With that wise-to-the-ways-of-the-world enlightenment, I really shouldn’t have been surprised by yesterday’s outing to Roloff Farms, but I was.
For those not in the know, Roloff Farms is a somewhat famous pumpkin patch in a Portland suburb that is the backdrop to a very popular reality TV series called “Little People, Big World.” It has been on the air for 9 years and follows a family of little people (older generations…like mine…used to call them midgets but political correctness has made that term a no-no. Yay PC Police.).
I have to confess: I have never watched an episode of “Little People, Big World.” But I watch enough shows on that cable channel (see “Boo Boo”) that I have seen endless promos for it so I have a vague understanding of who the people are. Plus, the family are local celebrities so they are in the Portland news at times. For instance, somehow I knew that the husband and wife are getting divorced (Wikipedia says it was announced this past June), and that one of their sons recently got married on the farm (Wiki says September 2014).
So when my most favorite llama in the world got invited to hang out at Roloff Farms yesterday, I jumped at the chance to join him. I was curious what the pumpkin patch was like and wondered if I might catch a small glimpse of reality greatness. Pre-visit conversations suggested the show wouldn’t be filming while we were there, so I prepared myself for a relaxed, mostly predictable llama outing.
And so it was.
Lots of happy people excited to get to pet and hug and kiss Rojo and his buddy Smokey. Pictures, laughter, hesitation, fears conquered. One woman exploded with giddiness as she breathlessly explained she has been a Facebook fan of Rojo’s “foreverrrr!” and had never met him before and got off work early just to come meet him and OMG he’s so fluffy and it’s like meeting a celebrity and yesyesyes please take our picture on my phone!
You know, relaxed and predictable.
 |
| Note the clenched hands. She was jumping up and down and was a bundle of excitement. |
About 20 minutes before we were set to pack it all up and head home, the Farm’s event planner person came over and asked if Matt, the little family’s patriarch and star of the show, had come by yet. He hadn’t, so she said she would be back in a few minutes with him. There was a general buzz of excitement as we watched for his customized jeep thing to motor over. So nice of him to want to come by to say hi!
Matt did eventually show up, perhaps 40 minutes later. But he was preceded by people with cameras and microphones and walkie talkies and one of those scene clapper board thingies. Apparently they were filming after all! Cue mad dash to purses for hair brushes and lipstick.
And so began what ended up being almost 2 hours of learning what filming a reality TV show looks like. Spoiler alert: not much of it is real.
There ended up being two scenes involving Rojo. The first had Matt and his son (Jeremy) and daughter-in-law (Audrey) riding in on the jeep thingy and Shannon (Rojo’s best girl and handler) bringing Rojo over to meet them. They chatted, laughed, took some photos to make it real, etc.
The second scene involved Jeremy bringing Rojo into his dad’s office because Matt suddenly wasn’t feeling well. And when you aren’t feeling good, what better remedy is there than a therapy llama? How convenient that one just happened to be on the premises!
In between these two short scenes was a lot of standing around and waiting for…something. I think we were all waiting for the director. He (Patrick – I know his name because the ex-wife, Amy, called out to him not to let her dog go into the office) was the only one who seemed to be working at a fast pace. Everyone else was mostly standing around talking, adjusting headbands, drinking water, waiting for Patrick to tell them what to do.
My first glimpse into the scriptedness of “reality” TV was watching Patrick chat with Matt, Shannon, and Lori (Shannon’s mom) about the first scene and what they were supposed to say and do.
What they were supposed to SAY and DO?!? You mean this stuff isn’t live and spontaneous? You mean it’s planned?!?
Yup.
Right down to doing a couple of takes because either words were flubbed or Rojo’s fluffy head blocked a face. The reality was crushing.
As the jeep thingy rolled out of the scene, we thought we were done and I was sort of sad not having had the opportunity to actually say hi to Matt and thank him for having us (cuz, you know, I wasn’t in the live, spontaneous, impromptu scene). But then there was buzz about the second scene, the one in the office. Whoo hoo!
The office was a nice walk through the Roloff’s property. I followed along with my camera while Rob helped Lori’s husband pack up the llama gear and try to keep Smokey entertained with some hay.
Walking through the property, I had a hunch it was all very iconic to the fans of the show. Indeed, all the barns and houses and rolling hills looked something like a movie set with everything very well-manicured and tidy and camera-ready. Even the vintage cars parked outside were gleaming despite the rainstorm that had accompanied us most of the day.
We stationed ourselves outside of the office and…waited. While we waited, Lori hurriedly wiped Rojo’s feet off, not knowing she had plenty of time to even give him a pedicure had she been so inclined (no forklift feet on Rojo).
The scene revealed itself to be one in which Jeremey calls his dad on a walkie talkie and they chat before Jeremy brings Rojo in to see him. Rojo…all by himself without Shannon or Lori helping out or giving guidance to Jeremy. While we were pretty confident Rojo would be just fine, it was also Hour 5 of an unexpectedly long day and we could tell Rojo was ready to head home.
That and one of the camera crew had expressed some concern that there was a stuffed cougar mounted in Matt’s office, sort of up high, in pouncing formation, and wondered if that might distress Rojo.
Just your typical, relaxed, predictable llama outing.
Director Patrick finally showed up all abuzz and things finally started happening just as a wagon of tourists bounced by on a farm tour.
The walkie talkie conversation between Jeremy and Matt was apparently only audio – or Matt was being filmed inside the office – so Jeremey just walked around outside while Patrick fed him lines.
Fed him lines?!?
Yep.
There was no script, nothing written down, nothing to memorize. But it seemed as if the director had a storyline in his head and had a vision how to make it happen, and thus certain lines were necessary.
So much for reality.
When Jeremy entered the office with Rojo, Matt had been told to say, “GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE!” Then the office door closed and apparently a beautiful interaction happened with the unfazed-by-the-taxidermy Rojo. Matt felt much better.
Cut! And done.
Jeremy came out and gushed about how well-behaved Rojo was and how Rojo had let him lead him around the office and kissed Matt without using carrots. Lori, Shannon, and I were beaming. And relieved.
Then Matt came out. Matt, who had actually been feeling fine the entire time. He thanked us for being there and then said, “I hope they don’t cut the scene at ‘GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE.’ Rojo is really a great animal.”
And right there I understood why he and the entire family seemed sort of…resigned. Here was a show about them and their lives, but very little of it seemed real and very little of it was seemingly in their control. They were told where to be, what to say, situations were contrived for story lines, and an editor could change the tone and meaning of everything. The cost of reality fame appeared startlingly high.
On our way home, I tried to figure out what exactly is real about reality TV. I decided it must be more real for the film crew. Since there are no scripts…and the people they are dealing with are not professional actors…the film crew and director probably feel like they are dealing with reality much more than a sitcom or movie crew does.
I am pretty sure the whole story line about Matt not feeling well was conjured on-the-spot when the production people learned about the therapy work Rojo does. So that sudden storyline probably felt spontaneous to the crew, and they had to react in “real time” to make it happen.
But watching the stars of the show, well, it’s not what I always assumed it was. I thought reality TV was largely people going about their real lives with a camera crew nearby just capturing the action. I mean, the couple of other times people have filmed Rojo and his buddies, that’s what has happened.
Obviously, from Honey Boo Boo, I knew that the reality families are often thrown into unfamiliar situations to make for good TV, but I figured that’s where the puppet mastering stopped. It didn’t occur to me that lines were being fed and problems being manufactured in the interest of keeping things “real.” I knew it wasn’t the highest brow of television, but I thought there was still some integrity left. Oh, naïve innocence. Dashed.
And what about Piglet, some of you stalwart readers might be asking? He was safely tucked in my purse all day just waiting for the opportunity to be photographed with Matt. But I never got the vibe that my asking for a photo would be met with the same play-along acceptance that Ted Danson offered so long ago. Did I mention resignation? Yeah. So Piglet went all the way to the farm and came all the way home, only to be photographed with pumpkins. Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment