Five Things I Have Learned About Reality TV

1. The staff behind them (cast/crew) are all very talented and wear a million different hats. On our show, executive producers act as story writer, director, producer, coordinator, designer (at times), and even shoot some of the footage. They also love bossing around the PAs (production assistants).

2. Contractors are very different when on television (this aspect is very unrealistic so don't expect on your personal renovation). Of the 20 or so contractors we have worked with on our house renovation this past year, this is the FIRST group that works more than eight hours a day (up to 12 sometimes!!) and will be working this upcoming 4th of July weekend.

3. Gregg loves the spotlight more than me. I never thought that anyone could love the attention more than me but apparently I have found my match. Any chance we have to 'react' to a situation, Gregg jumps in explaining, carrying on, and hamming it up with the host. I also didn't realize I would love watching him do the aforementioned as much.

4. The drama is staged. Ya ya, I know we all knew this one before BUT I thought it was just exaggerated. In our reality, it's 100% made up. I won't spoil any of the plot by disclosing the details but let's just say Gregg and I actually agree about most of the house stuff and yet on our episode you'll think we have widely different opinions.

5. 21 minutes of produced final product takes WAAAAAAAAY more rough filming than I ever thought. Yes, I realize the importance or retaking a scene when someone stutters, misspeaks, or just butchers a line (yes, we have lines). That being said, I had no idea we'd shoot with so many different cameras/angels and that hours upon hours of scenes and shoots would land in the waste bucket. For example, this past weekend we shot over 12 hours of film multiplied by three cameras. We still have three more shoot days AND every day on the job site they have 1-2 cameras taping. Then all of that tape gets filtered and cut into a measly 21 minutes (or in our case a maximum of 42 if we get a special).