Kate Snow, NBC hidden cameras take on bullying
6 Mar
Q: So, because it is a hidden act…
A: This is Allison (Orr): Just so you know how we make the decision when to use hidden cameras, everything is a case by case basis. There is no hard and fast rule. The decision is made by a lot of people here before we set out on any project. We talk about it and say what we hope to get out of it. It has to be important. There has to be kind of no other way to see what we’re going to do. There are a few criteria, but there’s not really a hard and fast rule. But one of them is always, “Well, is that what we need to do in order to tell the story, in order to show what we need to show?” And with bullying because of everything Kate just said about how it doesn’t really happen in front of adults, that was one of the reasons for this. But there is no hard and fast rule. We go into every single situation, saying, “Should we, or shouldn’t we? And these are the reasons why.”
Q: You guys looked to be very careful to be protective of the real kids in that situation… And there are a couple of situations. One girl gets very upset and …
A: (Snow): I don’t want to sound like we’re holier than thou — that we’re perfect angels or anything. But we put a lot of heart into this project. We talked and thought and had conference calls and meetings and discussions over a period of what, guys, months, three, four months now? This is planning before we ever started shooting, because we’re all mothers. Actually, I think everybody on our team is a parent — whether they’re a guy or a girl, they’re all parents. And we were very, very conscious of making sure this is a positive experience for everybody.
A: This is Lynn. Yes, we actually gameplayed beforehand all the possible scenarios that we could think of as to what could happen — including what would happen if someone did get upset, because bullying can be very upsetting to witness. And we decided right there, that if we witnessed it, we were going to stop it — stop the whole thing.
A: (Snow) So, Dylan is the actor who plays the victim in the boys’ scenario. He happens to be gay in his real life. As you see on TV, he was tormented as a kid. He ended up actually dropping out of school, I think, at one point, because he was so bullied as a kid. At one point during our shoot, he was starting to internalize this stuff so much, it was hard. It was hard to act this over and over again. Even though he’s an actor, he’s a child…
A: (Crosstalk with Orr and Keller): He’s a teen, not a child.
A: (Snow) He’s a teen. But to go in there and put yourself through being bullied over and over is kind of a hard thing for an adult to do, for anybody to do. So, there was a point where we just stopped for a while. We took a break, because we said, “You know what, the way you’re feeling right now is more important than television.” And we had experts with us every step of the way. We were really careful. I’m not an expert. I’m not a bullying expert. I’m not a psychologist…. We wanted to be responsible.”
Q. You know, I wondered how else you could have done this — maybe with an undercover kid using an iPhone?
A: This is Lynn. We definitely went down the road you’re going, like how could we somehow be in the real world [to investigate without staging], and the bottom line is that you have to have the permission of the parents and the school…
Q: You’re very careful in the show to tell the viewer they are going to hear some language that might be problematic. Did you have concerns about replicating language that could be troubling to some? … Did you have discussions about that, too?
A: This is Allison. Big, big discussions. We went over the specfic words… What are the words we should have our actors use? Obviously, we came down on the side that you have to use the words the kids really use to tell the story.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2011/03/dateline_kate_snow_bullying_mo.html
