Friday, November 22, 2013

Writer Reality TV: Italy's "Masterpiece"

Well, this may be a new high.. or low.. for reality TV, but it does remind me a lot of the panels I've facilitated or watched at various writers' conventions. "Masterpiece" is an Italian TV Reality show that's out to  discover the Next Big Writer in Italy. The show premiered last weekend.

The first part of the show, according to Claude Nougat (see link below) who watched it last weekend, started with the auditions. How fun could that be? Don't most writers work at home by themselves?

The second and third parts were the parts that mirrored what we do at conventions. Several contestants (panelists at our conventions) were thrown into unexpected situations and told they had a 1/2 hour to write about it in the third part of the show. What made this different from our conventions is that it wasn't a virtual situation thrown out from a member of the audience. The participants in the TV show got to experience the situation. Two were sent to a refugee home run by a Rambo-style priest and the other two were sent to a disco for seniors. I should mention that according to the review there were judges, rants, raves and more... Reality Show Plus.. You must read Claude Nougat's review HERE.

Read the New York Times article about the contestants and the TV show.

Do you think this would work here?

Watch the Trailer:

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