Top scouts give inside track on what makes a hit reality TV show
Events-planner-about-town Caspar Haydar was always being told he needed his own reality show. And casting agents Jocelyn Mercer and Connie Contardi had kept the gregarious Haydar carefully on their radar. They “discovered” him half-a-dozen years ago, and were excited by his charisma, but his reality-star vehicle was not immediately apparent.
Two years ago, over a catch-up dinner, Haydar flashed them some snaps of his latest project — groaning, decadent sweet tables for society fetes — and the light bulb started to strobe.
SugarStars, which premieres its 14-episode series, featuring half hour backto-back episodes, on Aug. 27 at 10 pm on Food Network Canada, is the result of that dinner come to life.
Mercer and Contardi are scouts. They had the most secret and notorious casting negotiations this city has ever seen in the search for the Toronto cast of Real Housewives in early 2011. But files on candidates the pair interviewed will stay sealed, because the Canadian version of the franchise ended up going to a coven of shrill Vancouver blondes instead.
There have been many waves of reality television, and its demise has been predicted often, but the genre continues to reinvent itself. Mercer and Contardi started out with what is called a “fish out of water,” show they developed for Slice in 2008 called Mr. Friday. It ran for a year in Canada and was picked up by a number of countries around the world.
More than anything, reality shows are driven by natural, comfortable and fun characters, says Mercer.In the case of SugarStars, the two became development producers through their “first look” deal with eOne Entertainment, the show’s executive producer.
“Ding ding ding! I thought,” says Mercer of Haydar’s confectionary concoctions. “That is a cool world. That is a show.”
But while one star is special, the key to reality television is finding a group of stars, with specialized skills and talents, and an established “family-like” relationship, where every member is telegenic, and the characters provide a dynamic narrative.
In this case, Haydar and Elle Daftarian had been working together since 2006 at the events arm of their company. In 2010, they opened Petite & Sweet, a bakery and lifestyle boutique at 420 Summerhill Ave, Rosedale. That shop became, in reality parlance, “their world,” around which the series is built. Each episode features two real-life events around Toronto, for which they are commissioned to create sweet tables.
The show has hit all over it, says Christine Shipton, vice-president of original program at Shaw Media, and the person who greenlighted the project.
She says the SugarStars excited her more as the tapes came in. The series concept is also coasting a food trend which helps it stand out.
Of all the channels Shipton oversees content for, there are 57 new series on the fall schedule. Some 650 hours of that is Canadian. “It makes a very big difference for viewers,” she says, “in terms of relatability, to see local stars.”
Food shows always do well, says Shipton; meat shows are big, but sugar-based shows are even bigger. “That category didn’t exist two years ago,” she says, “but it is huge now.”
Series producer Cara Volchoff, a 10-year veteran of the reality format, is reticent to pull back the veil on how much in the genre is scripted and how much is “poked and stroked.”
According to Volchoff, SugarStars is a “rare gem” riddled with ongoing snags and problem solving on the fly that keeps the cast on a crazy ride without the need to induce additional challenges. Still though, the stars have to be able to “turn it on” for the cameras, says Contardi. “Like Elle in SugarStars, say she saw an ant and was grossed out. Elle knew that on camera she would see the ant and have to be really grossed out.” It is like being the funniest you have ever been, the moment the camera goes on, says Mercer. “And the camera is on all the time, so they have to be able to stand that.” Volchoff says it takes some 24 hours of footage and a crew of eight to produce a 22-minute show. “We pack a lot of information into that space. The bigger shows, with casts of dozens, are actually spreading less information over more time. .” So what’s in it for the stars exposing themselves for the cameras? “It depends on who you are already,” says Volchoff. “Gone are the days when you make doc-style shows and follow people for free.” And certainly unknown stars are not going to make money like the Osbournes, she says. “The fee depends on whether you are on a network and prime time, or a specialty channel. But people are attracted to it for the book deals, product lines, conventions and appearance fees. But everyone gets paid something. We take up a lot of our stars’ time.”