Reality Show (film)

To achieve instant fame,[5] eccentric millionaire Dan Sherbondy[2] funds his own reality show.[5] His Craigslist advertisements invite 10 women to compete for the title of "America's Craziest Party Girl".[5] Sherbondy, his best friend, 10 women, a little person, and an inexperienced production crew travel to Baja, Mexico,[2] but the millionaire's appalling treatment of the cast and crew causes them to rise up against him. The film is narrated by Dean Welsh.[4]

The project began production in 2003,[5] as a self-produced[6] pilot for a reality television show[7] titled Rock the Party.[5] The pilot was funded by entrepreneur Dan Sherbondy,[2] who also hosted a late-night television show in Las Vegas, Nevada.[6]

According to director Colin Trevorrow, "It's footage of a real thing that happened, which is this guy, who is kind of a lunatic, and really just the world's biggest asshole, took a crew off of Craigslist, and a bunch of women, and told them they were on a reality show. He took 'em down to Mexico, hired a bunch of guys for nothing to shoot it, and he was really just...I don't know what he was doing; he was really down there to sleep with all these women, essentially. And I was hired to direct that. It was my first thing, you know: "I'll pay you $500!" "Great! I'll do it!" And it turned into this absolute disaster."[8]

Filming locations included a hotel in the Mexican city of Rosarito Beach. Trevorrow said, "The shoot at the hotel was the seediest, worst experience of our lives…we made the worst reality show in history."[6] Sherbondy ultimately gave Trevorrow all the footage. The crew then filmed each other giving interviews about the troubled production. Trevorrow cut the interviews and footage together to form the documentary.[8] Trevorrow said "I have interviews with the crew, where they discuss this preposterous bullshit that went on. It's a strange doc about how people use this reality show medium to take advantage of people."[6]

Sherbondy allowed the film to be released after securing an executive producer credit and any future profits.[2] The film was first shown at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival on November 21, 2004.[3] In 2006, the film was shown at San Francisco's DocFest and the Milwaukee Film Festival.[2][9]

In 2012, Trevorrow said the film was no longer available: "The guy it's about -- the movie is basically a documentary about how awful he is -- he actually lost a job or something over it, so he made us take it down everywhere and you can't find it anymore."[8]

Reality Show at IMDb