“I came into the house on uncertain grounds, and I leave on uncertain grounds,” Kyle writes in a letter, oblivious to the cameraman peering over his shoulder.
That scene on the final day of shooting in the Wicker Park location wasn’t the only uncertain moment. Shooting “The Real World” in Chicago this past summer and fall was a lesson in uncertainty:
– There were protests surrounding the shooting of the MTV reality series, in part caused by opposition to the Wicker Park neighborhood’s overall gentrification.
– There were reactions to the very real events of the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11 that were caught on tape and promise to provide a different kind of drama that hasn’t been seen in the series’ 11-season history.
– Finally, there is the uncertainty that reality TV in general is going through, with declining ratings, a glut in the genre and the real events of Sept. 11 overshadowing TV’s make-believe reality.
Not that any of this is on Kyle’s mind as he writes a letter to a fellow housemate — with whom he shared a brief fling. It is one of six letters that he is working on — one for each of the cast members. As he writes, several of the 33 cameras that are situated throughout the loft are capturing his moves on this, the last full day of taping.
“A lot of times there’s just things I want to put on paper to give to people,” Kyle, a 22-year-old who was born in Hinsdale and whose parents live in Lake Bluff, explains later. “And I needed to write those letters as closure. I had a lot of things I needed to say and wrap up with each one of my roommates.”
With the cameras constantly whirring, little is ever private on “The Real World,” which has its season premiere on Tuesday.
Because MTV agreed to allow the producers of the series to produce a season in the summer not long after the previous one in New York wrapped up (the series usually films during the latter part of winter), the series finally made it to Chicago several months ago.
“I think after our third season people started asking, `When are you going to go to Chicago?'” says executive producer Jon Murray. “And we were stubborn about it because we really wanted to come to Chicago when the weather was nice. And finally MTV gave us this chance to shoot a season over the summer. I’m glad we waited because I really think this city does become the eighth roommate. It is spectacularly looking.”
All the familiar places
Indeed, the season premiere includes all the things that say Chicago, including shots of elevated trains, shops along Michigan Avenue, the trendy clubs on the city’s North Side, and views from the John Hancock Building.
“I’ll be working here in Chicago for the next three or four months,” says Chris, 24, another member of the house. “I have a job related to my career working with an artist on an exhibit. So it will be an amazing experience for me. Chicago’s been wonderful.”
But not all of Chicago. Some of the housemates’ neighbors chose the series shoot as a rallying point for their cause.
“The protests seemed to be directly related to something that was specifically happening in this neighborhood,” Murray explains, “which was there were a small group of artists who were concerned about gentrification.
“I guess I wasn’t surprised because I’ve learned not to be surprised at anything. But ultimately, luckily, where the cast certainly had a week or two there where they were certainly bothered by it, and at times felt a little unsafe, ultimately in some ways it made them bond with each other.”
On guard
Because of the protests and a double slaying that occurred nearby, security was tightened at the loft.
“In the beginning it was the safety issue, and we really dealt with that accordingly, like having a security guard here,” says Anthony Dominici, who produced the Chicago filming. He wouldn’t say if elements of the protests will be included in the series.
“There were some hard times,” says 22-year-old housemate Cara. “Now I can look at it retrospectively and I can say it was great, it was fun. I think if you’d asked me [a few months ago] I would have been like, `Get me out of here!'”
Kyle, in defense of his city, says, “It’s important to establish that it’s not how the city reacted. It’s a very vocal, very small group within this section of the city. Chicago did not reject us. A band of people in the area that we live in tried to . . . when we went to other areas in the city we were embraced, people were enthusiastic, people were very accommodating.”
But Tonya, a 22-year-old from Walla Walla, Wash., notes: “I think with everything that happened with Sept. 11, those protests seemed so trivial.”
Change in approach
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They were especially trivial after the uncertainty brought about by the events of Sept. 11. Murray says he broke with the show’s tradition and brought a television into the house in order to allow roommates to keep up on what was happening to the country after the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
“It’s really the first time this generation has had an event like that, that made them think about their mortality, made them realize that their world is not maybe as controllable as they thought it was,” he says.
“They were getting calls. Kyle’s sister and ex-girlfriend were both in New York, and he’s getting calls from them, hysterical calls about what they had seen because they were down there near Ground Zero. And Cara’s brother works at the Capitol. So it was relating to them directly.”
Aneesa, a 20-year-old Philadelphia gay woman whose free spirit promises to be a much-talked-about topic on the series, says that it will be good to have the cameras showing young people “actually feeling and praying and being really involved . . . just to show that we’re all going through something that’s really big right now.”
Different focus
Housemate Theo, 20, of Riverside, Calif., adds: “Being taped on Sept. 11 was really the most time I never at all paid attention to the camera. It was more so trying to imagine what people were going through. We see so much stuff on TV. You would be there watching it, [but] it was like it wasn’t real . . . “
Viewers will see Theo and the other housemates as they deal with their emotions on Sept. 11 and other issues — even if the way those feelings come across will be manipulated somewhat via cameras, editing and other storytelling techniques.
“I don’t think anything’s going to shock my dad. I didn’t do too much stuff,” says Keri, 22, of New Orleans. “I didn’t meet that many guys, which is fine. But I’m going to grit my teeth anyway . . . I haven’t seen it yet.”
Keri shouldn’t worry too much.
Different backgrounds
Even though “The Real World” is very much a series with a cast of characters and continuing story lines, lead director Laura Korkoian says the production very much realizes that these seven young people aren’t made up like those on “Dawson’s Creek.”
“I do see them as real people; they are real people with real experiences,” she says. “They all bring a lot of different experiences into this mix. And that’s the beauty of this project for me, is that they come from different backgrounds, different life experiences, culture backgrounds.”
Many with the cast and crew of “The Real World” believe the show is a viable one, even if it seems that most other reality series, including CBS’ “Survivor,” are losing their popularity.
“It’s a documentary on seven people’s lives at a certain time,” Dominici says. “I think that’s the very simple and most basic form of all the reality shows.”
Drama in Wicker Park
And now, based on events from the hourlong, 11th-season premiere (9 p.m. Tuesday, MTV), we present Connect the “Real World” Dots, Chicago Style. This game is sure to become a classic:
Small-town girl Tonya is at first leery of ladies’ man Theo (“Black people intimidate me,” she says), and although he thinks Tonya’s cute, Theo develops an immediate crush on free-spirit Aneesa (he calls her his “flava”) and isn’t deterred by her being gay (“Dudes is disgusting,” she says), but his attitude might cause problems when he finds out about sensitive Chris, whose “fear” of not knowing “how people will react to me being gay” prompts him to first reveal to the house that he’s a recovering alcoholic, causing him to remain a mystery to most (Aneesa is the first to catch his vibe), including relationship-addicted Cara, who has “never been single” and who thinks Tonya is “a little bit cheesy,” but who also thinks all-American boy Kyle is hot, which is a feeling also shared by independent Keri, and that develops into an immediate bond between Kyle and Keri.
— witty TV guy Allan Johnson