Bloody brilliant: Getting a TV-ready look on a web budget

The semi-improvised, seat-of-the-pants, let’s-put-on-a-show freshness of digital projects is a big part of their appeal for fans.

But the ultra-low budgets that dictate this aesthetic for most productions outside the Netflix-Amazon Studios orbit can present some daunting challenges for people like costume designer Vanessa Driveness and other crew members in the various below-the-line departments, from set design and makeup, to stunts.

If they fail to overcome those challenges, producers are stuck with footage that looks more like dad’s VHS cam Christmas pageant recordings circa 1995, and less like the increasingly broadcast-like content viewers have come to expect.

More on cheap horror at Stream Daily

Gogglebox is a British observational documentary, which has aired since 7 March 2013 on Channel 4. The show features recurring British couples, families and friends sitting in their living rooms watching weekly British television shows.

Why reality television won’t be Lindsay Lohan’s Comeback
By Nico Lang 

There’s a great moment midway through the first (and currently the only) season of The Comeback, HBO’s 2005 cult comedy starring Lisa Kudrow. Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, a washed-up sitcom star given a second lease on fame with a supporting role in a broad TV comedy (the perfectly titled Room And Bored), as well as her own tie-in reality show. During a lunch meeting with a TV Guide reporter, Cherish insists that the show isn’t going to be tawdry; she wants to tell her story “with dignity.” The Comeback itself is about the tension between the story Cherish wants to tell and the one she’s actually telling. Hidden behind an ersatz grin, Cherish wants to put on a brave face and be the hero of her own story. Sitting down to watch the Room And Bored pilot, she realizes the reality of television is more complicated.
more at the AV club

U.S. cable network VH1 will begin airing Dating Naked and other reality series starring Linda Perry, LeAnn Rimes and Nicole Richie this summer.

Produced by Lighthearted Entertainment, the nude dating series (formerly Naked Dating, pictured) will begin airing on July 17 as part of the network’s unscripted-heavy Thursday night line-up.


Read more: http://realscreen.com/2014/04/24/vh1-firms-up-reality-heavy-summer-slate/#ixzz2zp6OS39y

Woman hangs herself in Korean reality television show

A woman taking part in a popular South Korean reality television show has been found dead in a bathroom on the set.

The police said she appeared to have hanged herself with the cord of a hairdryer.

South Korean media have raised questions about alleged bullying and humiliation during filming of the match-making show.

The producer expressed remorse at the death but denied that the woman had been put under too much pressure.

Friends quoted by newspapers said Chun had also complained the producers were trying to depict her as an unpopular, tragic girl.

Read more at BBC News:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26464490

A social media campaign to pay tribute to Sarah Jones, the camera assistant who died in Georgia last week, has gone viral, drawing an outpouring of support from crew members around the world.

Sarah Jones, 27, was struck and killed by a freight train Thursday during filming of the Gregg Allman biopic "Midnight Rider" in Savannah. Seven other crew members also were injured in the incident.

To honor Jones, her friends and family have launched a "Slates for Sarah" social media campaign, prompting crew members to post comments and pictures of Sarah's name written on film slates on Facebook and Twitter.


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-sarah-jones-social-media-20140225,0,7571920.story#ixzz2uosaGI7b