1. 1. The title of your program: Final Cut
2. The concept of your program:
This show will be a competition that will include 20 top film students from various
different colleges who are competing for a job on Steven Spielberg’s next movie. Each
episode will have a different event that will cover a specific aspect of filmmaking. A
new panel of Oscar award winning judges, as well as Youtube sensations, and other
celebrities will judge the competitors, according what the task is that week. For instance,
if the challenge on week 5 is to direct, then Ang Lee will be amongst the judges along
with Alexander Payne, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and others. Producer, director,
author, and publisher Michael Wiese will host the show. After reading his book Making
it Big in Shorts, I believe he knows what it takes to make it in the film industry. He has
several “how-to” books on screenwriting and filmmaking, which are used in over 600
film courses. The contestants will be diverse in ethnicity, equal male and females, and all
about the same age. All contestants will be invited to stay in a penthouse on Hollywood
boulevard in Los Angeles. All activity during there stay will be recorded used on the
show so the audience can see how they interact outside of the competition.
3. The log line of your program: Do you have what it takes to make it in Hollywood?
Prove you can direct, produce, edit, write, cast, and more on Final Cut. Just don’t get
cut!
4. Themes: Reality TV, Filmmaking, Hollywood, Competition
5. Format/Genre: Reality, Competition. The show films the lives of the contestants while
they compete against each other. We see how their relationships develop at home and
how they interact and at the same time, they are rivals.
6. In the first episode we will meet the host and have him explain the how the show will
work and give a tour of the house. He will announce all of the judges who will be on the
show throughout the season. Then we will see the all of the contestants in the limo
introducing themselves to one another and conversing as they ride to the penthouse.
They will meet the host outside in front of the building as he introduces himself and goes
over the rules and lets them into their rooms.
For the remained of the episode we will watch as they unpack and get aquainted. They
will have dinner and then meet down in the lobby of their building where they will get
their first project. Then we will watch as they make their videos until the end when they
are judged.
Throughout the rest of the season that is pretty much how it will work. They meet
downstairs for their assignment, spend the rest of the episode working on them until it’s
time to be judged. Then once someone loses, we will watch as they unpack and spend
the rest of the night with the cast before they leave.

2. 7. Episodes:
Episode 1: The first week will introduce the host, Michael Wiese. He’ll tell a little about
himself and what the competition is about. Then the contestants will arrive on a party
bus together. And be introduced 1 by 1 as they come out. He will explain the rules to the
guests and let them up into the penthouse to pick their rooms. Later that night, they will
be assigned their first team challenge. They will have to partner up and go to the dollar
store. Using 10 dollars they will have to buy materials to use to make a “how-to” video
for youtube. This will cause some drama in the house as people may for alliances with
one another. The judges for this contest will be Jenna Marbles, Ray William Johnson,
Chloe Saavedra from Smoosh on youtube, and the guys from Smoosh on youtube, and
Martin Scorsese. The two groups who have the lowest points at the end, is eliminated
leaving 16 contestants left.
Episode 2: In week two, the contestants will have to partner up with new partners this
time and are sent out to film a live band. Given a profession PA system and 4 high-end
cameras they have to figure out how to mic up the bands equipment and record a song so
that all the levels are equal. Not only that, they must figure out where to place 2
stationary cameras and must use the other 2 to walk around and film the live
performance. Afterwards they will have to piece the performance together to come up
with a live music video. The 2 groups with the lowest scores at the end with are
eliminated. This event will be judged by Aerosmith, William Goldenberg (film editor of
Argo), and Mark from Blink 182.
Episode 3: Week three will be an individual challenge. The contestants will be given an
abundance of footage from the show Modern Family. The footage will include various
different shot angles of an entire episode. The contestants will be given one full day to
edit the pieces together using whatever editing software they prefer to make the best
episode possible. The two people with the lowest scores will be eliminated by judges,
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter (academy award winners for best film editing), Ty Burrell
(Phil on Modern Family), and Ryan Case (editor of Modern Family).
Episode 4: On week four contestants will have to go out of the streets of LA and hold
casting auditions for a deodorant commercial. Not only must the cast a person, but also
they must come up with a concept for a commercial, set up microphones correctly, look
for a location to shoot, film and edit the commercial in 2 days. Judges, Ringan Ledwidge
of Rattling Stick (who makes the AXE Deodorant commercials) will be judging, along
with Mike Haneke (director of Armour), and David O. Russell (director of Silver Linings
Playbook). The two with the lowest score will be eliminated.

3. Episode 5: In this week’s episode there contestants will have to produce a 50’s style ad
for Coca-Cola. They’ have to cast people to be in it, and research the clothing style of the
time period so that the actors are dressed accordingly. This will be the main focus of this
episode, hairstyle, and make up, fashion, and set. The set of the commercial and style as
it should pertain to the 1950’s time period. They will be given 5 days to complete the
task. The panel of judges will consist of Jacqueline Durran (Oscar winner for costume
design), fashion designer Stella McCartney, and Colleen Atwood (costume designer for
Alice in Wonderland). The 2 people with the lowest score will be eliminated.
Episode 6: This week the remaining 6 people will each have to pick a topic or person to
do a documentary on. They will be given 10 days to do this. The length of the film must
be 30 minutes. This will be judged by Kahlil Hudson and Tyler Hughen (directors of
Low and Clear), Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine (directors of Inocente). The contestant
with the lowest score will be eliminated.
Episode 7: On this episode contestants will have to write short script for an argument.
No more than 3 pages long. It can be about anything. They have to establish how the
argument started, what occurred during the argument, and how it was resolved or ended.
They will have four hours to complete this. Their scripts are being judged on content and
formatting by Billy Wilder and Quentin Tarantino. The two contestants with the lowest
score will be eliminated.
Episode 8: This is the final week before the finale. On this episode there are 3
contestants left. Their job is to shoot a chase sequence. They will each be given the
same script and they necessary equipment to film with. They must cast their own actors
and film this project within one week. The judges from this week will be all of the
former cast members. The contestant with the lowest score will be eliminated.
8. Final Episode:
The final episode will be a 2 hours long special. The two remaining contestants will have
to write a script for a short film no more than twenty minutes. They will have to cast for
it, find locations to shoot at, edit, and direct their short film. They will be given a crew
and any necessary tools to complete the project over a 3-month period. The judges for
this one will be the TV viewers voting from their phones or online.
9. Literature Review:
My show will be successful for several reasons. In my show I will include several
celebrities. In an article I read, The Appeal of Reality Television for Teen and Preteen
Audiences, it says “connectedness is defined as the level of intensity of the relationship(s)
that a viewer develops with the characters and contextual setting of a program in the
para-social television entertainment. The higher the connectedness, the more involved the
viewer is with the program and characters. (Patino, P) Hopefully having celebrities that
many people already know will invite more viewers to tune in. I struggled to find any
other“academic, scholarly, or peer review journals”, relating to my show. I searched
“why we watch reality TV, why we watch TV shows with celebrities, why we watch TV

4. show competitions”, and so many more topics and found nothing other than the one
article I mentioned which had little relevance to my topic. I ended up just searching
google for reasons why people watch reality TV and found a someone’s blog who
researched why people watch reality television and they had some sources at the end so
they had done so research. Their blog post says that people watch this type of
programming because we find comfort in connection. We don’t want to be alone and
isolated so we tune into “reality” TV to see other peoples problems so that we can relate
to them. This is called “common humanity”; this is when we realize things happen to
everyone, not just you. We find inspiration in reality TV to help us overcome obstacles
and motivate us to improve ourselves (upward social comparison). I believe current film
students will become more motivated to be better filmmakers after watching my show. I
also believe that the show will inspire people to become filmmakers.
On the blog it also says we watch reality TV for a self-esteem boost. We engage in
downward social comparison, when we compare our situations to another who has it
worse than we do. A viewer may watch a show to gain social information. Perhaps to
see the latest trends. Especially if the show has celebrities on it like mine does.
10. Popular Examples:
When comparing my show to a popular example, I’d say it’s closely related to Project
Runway. Contestants competed for cash prizes, presenting at New York’s Fashion Week
and an editorial feature in Marie Clare, among others. Each week there is a new
competition relating to different aspects of designing. This show was obviously
successful because it has had 11 seasons. According to TV.com it has a rating of 8.6 of
10. The show averages 2.7 million viewers. I believe my show will receive similar
ratings and success.
11. Citations:
Lastname, Firstinitial. (Year, Month Date). Title of the Blog Post Entry. [Web Log
Post]. Retrieved from http://thewebsite
Breines, J. (2011, June 9) Why we watch reality TV. [Web Log Post]. Retrieved from
http://psych-your-mind.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-we-watch-reality-tv.html
Patino, P., Kaltcheva, V. D., & Smith, M.F. (2011) The appeal of Reality Television For
Teen and Pre-Teen audiences, The Power of “Connectedness” and Psycho
Demographics. Journal of Advertising Research. 45(04), 288-297. DOI: 10.2501/JAR-51-
1-288-297
Season Nine Debut of Lifetime’s ‘Project Runway’ Averages 2.7 Million Viewers. (2009,
July, 29). In TV By the Numbers. Retrieved May 8, 2013, from
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/07/29/season-nine-debut-of-lifetimes-

5. project-runway-averages-2-7-million-viewers/99211/
The Nominies. (n.d.). In The Oscars. Retrieved May 8, 2013, from
http://oscar.go.com/nominees

6. project-runway-averages-2-7-million-viewers/99211/
The Nominies. (n.d.). In The Oscars. Retrieved May 8, 2013, from
http://oscar.go.com/nominees