July 6, 1999
Web posted at: 1:43 p.m. EDT (1743 GMT)

By Donna Freydkin
Reporting for CNN Interactive

In this story: Why do it? Real TV 18-hour days A star isn't born RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- This time last year, 21-year-old Amaya was a college senior trying to figure what to do with her life when she's out in the real world. Today, courtesy of MTV's voyeuristic docudrama "The Real World," she's a kind of star.

Like certified Tinseltown celebrities in Hollywood, the University of California-Los Angeles graduate says she now has to leave her house incognito, sunglasses and all, to avoid being accosted by well-meaning fans.

"It's a little bit weird, being recognized," she says. "I've been recognized a lot. I can't go anywhere now. It makes me uncomfortable, and I don't think I really anticipated the aftermath. Not at all. I'm still bewildered by it."

Amaya is one of seven cast members plucked from their former realities and placed in a plush beachfront house in Honolulu for four months. There, their every waking moment was taped for the eighth season of MTV's popular show, basking in its highest ratings to date.

The network reports that the show's one-hour June 15 season opener was the highest-rated premiere for the series, posting a 347-percent increase in viewers among households and a 433-percent increase among 12- to 34-year-old viewers in its time period. "The Real World" is seen on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern.

"The Real World" by the numbers:

"The Real World" is seen in 41 countries Since the series debuted in 1992, ratings have increased 73 percent More than 23,000 hopefuls applied to be on "The Real World" Hawaii and "Road Rules" That made the odds of getting on the show one in 3,309 There are three cameras shooting the show More than 2,000 hours of tape were shot this season The Hawaii site had 33 production crew members Source: MTV Networks

DISCUSSION:

Excited about the Hawaii season, or are you sick to death of "The Real World"? Go to the boards!

Amaya was selected for the show along with Colin, 19, the University of California-Berkeley hunk; Justin, 21, the gay whiz kid in law school at Harvard; Kaia, 22, another University of California-Berkeley student, this one a freethinker who took her name -- "stability" in Swahili -- while living in Tanzania; Matt, 22, the seemingly straightlaced aspiring screenwriter going to University of California-Los Angeles; Ruthie, 21, the native Hawaiian partyer treated for a drinking problem; and Teck, 22, the camera-loving entertainer with political aspirations.

In the case of at least two of the cast members, "The Real World" is not life imitating art.

"I know I'm just an average guy," says Colin, who'd like to be a sportscaster. "Sure, you get shown attention by people, but I'm not oblivious. I know what's going on. This isn't going to help me get anywhere I wasn't going already."

And Amaya says she's even had some misgivings. "I didn't go into the experience to be famous or to be a star. I went in as a challenge. If I could go back, I would have the whole experience not taped."

But it seems viewers can't get enough of Ruthie's drinking problem, Kaia parading around topless and Amaya and Colin's budding romance.

Jonathan Murray, "The Real World" executive producer, is one of the people who wades through stacks of 18-page applications to decide who gets one of the coveted slots. He says that he and co-executive producer Mary-Ellis Bunim try to pick unique characters who bring something to the mix.

"We look for people who have a charisma," he says. "They don't have to have model-like good looks, but they have to shine. We want people who always seem to have a light on them. We're looking for everyday people who are stars in their own right."

To help prospects get a grip on what it means to have their lives taped, no holds barred, the staff conducts in-depth interviews, asking intensely personal questions, nothing off-limits. And the show has cameramen follow applicants around for 24 hours in their hometowns.

"Until you've done it," Murray says, "you can't really understand what it's like to have a camera on you 24-seven."

Bunim and Murray, who head up Bunim/Murray Productions, are old pros in reality television. They got their start working on "Crime Diaries," a detective series, and went on to work on the reality series "American Families" for FOX. They pitched the idea of a soap-documentary to MTV, the network went for it, and the first "The Real World" aired in June 1992, with a cast living in New York.

"We thought of a family, in a sense," says Murray, "that we put together, just starting out and making decisions they had to live with. You never know what the dynamic is going to be once you put these seven larger-than-life characters together, so it's hard to tell what's going to happen. Generally, we look for seven really interesting, really diverse people."

18-hour days

So, what does it take to get a 22-minute episode of "The Real World" air-ready?

As much patience as manpower, says Murray.

For one thing, before a single cast member sets foot in the house, "The Real World" staff gives the home a makeover, transforming it into both a deluxe domicile and a full-blown production house that enables the crew to obtain broadcast-quality sound and video virtually anywhere on-site. Previous seasons of "The Real World" have been set in London, New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.

The crew shoots whenever the cast is awake, usually about 18 hours per day. And since they can't be everywhere at once, they make decisions about which cast member to follow. During shooting, the tapes are initially processed on-location, sent to California, where they're handed over to production staffers who time-code the tapes and look for compelling shots and story angles. The story department then takes the material and wades through it, figuring out what goes into each 22-minute episode to tell a complete story.

"When you think of the number of hours that go into casting, shooting and assembling the tape into a coherent story," says Murray, "it's not an easy process to do. For our audience, it's a show that's very 'relate-able.' It's a lot of fun to watch because you can see people have personal disasters, which is something our audience really enjoys watching."

Perhaps most importantly for the cast members, they see copies of each episode about 24 hours before it airs. "It's so you can warn people if there's anything on you don't want them to see," says Colin.

Normally, there's zero contact between the crew and cast members, who are supposed to pretend that the guy thrusting the camera at them doesn't exist. But for the first time this year, MTV dropped its hands-off policy by sending Ruthie to a 30-day rehab program to help her with her drinking problem. In the season's first episode, she went to a hospital with alcohol poisoning, while in another episode, she kissed Kaia and later claimed alcohol-induced amnesia.

So, what's life like on "The Real World"?

Forget about privacy and alone-time, say Colin and Amaya. And leave your hang-ups at home, because they'll become public knowledge.

"You'd have to be blind not to notice a big, black phallic object (the microphone) in your face all the time," says Colin. "Of course you notice it. But I went in not caring. There's an adjustment period, where you kind of see how they work. But at the same time, I was myself the entire time and wasn't holding anything back."

"You do always see the cameramen," Amaya says. "They're always there, and there are cameras around the house."

She says that when she needed some privacy toward the end of the show, the crew recognized it and gave her some space. "There are times when you forget about them being there, especially when you're deep in a conversation with somebody," she says, "but you see them constantly, following you around."

Amaya says that before doing the show she never really grasped that she might enter the annals of "The Real World" fame. Did it change her life and forge lasting friendships with fellow cast members? No, she says, but it gave her a sense of confidence.

"It can be stifling," she says. "People are in your face. And you're around people you wouldn't necessarily be friends with in your other life. And just the fact that you constantly have to answer to someone every time you go somewhere."

But while the cast may be treated like celebrities post-show, their pay is anything but Hollywood level, earning them meager story rights that may add up to the price of a used car. Murray says that if the cast members harbor any delusions of post-"The Real World" grandeur, it's not because they were misled by his staff.

"We've worked hard to explain to people that in most cases, this doesn't lead to stardom," he says. "In most cases, these people aren't trained as actors. They're just interesting personalities."