Reality Show (partially found documentary film on failed reality show; 2004)

This article has been tagged as NSFW due to its due to its mentions of sexual misconduct, exploitation, language, and pornographic subject matter.

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Film poster.

Status: Partialy Found

Rock The Party was the title of a proposed reality show where ten ladies fights for the title of "America’s Craziest Party Girl". This reality series' concept was conceptualized, self-funded, and self-produced by Southern Californian millionaire and entrepreneur, Dan Sherbondy. Sherbondy would then later hire ten ladies off of Craigslist to be the contestants for the showand would also hire an inexperienced, amateur production crew to shoot the series at a beach motel in Mexico, with Sherbondy being the host of the show.

Despite the fact that the crew and the contestants were promised and paid by Sherbondy himself to film this reality series, this agreement of it being a "reality show" was very far from what is happening while shooting the series, as the contestants had discerned that Sherbondy was only using this "reality show" promise as a way to fulfill his sexual fantasies and fetishes and take sexual advancements towards the contestants, with the amateur crew filming each and every part of what was happening. This would cause the hired director for the series, Colin Trevorrow, to ditch the "reality show" concept and make a documentary film detailing Sherbondy's unwarranted actions and interviewing the contestant and crew's experiences working with Sherbondy. Using actual footage from this failed reality show concept would be the catalyst for the 72-minute documentary film, Reality Show.

Background

There is surprisingly not a lot of information about Dan Sherbondy on the internet, though what is known is that he is a millionaire and an entrepreneur and has resided living in Las Vegas. According to testimonies from the crew that had worked for him in the now-failed reality series, Sherbondy is known to be a "lunatic". and a "prick".

At around 2003, Sherbondy conceived the idea of making a reality show with him quoting the following:

"I'mma make another show... I thought, make a reality show. I'm gonna have sex, I'm gonna have craziness, I'm gonna have wild partying. Like Girls' Gone Wild... but more depth to it."

Note: Girls' Gone Wild is an adult-oriented entertainment franchise that features women of legal age going "wild" at dance clubs and parties.

Sherbondy would then put advertisements on Craigslist inviting ladies to participate in his reality show, Rock The Party. He would too then hire several amateur crew members off of Craigslist, and would also hire director Colin Trevorrow to direct the series as one of his first directing roles where Sherbondy would pay him $500.00 to direct it, which Trevorrow would agree to do. The crew and the contestants would then be driven off to the Rosarita Beach Motel in Baja, Mexico via a passenger van, and Trevorrow, as he details his and other people's experience shooting was, "the seediest, worst experience of our lives". Despite the fact that they were promised and told they would be shooting a "reality show", the reality of the situation differs from what they had expected as people in the crew and contestants realized that Sherbondy's "reality show" promise to them is miles different from his intent and motives, as Trevorrow would put into words, "he was really down there to sleep with all these women, essentially.". Trevorrow also added that the footage that the crew had shot on Sherbondy and the contestants were so "unwatchable" and "unusable".

This would later cause Trevorrow and the crew to interview each other about their experiences regarding the show, filming, and Sherbondy. After Trevorrow managed to persuade Sherbony to give him the authority of all the footage shot, he then later tries and make a story from the crew and contestant's experiences and perspectives dealing with Sherbondy via footage and the interviews taken by the crew towards a deeper look at the darker and uncensored "reality" in reality shows themselves, with how people use this "reality show" medium to take advantage over people, ditching the original "reality show" concept promised by Sherbondy.

Screenings

After compiling the footage to make the documentary, it was only allowed to be screened at film festivals after Sherbondy and Trevorrow had accepted the conditions that Sherbondy would get the Executive Producer role and credit for the documentary, and Sherbondy would also get some profits from the documentary.

The film debuted premiere at the 2004 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival with a runtime of 72 minutes, at Screen 6 on the 21st of November, 2004. Its second and last screening of the film was at the San Francisco's DocFest and the Milwaukee Film Festival, but this was re-edited and had been cut out of 17-minutes, as it was screened with a total runtime of 55 minutes .

Aftermath & Availability

Colin Trevorrow would later go on in his career leaving his past behind, as he would go on and later have his directorial debut in the big screen in his film, "Safety Not Guaranteed", starring Aubrey Plaza, which received critical acclaim. In he would later also direct the films in the Jurassic World franchise in 2015 and its subsequent films, receiving massive commercial success.

After six years afters its last premiere in film festivals, there had been a couple of interviews with Trevorrow in 2012 that had some instances where he had talked about Reality Show a bit further. One in particular, Trevorrow's interview with the website DVDTalk.com, provides further detail on the availability of the film and describes the fact that after multiple screenings, Sherbondy would request to take all copies of the film down..

DVDTalk: Before we get started, I have to tell you, one of my Twitter critic friends, Sara Vizcarrondo, she told me to tell you that she loved Reality Show.

Colin Trevorrow: Wow, that's amazing...I don't even know where she would have gotten a copy.

DVDTalk: I'm guessing she saw it at a festival.

Colin Trevorrow: That would've been years ago...you actually can't get it anywhere now. 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.

It is currently unclear who has possession of the film as of yet and is currently unclear how Vizcarrondo got a hand in the film. It is possible a bootleg copy of the film exists but this is still an unclear suspicion. It is unconfirmed if either Sherbondy or Trevorrow still has copies of the film. The only existing footage online of this film is a trailer uploaded back in 2006 about the documentary and remains the only footage for this documentary.

Gallery

Reality Show trailer.

External Links

• Wikipedia page for Reality Show