”.. Get the picture? o_O

The Guys

The first thing you want to do as a manager of a guy whose fan base is girls is to make it look like he doesn’t have any girls. You have to hide their significant others as well as play down their “romantic” involvements so the girls that scream for them at public appearances can all dream and fantasize that one day, *SHE* be Mrs. Pauly D or Mrs. Snitchuation.

This is a tough turnaround to make with guys whose only goal in life is to meet girls and screw them.

The first thing MTV did was show Pauly & Vinny agreeing to erase their names from the hookup board in Miami after they met quality women (The chalkboard where they were leaving marks for themselves every time they bagged a new chick). I found this suspicious because we had NEEEEEEVER seen the hookup board until they decided to remove themselves from it.

The next thing they did was make Pauly really admire Rocio for being a quality female, spend as much time with her as he could, and talk in confessionals about how “she’s not the type of girl that you take home and smash the first night”.

The next thing they did was obliterate Pauly’s presence from the hookup game *ENTIRELY* in season 03 with zero explanation for his lack of production.

Mike was never that effective, anyway. He does the stomach-trick and if the chicks are interested in that, they might hook up with him and they might not. This season, he’s been a complete ZERO, trying to leech chicks off of Vinny, and unsuccessfully inviting Pauly’s ex-girlfriend to come home with him, meaning that basically, he was going to try to have sex with Pauly’s ex in the same house where Pauly currently lives. Poor choice, dude. Good luck with that.

Ronnie took himself out of the game right off the bat, hooking up with Sammi. He got back in the game when he was drunk in the clubs in Miami, but this season, he’s suddenly a model citizen. o_O Every single episode, we have to hear about how he’s never cheated on Sammi since Miami. Every time he’s crying, he’s saying “I didn’t DO anything! :( What did I DO? :(“. This is another female-centric… femi-centric?… femme-centric? storyline.. The boyfriend that’s SOOO in love with his girlfriend that he will cry over her…………… and destroy everything she owns if she dances with another guy in a club and rubs her ass on him.

Vinny is literally the only concession MTV has made to the fellaz that watch the show. Having said that, they STILL downplay his achievements. It’s like a split second of Vinny meeting a chick.. A split second of him talking to her.. A split second of him inviting her home.. A split second of them walking from the club.. A split second of them walking up the stairs.. A split second of them getting under the covers with the night-vision camera watching them.. A short scene where Mike tries to get sex from the same girl ………. AND THEN 10 MINUTES OF RONNIE CRYING! :/

The Girls

The girls basically served no purpose AT ALL other than Eye Candy in season 01. The only reason they were necessary was because the format of the original documentary was guys AND girls who were friends, all sharing the same house together. Other than that, they could have been left out entirely, and Jersey Shore would have been at least four times as good.

I’m not saying that because they’re not dudes. I’m saying that because they were completely ineffective.

Jenni came to the show with a boyfriend and proceeded to front on any guy that tried to kick it to her. Who wants to watch that? \o/ Sammi came to the show single, and immediately shacked up with Ronnie (which is *HIS* fault too, so he gets blamed also), so they cancelled each other out. Angelina played that role like she’s not DTF when everybody already knew that she was. Nicole tossed sex at a bunch of dudes that didn’t want what she was offering.

It wasn’t like they cast four chicks that were down for theirs as far as dating. The guys (obviously, minus Ronnie) did exactly what they claimed they were going to do.. try to pull chicks. On top of that, none of the girls even know how to cook. The guys were always cooking. The chicks served no purpose whatsoever, except for the scenes where they were half-undressed while they were getting ready to go to the club.

In the reformatted and repurposed third season, the gals actually have roles to play:

Jenni: The girl that ‘has had some work done’ and does her best to look attractive. The serial monogamist. The chick that suffers through a bad breakup. The chick that knows how to have her friends’ backs and play her position when her man’s doing the right thing by her.

Sammi: The spoiled chick that’s gotten by to this very day because of her looks and currently believes her own hype. Bringing nothing else to the table, she still somehow considers herself better than girls that are less physically attractive than she is, regardless of how they carry themselves as human beings. The girl that will punch her boyfriend in the face for disobeying her orders. The girl whose boyfriend FREAKS OUT on her and destroys all her property because she rubbed her ass on another guy at a club.

Deena: The new kid on the block. The person that’s trying too hard to fit in and be an exciting character. The person who would get better results out of life by being herself. The female who always gets the short end of the stick when it comes to pulling guys, so she has to make a spectacle of herself to try to stand out in a crowd of better-looking females. The lowest person on the totem pole. The person that doesn’t feel like they fit in.

Nicole: The chick that gets a lot of attention, but people can’t figure out why. She’s actually on Deena-status, but believes she’s on Sammi-status. She overcomes her deficiencies by creating her own clothing styles and souping herself up with unsubstantiated confidence.

These are all roles and personality-types that Josephine-average can relate to. These are now critical to building the female fantasy version of Jersey Shore.

For instance.. They’ve been playing up a supposed unrequited romance between Nicole and Vinny. This is entirely and absolutely ridiculous, but MTV keeps incorporating this storyline into the show.

It’s ridiculous because every girl Vinny’s hooked up with (that MTV was willing to show us) has been better-looking than Nicole. :D Every. Single. One! :D Angelina’s better-looking, Ryder’s better-looking, the chick in Miami was like 8,000 times better-looking, Mike’s sister had a way better body… The only chick close to Nicole’s looks that Vinny hooked up with was Nicole.

If Vinny were planning to sell out like Ronnie, it sure as hell wouldn’t be for Nicole. However…. The fantasy of exclusive access to a guy is a staple in female American society. This is great, that every week, the girls can tune in to see if Nicole finally lands Vinny for a romantic relationship instead of crawling into bed with each other when they’re both drunk and neither one of them scored somebody else to hook up with that night.

The End

So.. As far as I’m concerned, Jersey Shore is over for the fellaz. It’s now a chick-flick.

I’m still going to watch, to see how wack they can POSSIBLY make the episodes, and to see if I’m right about all this, but I’m no longer expecting storylines I’m interested in to make it up off the cutting room floor.

I’ve been saying for months that this should be the last season of Jersey Shore, but it turns out that they’re doing a season in Italy.

It didn’t make any sense to continue the series, according to the original format of guys bagging girls, because the Jersey Shore subculture isn’t derived from Italy. It’s derived from America. It makes PERFECT sense now that it’s a girl’s show, just like how they took “Sex and the City 2″ abroad so the women could share adventures together. In fact, even “Basketball Non-Wives” filmed two episodes in Madrid, Spain.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Jersey Shore, Season 04 syndicated to Bravo Television and worked into the rotation with the “Real Housewives” franchise.

There should be *NO* return to prominence for Pauly & Mike, as they’re both being groomed by their managers to make more female-oriented appearances. Vinny apparently doesn’t have any such endorsements, so they’re going to let him keep getting laid on camera until he goes the same route.

He could probably land a Trojan’s endorsement. \o/ (male-oriented)

Speaking of getting laid.. This chick-flick theory also explains why Ronnie & Sammi were allowed to take the room with three beds in it.

When Snitchuation unnecessarily asked Sammi where Ronnie keeps his condoms, she replied “I don’t know if he has any”. This indicates that either they aren’t using condoms, or they aren’t hooking up at all.

I don’t remember one single time this season that they showed Ronnie getting biz with Sammi. o_O ….. We know from all his crying that Ronnie wouldn’t screw her with Mike in the room, so he would have to take her to the guest room to hit it. I don’t remember ever seeing that.

MTV has removed just about ALL the hookup content from the show. The guys are all defunct, except for Vinny. Sammi’s off the grid. Jenni’s with her boyfriend.

Deena threw it at Mike several times, who declined all of her advances, even though he was willing to lay down with her AND Nicole together, his explanation being that he was willing to hook up with Deena as part of a threesome, strictly for the value of it being a threesome. \o/

Deena also gave it up to one guy, who apparently gossiped about her like a dog.

Other than that, she mostly drinks and falls down, and dudes don’t seem to be interested in tappin’ that.

Nicole has hooked up with at least three guys and is now walking around clubs, pointing out that the guys aren’t up to her standards?…..

Season 03 has clearly become a story about four girls trying to get laid and/or find love in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I wish them all good luck & prosperity in their relationships/hookups.

Hopefully, after filming season 04 in Italy, Pauly & Mike’s managers will spin them off into solo projects, Ronnie & Sam can go live together and have kids or whatever, Vinny can get his game on and eventually retire with a FOYINE chick he can take home and “make an honest woman”, Jenni and Roger will be happy together and Deena & Nicole find boyfriends before they catch something.

The next thing that needs to happen is for the producers to start all over with a fresh cast of non-stars, so we can get back to the ******* ACTION! >:D
–
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I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. He’s a photographer, and I’m a video editor, so we kind of do the same thing, but not really.

He was talking about how, as technology increases, more and more people are calling themselves photographers because they own cameras.

Yes.. People have been owning cameras since cameras were invented, however, none of these people promoted themselves as professionals. They were hobbyists, at best. Mostly, they were civilians that happened to have spent some of their money on a camera.

At this point, people own cameras that take pictures on a level of quality that can be used in actors’ portfolios, wedding albums, or even as stills in television productions.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean that any of them are GOOD at what they do.

It doesn’t mean they know about lighting. It doesn’t mean they know about framing. It doesn’t mean they know how to use computer programs to maximize the impact or quality of the pictures they take for you.

Meanwhile.. If you go to your favorite “Hire A Random Person To Work For You” website, you’ll see these civilian hobbyists listed side-by-side with verified professionals. This gives a skewed impression of what a photographer actually is.

Video Editors

This becomes an issue when you get to the video editor. I have the same phenomenon in my field. There are lots of people who own the same equipment that I own. In fact, there are people that have gone to classes to receive some bullshit certificate that says that they’re “certified” to use the same software that I’ve been using to put video on local and national television for over 10 years.. and they STILL suck at using it.

Of course they suck. The sat in a classroom and passed a couple of tests. They have ZERO real-world experience. Hiring them to edit videos for you is the same thing as hiring me to be your personal bodyguard because I’m a champion at first-person-shooter video games like H.A.L.O., SOCOM, Ghost Recon, and Call of Duty.

I’ve never shot anybody in my entire life, so don’t expect me to whip out the Desert Eagle .50 Cal and wax six dudes with AK-47s like I can on my XBOX or PS3.

Similar to the photography field, these Herbs are grouped together with me as “Editors”. In fact, they’re button-pushers. They’re not bringing anything to the table other than the equipment they own and the fact that they know how to use that equipment… SLOWLY.

This is another thing that people don’t get about post-production (the process of blending the elements you provided into the final product). If my rates are 3x as high as a button-pusher, but he or she takes THREE DAYS to do what I can do in one day, guess what? :D HAHAHA You just paid the same amount of money for inferior work that you received two days later than you could have.

If my rates are higher, and I’m better at working with you and your clients because I have advertising agency experience and have edited commercials that ran on television for years, you. will. lose. if you hire the el-cheapo editor and they cause your client not to give you any more business. You. Will. Lose. if the service your client receives was juuuuust that little bit worse than the treatment they received working with another studio, and they give THEM that next large contract instead of you.

99 1/2 Won’t Do

You may have noticed that you never see “most” of a show on television. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. The show cuts to black for a split second and then the next show starts. This is because there are regulations and television stations expect and DEMAND that you create your videos properly and completely, or else they will kick them back to you. They will tell you directly that until you do this, this, and that to comply with their broadcasting standards, your show will not air on their network.

There is no such thing as 99 1/2% of a video.

You have 100% of a video, or you have nothing.

You have 100% of a video BEFORE YOUR DEADLINE, or you have nothing.

Similar to baseball, I am the closer. I never fail. Never. I can’t afford to fail, because it’s not “Oh well! \o/”. If I fail to achieve what my client asked me for and I assured them I would deliver, there is NO SHOW.



If there’s no show, my client is accountable to the people that paid him or her to produce the show. My client’s reputation’s on the line. It’s not *MY* reputation, because as a freelancer, my name doesn’t go on myriad productions that I do for production companies that hire me. I’m filling in. I’m doing vacation relief or handling overflow or a certain type of video that their staffers aren’t well-versed in and I excel at.

If my client’s reputation is tarnished because *I* failed, they lose business, they can’t pay their staff, people get laid off or fired, businesses close…

I’m not trying to be dramatic about this. :D I’m saying that it’s like being an airline pilot. Pilots can’t afford to fail, because they won’t be the only ones that suffer the consequences. o_O

There’s no such thing as “Almost landed the plane.”

If you insist on hiring a low-cost pilot instead of a more expensive one that definitely knows what he or she’s doing.. Good Luck with that.

Budget vs Reputation

So if your company’s reputation isn’t important to you, go ahead and hire button-pushers. Save yourself the money, assuming they work just as quickly as the more expensive professional. Good Luck that they do it right the first time, too. If you have to go through several rounds of changes because of errors they made or because they didn’t fully understand what you wanted after you told them to their faces what you wanted, keep counting up the hours and watching your bill increase.

If you have work that isn’t important, hire button-pushers. If you have internal corporate videos that nobody’s going to see, except your workers, who cares if they’re garbage? :D Everybody knows that you’re a Senior Vice President and not an Executive Producer, so why should they expect your videos to be any good, right? :D

On the other hand.. If you’re expecting your media (pictures, video, audio…) to represent your company and get you more respect and business in your industry, do some research, figure out who’s who, and plan your budget so you can hire professionals with proven track records to work with your team and complete your project for you in a quality fashion and BEFORE your deadline.

Some people like to utilize a hybrid style where they hire button-pushers to do all the grunt-work and then bring in a pro to tighten up their work. Sometimes, this works well, and sometimes, it doesn’t.

One of the main problems with working this way is that video production is “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. The process begins with making selections from the raw footage (video that came directly from the camera without being edited). If you send interns who don’t know anything about building a show to make your ‘selects’, they’re going to leave out a lot of things that they don’t realize would work well in your video and they’re going to select a bunch of things that don’t work well. Same thing if you do it yourself.

The upside of producing this way is that you save a lot of money, and the professional editor you hire will still make the best video possible from the footage you make available to them. The downside is that your production could have been a lot better if you understood enough about the process to get everyone to play their positions well.

Quality > Quantity

Mind you.. I’m not knocking button-pushers. :D They occupy a valuable space in the field. They’re inexpensive, and you probably don’t know enough to understand that the work you’re receiving is shoddy and your company would be better off if you never showed the video you paid for.

Button-Pushers are legitimate businesspeople and deserve to be hired. I started out as a button-pusher, of course. Everybody has to. What I’m saying is that if you’re a hobbyist, doing an online video show, or something you’re just going to show your family or keep for yourself, it doesn’t matter who you hire or if you hire anybody at all. Do it yourself! :D Use iMovie or Windows Media Maker, which came FREE on your computer’s operating system and go enjoy yourself. Take a month to do a video that could have been finished in one day. Spend hours that you could have been billing a client or hooking up with your SO working on creating an inferior product instead of hiring someone that knows what they’re doing, so you can enjoy your life while they’re working or make back the money you’re going to have to pay them anyway.

However….. If you expect people to watch your video and give you business, get it done properly. Go Big or Go Home. Period.

If you do a low-quality video and it goes viral, that’s not success. That’s 6 Million People that know that YOU SUCK! :D

Instead, if you do a high-quality video and not-so-many people see it, that’s way better, IMO, because the FEW people that watch it are going to say “That person knows what he or she is doing, and I want to hire them to bring the same quality to my productions that they brought to theirs”.

Of course, the best situation is a GOOD video that DOES go viral! haha I’m just saying that you need to consider that the money you’re saving, hiring button-pushers instead of professional editors or hobbyists instead of professional photographers could very well end up working AGAINST your company’s reputation, which will ultimately negatively affect your bottom line.
–
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Bill Cammack demonstrates how to create a static mix of a multitrack music recording using Logic 9.

Watch/Download => 1080p HD (.mov) | iPod (m4v) | YouTube

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If you’re going to make television shows, or at this point, shows for the web… SOMEBODY on your team needs to KNOW. HOW. TO. MAKE. TELEVISION. SHOWS!!! :/

If you cut this corner, your productions will look like trash, and deservedly so. Now you can’t say no one ever told you.

I was minding my business one day and got a call from some so-called television production company to come in and interview with them to create a pilot for this show they were trying to sell. They had received my name from someone I had worked with before, so I decided (against my better judgement, haha) to go see what they wanted.

This was back in the day, so I show up to this so-called television production company with tapes. Beta tapes & 3/4″, just in case they were so primitive as to still be using 3/4″. Of course, it turns out that they had NEITHER. No Beta Decks in-house and No 3/4″ decks. So, that was that for my demo materials. Of course, at this point in time, my demo reel is right here on my site ===> (see sidebar), and companies are encouraged to check it out before wasting my time.

So then, this guy, who, by the way had ZERO air about him of knowing ANYTHING about television production… I’m guessing he was actually a secretary or assistant producer or something and that the people that actually know what they’re talking about weren’t there… This guy asks me if I’ve ever edited a reality show before.

Suppressing the instinct to ask “HAVE *YOU*???”, I eventually said “No, but I’ve seen a bunch of them and I know the formula”. I then proceeded to recite the formula to him. During the process, I happened to mention “confessionals”, made popular by MTV’s “Real World” series. When I said that word… “confessionals”… the guy choked up. Like he looked like he stopped breathing, like someone had suddenly grabbed his throat. So I go “You DID shoot confessionals… right?”… Then the guy looks all embarrassed and admits that they didn’t.

This is where I got REALLY suspicious, because television production is “garbage in, garbage out”. You can’t make up for footage people never shot, especially when you only had access to the people in your “reality” show for a small amount of time and they’re GONE NOW.

So anyway, I chatted with the guy for a while longer, then he said something to the effect of “I’ll let you know”, but he wasn’t even good at playing THAT off. Suppressing the instinct to say “Dude. Why don’t you just stop lying. You don’t want me to work on your so-called show”, I acted like I was going to expect his call, smiled, shook his hand and left.

Obviously, what was going on there was that these people had NO IDEA what they were doing and were looking to hire an editor to save the day and make something out of their NOTHING footage. That’s all well and good, and I’m sure they found someone. The problem with that secretary-dude’s line of questioning was that it’s not MY JOB to create the show. It’s MY JOB to do what the PRODUCER tells me to do. It’s the producer’s job to do what the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER tells him or her to do.

In general, the EP is the person who signs off on the final product. The EP knows what the standards are and whether what you’ve created is good enough to go on the air. The producer knows how the company likes their shows done, so it’s up to THE PRODUCER to determine how the show flows by going through the raw footage, selecting sound bites and video and putting them in an order that a) makes sense and b) is interesting to the viewer.

While it’s possible for the EP and the producer to be the same person, SOMEONE has to be in charge of both stations. Someone has to be the last word when it comes to quality control and someone has to be the person to determine the flow of the show. If it’s not the same person, the producer needs to have a very good idea of how the EP likes things or every time your video goes up for review, there are going to be changes. This is a waste of your time as well as your money if you’re hiring a freelance editor. If you’re working with a salaried staffer, feel free to waste time.

If you don’t have these bases covered, you end up with the blind leading the blind. You have people who have NO IDEA what elements create a good television show signing off on work that people who have NO IDEA how to make a good show created. This becomes obvious when it’s time for the average joe to sit down in front of the television (or at this point, their computer) and watch your product. Here are some of the problems you will experience:

Nothing of interest happening in your show

It’s the EP’s job to tell you that nothing’s happening in your show, that it’s boring and it needs to be fixed in order for it to be successful on television. The producer needs to pick up on this information and make it part of their mental database so they stop making the same mistakes in the future. The EP can’t afford to let a boring show go out the door, because if people don’t care what happened this week, they won’t be back next week. When people don’t come back, your ratings drop. When your ratings drop, you get cancelled. When you get cancelled, people get fired.

No story arc

The story arc is the reason people stay tuned (other than character development). There has to be a reason.. Something people are looking forward to seeing, or something that they are hoping the characters are going to avoid. Without a story arc, there’s no tension. Without tension, you can’t hold a viewer’s interest. It just doesn’t matter whether they see the rest of your show or the next episode because they’re not emotionally invested in the outcome of your show.

No good cliffhangers leading to the commercial breaks

The only thing that’s going to keep people from changing the channel during commercials is that you’ve set up something that they don’t want to miss. This is basically the same as story arc, but much more short-term. There might be 4 or 5 segments to a show. You don’t want to end your segments on a flat note, because that’s how many opportunities people will have to YAWN, change the channel and get involved with some other show that captures their attention.

No interesting character development

If you have someone that’s interesting, make them one of the main focal points of the show. If you have people that are NOT interesting, play them off to the side or preferably to the BACK, if not out of the show ENTIRELY! If you have interesting people doing uninteresting things, cut those parts out of your show.

If you don’t develop your characters, nobody will be emotionally invested in what happens to them, which means they won’t care about your cliffhangers, story arc or anything else. This is something that’s normally dealt with in the pilot stage, and lack of interesting characters plus potential for their development via interesting scenarios usually results in a “Pass”, meaning “Thanks, but No Thanks” and you get sent back the drawing board to dust yourself off and try again.

No passionate viewers / fanbase developed

If your show is wack, no community is going to develop around it. This means that you won’t have people DYING for next week to come around so they can see the next episode of Miami Vice (not the garbage movie… the really good television series). It’s your passionate viewers that will stop whatever they’re doing to go home and watch your show or make sure the bar turns it on. It’s your passionate viewers that make sure to DVR your show so they don’t miss out on the water-cooler talk the next day at work. It’s your passionate viewers that keep your ratings high so your advertisers feel like they’re getting their money’s worth…

No viral dissemination of information about your show

If your show is boring, there won’t be any buzz. There won’t be any Facebook groups made about it. It won’t be a trending topic on Twitter. Your website won’t have any comments on the posts. Nobody’s going to be telling anyone else about you, because everyone’s looking for something interesting. Nobody’s going to be blogging about your show on their sites. At this point in time, even a locally-based internet show can have fans all over the world. When your show is already garbage, it’s too late to convince people that it’s not. Make sure you hire someone that can tell you that this show isn’t good enough and can tell you how to make it acceptable if not EXCELLENT.

No advertiser, investor or sponsor interest

Without passionate viewers, community, viral dissemination or the appearance that you have any clue whatsoever about how to make a good televison/web show, you will either have ZERO advertiser/investor/sponsor interest from the giddyap, or if you had it when you started, you’ll lose it when it comes time for those people to renew their deals with you. This could be avoided, or at the very least, the chances of this minimized by hiring an EP with a reputation for quality programming. The EP is the General. People think that just because they have the money and paid to create the company that they should automatically have final say on what goes out the door. That’s called “hubris”. Get over yourself and do yourself the favor of hiring people that actually know what they’re doing when it comes to television. If you want to be successful, everyone needs to play their position. Your position might be getting money. Let someone else have the final say on whether your program’s “ready for prime time” or not.

These issues are normally dealt with at the pilot stage. If your pilot doesn’t convince people that you know how to make an interesting and well-received show, you normally don’t get a deal and get sent back to the drawing board. It’s similar to being a rapper. If you don’t have a good demo tape, nobody’s going to take the chance on you and pay for you to record “for real” in a studio.

This is why you want to hire an EP to let you know whether what you’ve produced is worth shopping or not. Believe me, it’s worth it to spend the money up front and save yourself the anguish and embarrassment of producing a show that everybody says sucks while you spend a small fortune producing something that never should have received a greenlight in the first place and simultaneously trash your so-called television production company’s reputation for quality and excellence in programming.

~ Bill Cammack
twitter.com/BillCammack
facebook.com/BillCammack

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