Reality film
Reality film or reality movie describes a genre of films that have resulted from reality television.[1]
Criteria
Titles such as
History of reality film
"The thinking behind these pics is not new," wrote Gabriel Snyder in Variety about the techniques employed by recent reality movies.
Reality films as documentaries
Some reality films, such as those based upon the This is by no means a documentary. Everything that happens is real, but you are only seeing what the producers want you to see, in the order they want you to see it, with the music they want you to hear. And they go even further here by splicing in non-reality cuts from time to time to accentuate the plot a little further. They need to turn these normal people into characters in order to achieve an entertaining experience and they are very crafty in the ways they do this.[16] James Ronald Whitney, whose films have won multiple "Best Documentary" awards,[17] distinguishes between documentary and reality film. In an interview about his reality film Games People Play: New York, he said the difference was filming a staged scenario versus filming actual events that would have happened regardless of the camera's presence: "A documentary is reality, but is its own animal. It's when you go back in time and you do a film about an election, an Olympics, a war, or something in the future that would organically happen anyway. Even Real Cancun, spring break was going to happen. Spellbound's spelling bee was still going to happen. Those are not events that were created by a writer who then decided, "I'm going to make a movie about this event that I have created." That's how this is different to me than a documentary.[18]
Issues facing reality film
The viability of reality films has been called into question. The Real Cancun was considered a flop at the box office, taking in $5,345,083 worldwide on a budget of $7.5 million.
Other uses of the phrase 'reality film'
The term "reality film" was coined by screenplay writer and author, Leigh Stimolo, in 2015 when she began scripting the screenplay, Dream Divers: She Will Awaken the Truth, which was recorded in 2017 with the copyright office as a film genre where actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck play fictionalized versions of themselves and characters they'd played in previous films. It also includes the author herself, Leigh, writing herself and actual events into the script. Leigh's also published Dream Divers as a novel and wrote the screenplay and the novel Dawn: She Will Awaken the World, the sequel "reality film" featuring celebrity cameo of Jim Carrey at her spirit guide as she sets out to take on the evil corporation of Datacorp (AI/Time travel).
The phrase "reality film" has been used in the titles of articles that discuss the popularity of documentaries after the advent of "reality TV."[26][27]
See also
- Cinema verite
- Actuality film
- Dirty Sanchez
- Realism (arts)
- Direct Cinema
Notes
- ^ From Cancun to Harvard, Faryl Ury, The Harvard Crimson, April 25, 2003
- ^ The Love and hate Relationship with Reality TV, Pace University Press, September 21, 2005.
- ^ "This is the first time anyone has tried to take a reality concept to the theaters," said casting director Damon Furberg. "Think of it as a reality version of a teen movie like American Pie."MTV's film hits Boston, Lindsay Hearne, The Daily Free Press, June 30, 2003, retrieved on August 22, 2007
- ^ a b Cue the Tequila, Joel Stein, Time Magazine, April 23, 2003.
- ^ a b c d Will beach babes be boffo B.O.? Quickie pix hope to reap 'Jackass'-style action, Gabriel Snyder, Variety Magazine, April 20, 2003.
- ^ Warhol 'reality' film named in top 100 Archived 2008-12-04 at the Wayback Machine, Alexa Baracaia, Evening Standard, October 4, 2006.
- ^ Chelsea Girls, Vienna International Film Festival description ("The film is a fascinating mixture of feature and reality film.")
- ^ a b Snapshot: Chelsea Girls, Will Hodgkinson, The Guardian
- ^ The Real Cancun, Scott Foundas, Variety, April 20, 2003.
- ^ Press Release for Windy City Heat
- ^ Windy City Heat review, Robert Koehler, Variety, May 5, 2004.
- ^ E.g., Matt Prigge, "Repertory", Philadelphia Weekly, 3 January 2007 (Jackass Number Two "is, in every definition of the word, a documentary")
- Village Voice, Armond White 1 Jan. 2003, "Best Documentary: Jackass, far and away. It makes the self-important, pseudo-political quests of this year's trust-fund and grant-hound filmmakers irrelevant. Fuck Bowling for Columbine. Ass Kicked by Girl, Roller Disco Truck, Paper Cuts, and other Jackass routines show what's really going on in the frustrated hearts and minds of America's misdirected white youth."
- ^ Andrew Sullivan's blog, 30 June 2004: "F9/11 wasn't the biggest grossing documentary. Jackass was. It was non-fiction, and about as informative as Mr Moore. And a lot more to look at."
- ^ Keep It Real; Farm-bred filmmakers redefine documentary, trying to get closer to the truth., Joannie Fischer, Stanford Magazine, July/August 2003.
- ^ The Real Cancun review, Corey Herrick, Hybrid Magazine.
- ^ James Ronald Whitney Filmography
- ^ Interview with James Ronald Whitney on TheMovieChicks.com, May 13, 2004.
- ^ Box Office Mojo's numbers on The Real Cancun
- ^ Rabin, Nathan (7 August 2007). "My Year of Flops Case File #56: The Real Cancun". AV Club.
- ^ The Very Long Legs of 'Girls Gone Wild', MIREYA NAVARRO, The New York Times, April 4, 2004.
- USA TODAY, 4/28/2003.
- ^ a b Reality Reality TV's big-screen test, Amanda Paulson, The Christian Science Monitor, April 25, 2003.
- ^ a b Why reality TV won't bite at the box office; LA Movie: Hollywood is finding it tough turning reality television into feature films, Sean Macauly, The Times of London, April 28, 2003.
- ^ The women of Viacom, Patricia Seller, CNN.com/Fortune, October 11, 2006.
- ^ Tom Ryan (2004-12-18). "Reality film". The Age. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
- ^ Brent Hallenbeck (2004-10-10). "Reality Films Rule". Burlington Free Press, mirrored at crucibleofwar.com. Retrieved 2007-08-23.