the hills: off the record
May 11, 2008
“Join Lauren and company for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at some of your favorite ‘Hills’ moments.”
“you spend half your life trying to become larger than life and the other half trying to just live a real life again.”
“Join Lauren and company for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at some of your favorite ‘Hills’ moments.”
May 11, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Not sure how I feel about this. Are we supposed to come away thinking of The Hills as some kind of guerrilla documentary show? It’s just not. There’s no way the girls are as resistant to being filmed as they are portrayed here. This is such a small segment of the production process, and it overemphasizes the rare scenes where the producers had to scramble to get access to something dramatic.
What I want to know now is: what do the girls’ contracts look like? Are they required to give access to producers at all times? Can they prevent certain things from getting into the show? Are their contracts the same, or does Lauren have more control than the other girls?
Also, the scene with the “crazy” lady at lunch was amazing. Lady just wants to have a nice lunch, and some TV crew comes up and asks her to leave. They fuck with her, she fucks with them–and then they turn around and call her crazy on national TV? I’m on her side on this one.
May 11, 2008 at 11:09 pm
yeah, i’m very interested in the contracts as well, for the reasons you listed and also having to do with salary. who makes more money and how much more do they make? i.e. what are the differences between what lauren and heidi and what lo and audrina makes and are they aware of these differences and do these differences create more tension between them? (heidi notes that during the first season she was paid a pittance to be on the show and that she had to pay rent but lauren didn’t.) do day players get anything, does that woman who’s getting scapegoated at people’s revolution get anything because she’s been named in a chyron and been a featured character (the way extras in movies get more money if they get a line, etc.) my feeling whether is that lauren does have more control, not only over what is shown of her life but what is shown of others (for example, the whole kristin cavallari - “i hate that bitch and i’m not having her on my show” thing)
i agree that the guerrilla documentary thing is over the top (the scenes of the crew mobilizing remind me of the storm chasers in “twister”), although what do we really expect from an mtv produced featurette about the show? of course they’re going to reinforce this notion of the “reality” of the show as much as they can.
i don’t really see the girls as being portrayed as being “resistant to filming.” yeah, there’s the part with lauren in the cab, but that was very early in the first season where she was still getting used to things and also we see how quickly she acquiesces to having the camera in the front seat. and then the thing with her running from the cameras to cry in the bathroom at le deux seemed like a genuine emotional moment, but it seems to me that she was fleeing the scene of the “drama” as much as the cameras and on either side of that she was being filmed.
that lunch thing was hilarious. i loved how incensed jen bunny was.