Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Mass Funny Podcast with
Speaker 1: me Joshua Fox. Today we're doing something very special and
Speaker 1: potentially something that's never been done before. And I'm about
Speaker 1: to interview a former married at first site producer and
Speaker 1: they're going on the record. They're using their name and
Speaker 1: this this does not happen because these people usually like
Speaker 1: live in the shadows. Everything's so secretive. They never really
Speaker 1: want to talk about what happens behind the scenes, how
Speaker 1: they make the show. The lady I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: to today is called Alex Fanel. She worked for two
Speaker 1: seasons on Mass as a post producer. And if you're
Speaker 1: wondering what a post producer does, I'll let her explain.
Speaker 1: Maybe one thing you guys didn't know is on shows
Speaker 1: like this, there's so many different types of producers. You've
Speaker 1: got like the casting producers, You've got day to day producers,
Speaker 1: you've got executive seniors, You've got so many different departments.
Speaker 1: Each couple is even assigned their own producer, who's pretty
Speaker 1: much like a babysitter day to day. So Alex is
Speaker 1: going to come on and answer my question. She's going
Speaker 1: to answer some of the questions you guys have been sending.
Speaker 1: She no longer works in TV, which is why she's
Speaker 1: comfortable kind of coming on to do this. And she
Speaker 1: also has her own podcast that she does with her
Speaker 1: best friend Jordie Lucas, who you guys may know as
Speaker 1: a former actress from Neighbors. Jordy is also now a
Speaker 1: host and presenter, and between them, they've basically worked on
Speaker 1: the biggest shows in this country, and that's what they
Speaker 1: talk about on their podcast. But today she's coming on
Speaker 1: here to tell me exactly how Married at First Sight
Speaker 1: is made.
Speaker 2: Hello Ali speaking, Hello Alexis.
Speaker 3: Josh, Oh, hi Josh, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm good? How are you doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Good, good, little little nervous.
Speaker 2: Actually, they're just giving the people the answers they want.
Speaker 3: I'm trying the best I can to be honest and
Speaker 3: balanced and demystify it a little bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we'll start off with you were a post
Speaker 1: producer for two seasons. Firstly, what the fuck does post
Speaker 1: producer even mean?
Speaker 3: So post producers are essentially the equivalent of like the
Speaker 3: edit producer. So we're not on shit, we don't. We're
Speaker 3: not across what happens on production during filming. Really, we
Speaker 3: just get hours and hour's worth of footage. We get
Speaker 3: a very slight overview of what happened that day. We
Speaker 3: get assigned certain days or episodes or whatever, and then
Speaker 3: it's our job to comb through and watch the footage
Speaker 3: from the very first bit to the very end. And
Speaker 3: so it will take us maybe two to three weeks
Speaker 3: to actually watch all the footage.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, so before we kind of jump into that,
Speaker 1: I just want to give more context to listeners. So
Speaker 1: when someone says, like a producer, I think people just
Speaker 1: assume there's one team of people that are doing everything,
Speaker 1: But in reality, you have like a team of casting producers.
Speaker 1: You've got day to day producers. Each couple is assigned
Speaker 1: a producer who's almost like a babysitter, and like, yes it, so,
Speaker 1: do you know what's.
Speaker 2: Happening day to day?
Speaker 1: Do you know like the maybe tactics they've used to
Speaker 1: get the footage that you're then sent, You.
Speaker 3: Know, like no idea now, so you kind of.
Speaker 2: Go into it blindly.
Speaker 3: We just get a top line rundown of what each
Speaker 3: conversation was about once we've watched the footage. And so
Speaker 3: while we're watching it, we're transcribing it and taking notes
Speaker 3: like you know, X goes here. No, even the boring things,
Speaker 3: it's all transcribed. We don't miss anything. Then we have
Speaker 3: story meetings and in that meeting we talk about what's
Speaker 3: been going on, and that's when you all talk about, well,
Speaker 3: what's been going on in the wider context of the
Speaker 3: show on set, and so you say, well, this happened,
Speaker 3: this happened, this happened, they had a fight about this,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, got upset, blah blah. And then as
Speaker 3: a group you discuss what the angle is that we're
Speaker 3: going to hone in on. Because essentially you've got hours
Speaker 3: and hour's worth of footage, seventy hours. Sometimes how you
Speaker 3: can't put it all on air. You have to put
Speaker 3: it into a two or three five minute scene. You
Speaker 3: have to decide which bits you're going to keep.
Speaker 1: This is interesting because you know every year people come
Speaker 1: out and blame the idea. They go the EDDA, stitch
Speaker 1: me up, the this. But I'm now speaking to the
Speaker 1: person who does the edit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I always get a be in my bonnet
Speaker 3: when the season airs, and then they start blaming the edit,
Speaker 3: particularly if it's an edit that I did.
Speaker 2: You're like this is my work.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I'll be like, oh you are like that.
Speaker 3: I watched you. I watched you know you from morning tonight,
Speaker 3: I watched you at dinner. I know you. You don't
Speaker 3: know me. I know you, and that is what you're like.
Speaker 1: Well, one example I think we can use hair that's
Speaker 1: kind of relevant like this season is Lauren's sister Tomara.
Speaker 1: She was the first person this year to kind of
Speaker 1: be branded a villain. You know, she was unhinged at
Speaker 1: that wedding. She made it all about herself. And then
Speaker 1: she came out and I'll read you this quote she says,
Speaker 1: I know how it looks. I watched the same episode
Speaker 1: as every else, and without context, I.
Speaker 2: Totally get it.
Speaker 1: But these over eighteen hours of footage you didn't see.
Speaker 1: I'll be sharing Gatello soon, so stay tuned. But just
Speaker 1: a little reminder, this is a reality TV show heavily
Speaker 1: edited to get the highest ratings.
Speaker 3: I would ask Lauren herself that she think her sister
Speaker 3: was taken out of context. We saw what we saw.
Speaker 3: Sure we didn't have all the other scenes around it.
Speaker 3: But she did say most of those things right, she
Speaker 3: did do those things, She did behave in a certain way,
Speaker 3: I would presume they've spotted her. She was obviously being
Speaker 3: a certain way, a dickad probably, and then the producers
Speaker 3: have been like, this is somebody we should speak to.
Speaker 3: And maybe the more they spoke to her, the more
Speaker 3: she acted out of thoughts. I highly doubt she was
Speaker 3: a wallflower and a lovely good person. And then the
Speaker 3: producers just out of no where plucked it out of
Speaker 3: thin air and thought, let's ruin this woman today, let's
Speaker 3: ruin her life. Like I just it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 3: It's the people's behavior leads the edit.
Speaker 1: Okay, so well with this example we're using. So I
Speaker 1: was there Lauren and Elliott's wedding. I was outside and
Speaker 1: I was there. I kind of watched her and the
Speaker 1: lobby and producers were chasing her around. So how I
Speaker 1: think this has played out? As you know, as you said,
Speaker 1: she's rocked up at the wedding. She's a bit out there,
Speaker 1: she's a bit outspoken. Producers have gone, Okay, here we go,
Speaker 1: we've got a character. And then throughout the day they've
Speaker 1: probably kept going, how are you feeling?
Speaker 2: God? That was a bit weird, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Can you believe? She said?
Speaker 1: That she probably hasn't realized this extra attention she's getting
Speaker 1: competitive of a guest is because they have this vision
Speaker 1: in mind that they are with their producers, they're producing
Speaker 1: her to create something that's entertaining. And then she's come
Speaker 1: out and says, you know, there's over eighteen hours of
Speaker 1: footage you didn't see, And then she probably didn't realize
Speaker 1: on the day that she was the only one getting
Speaker 1: this extra attention.
Speaker 2: She probably felt all.
Speaker 1: These eighteen hours of everyone. So then when she's watched
Speaker 1: the condensed what twenty minute package of the wedding, and
Speaker 1: she's like, fuck, I'm fifteen minutes of this.
Speaker 2: But then you would have got the eighteen hours.
Speaker 1: You would have just had these notes right from the
Speaker 1: producers on the day, being like this happened, this happened,
Speaker 1: this sister was a bit unhinged. The system maybe said this,
Speaker 1: So you maybe looked at those notes and you would
Speaker 1: then go into watching eighteen hours and is this true.
Speaker 1: You would then already maybe having your head that okay,
Speaker 1: I'm told this person's maybe the standout of this episode,
Speaker 1: so correcked. But you would have had no wider context
Speaker 1: of the day, being like she was probably pushed into
Speaker 1: saying more than maybe she would have liked to.
Speaker 3: No, we would not be no way. Do you do
Speaker 3: you think the production are gonna tell pos? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 3: we chase it all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we gave us six classes of.
Speaker 3: Shout say this, no no. As post producers, it's our
Speaker 3: job to watch all the eighteen hours of footage, and
Speaker 3: even without any context or note source or instruction to
Speaker 3: look at her, we would spot that ourselves, okay, and
Speaker 3: then we would pitch that ourselves. I would say, even
Speaker 3: if there was no mention of the because we watch
Speaker 3: all the boxes that are done with the bride and
Speaker 3: groom's friends and family. That's just part of the workflow.
Speaker 3: And so if I watched that and saw that, I
Speaker 3: would say, oh, and this here's one the bride's sister
Speaker 3: is pretty unhinged.
Speaker 1: Okay, And then you have that meeting with the wider
Speaker 1: post producer team, and then you know you're the boss
Speaker 1: of that team, would then go, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's the one. That's the that's the storyline.
Speaker 1: And then is it your job to then when you
Speaker 1: make this edit, I supposed to make it mostly about
Speaker 1: her because you you guys have now Okay, that's the storyline.
Speaker 2: Anything else is almost irrelevant.
Speaker 3: The story's changed so much. There are so many versions
Speaker 3: of each wedding. And you know, I did a wedding
Speaker 3: one year and from the first scenes I cut to
Speaker 3: what ended up on air, there would have been maybe
Speaker 3: twelve or thirteen versions of the wedding. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: you might decide, oh, yeah, we're focusing on the unhinged character,
Speaker 3: and then we cut it and make her the focus.
Speaker 3: And then by the time you will, everybody watches it
Speaker 3: because you watch what you have screenings, you know, before
Speaker 3: it goes air, six or seven screenings. Then it starts
Speaker 3: other people, other levels start to get involved, and they
Speaker 3: might be like, I'm not feeling that story. It just
Speaker 3: isn't working, or for some reason it just doesn't fit
Speaker 3: in with Lauren's wider story, like it just doesn't make sense,
Speaker 3: So cut it. That happened a different angle. So that's
Speaker 3: why it's so laborious and tiring, and you just are
Speaker 3: constantly giving different versions of the same day because there's
Speaker 3: so much footage, and so that whatever ends up making
Speaker 3: it to where is what people have all watched and
Speaker 3: agreed is the most interesting angle because we could make
Speaker 3: the most boring wedding.
Speaker 1: Ever, do you think they purposely look at like the
Speaker 1: every wedding as a hole and go, Okay, well, well
Speaker 1: there's too much drama here, so we need like a
Speaker 1: hero wants to keep some integrity.
Speaker 2: So even I'm trying to think who had like.
Speaker 1: A quite maybe Dave and Jamie, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: remember there being much drama there. You know, it was
Speaker 1: very sweet. He had a vulnerable moment, he got emotional
Speaker 1: talking about his family and yeah, yeah, we kind of
Speaker 1: instantly I was hooked on them, like, oh, that was
Speaker 1: such a beautiful day. They seem like a great couple
Speaker 1: of really nice people. But for all we know, they
Speaker 1: could have been Dave's best mind could have been like
Speaker 1: doing boxes, going oh he's a fucking fuck boy. Yeah
Speaker 1: he loves getting girls, and like, they could have made
Speaker 1: that wedding we watched, So my interpretation of him could
Speaker 1: have been entirely different. Is that true? If they had
Speaker 1: that footage.
Speaker 3: When we spot that someone is a dick, we usually
Speaker 3: are gonna opt for that angle. Like if I, as
Speaker 3: a woman, was watching that footage and his best man
Speaker 3: is saying all these things about him, I would go
Speaker 3: pretty hard to try and out him as a dickhead.
Speaker 3: I would not feel comfortable protecting him.
Speaker 2: Say someone's kind of on the fence.
Speaker 1: They're great in some aspects, but there are so our
Speaker 1: dickhead in others, and like they could be the villain
Speaker 1: or the hero, and like say a big boss decides, okay,
Speaker 1: we need this person as this year's hero. Would you
Speaker 1: then be instricted to kind of throw away any of
Speaker 1: their negative scenes because that would go against the storyline
Speaker 1: you're building.
Speaker 3: Well, we don't use the hero and villain word. Actually,
Speaker 3: that's something that social media talks about, you know, behind
Speaker 3: the scenes is not they're referred to as their names.
Speaker 3: They're not referred to as heroes and villains because we
Speaker 3: don't really see them like that. If anything, sometimes I
Speaker 3: think some participants get a good edit. I would be
Speaker 3: more inclined to say you got lucky with your good edit,
Speaker 3: because sometimes there are times when I guess some scene
Speaker 3: the cut because it doesn't play in with this person
Speaker 3: is a good person.
Speaker 1: I think what you said that is interesting that I
Speaker 1: suppose that the main executives of the show as a
Speaker 1: whole would then like almost protect certain people because they know, okay,
Speaker 1: that scene wasn't great, and the audience might go, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about her, but if they know she gets
Speaker 1: to the end or he and you know, they have
Speaker 1: the love story and they need them to almost keep
Speaker 1: some integrity to the show that you know.
Speaker 2: We can produce a happy ending.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that they would happily go, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: throw that scene on the chopping room floor, like we'll
Speaker 1: just pretend that didn't happen to protect them.
Speaker 3: There's also an instance where a villain and I'm using quotations,
Speaker 3: was copping a lot of flak by Australia, and towards
Speaker 3: the end they were just like cut cut all their
Speaker 3: scenes because they just didn't want to feed the fuel anymore.
Speaker 3: And so when that villain comes out blaming the edit,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you actually got protected because it could have
Speaker 3: been worse.
Speaker 1: Are you kind of saying I didn't realize this, but
Speaker 1: like it's almost that you guys are re editing the
Speaker 1: show responsive to the public.
Speaker 3: To the very the very end does a line and
Speaker 3: there is enough of a turnaround that so, for example,
Speaker 3: say in a couple of weeks when we get into
Speaker 3: the mid season and it's on air, some of those
Speaker 3: later episodes would still be getting edited and they could
Speaker 3: potentially be slightly impacted by audience, but generally it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3: But this was sort of a situation where that person
Speaker 3: was copying so much that the network execs were just like,
Speaker 3: this has gone too far. We actually don't want this,
Speaker 3: and we need to just get rid of all their
Speaker 3: scenes because we don't want to feel the fire anymore.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's a duty of care, right.
Speaker 3: I honestly have I not across that whatsoever. I just
Speaker 3: get the footage and cut it. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 3: they don't always know how far it's going to go.
Speaker 3: There was some there are some reactions that I don't
Speaker 3: think you can preempt necessarily. Sometimes the reaction is so
Speaker 3: hectic that it wasn't necessarily preempted.
Speaker 2: No, well, that's interesting. It's like we're so in the bubble.
Speaker 1: And the people that make the show that you often
Speaker 1: forget society and like examples of that, And to go
Speaker 1: back to the duty of care, I remember that I
Speaker 1: first realized the severity of this show was when I
Speaker 1: forget I think it was season six.
Speaker 2: It was do you remember Matha and Inners?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when that it got to the point Reunion was airing.
Speaker 1: The hate and abuse and threats they were copying in
Speaker 1: real life was so extreme. I remember Channel nine put
Speaker 1: them in a safe house like it was in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, like in an hour, out of nousa somewhere,
Speaker 1: and they essentially just went into hiding while it blew over.
Speaker 1: There was the season before that Divina Rankin, who was
Speaker 1: classed as the first villain. And it's funny because the
Speaker 1: prom reflection everyone caught it the first cheetah, but I
Speaker 1: think she only ever tried to kiss Deine. It's not
Speaker 1: like fast forward to Jess Power and she's shagging down Web.
Speaker 1: But I remember it got so bad for Divina. I
Speaker 1: think she went to Fiji. Channel nine literally just gone
Speaker 1: her out of the country for a few weeks, and
Speaker 1: then even Olivia when that got to such an extreme
Speaker 1: that people were driving past her house shouting I want
Speaker 1: to kill you bitch, because her address leaked with the police.
Speaker 3: Then involved in Australian If you met at the Australian public,
Speaker 3: everybody loves to get outraged and angry and have a
Speaker 3: common enemy, and that's what happens. And you know what
Speaker 3: about Abby Chatfield all those years ago. All she did
Speaker 3: was be really into Matt and be horny and she
Speaker 3: got hated by Australia because she said, I'm not here
Speaker 3: for to make friends, I'm here for Matt. And then
Speaker 3: Australia was like what we we hate her. But actually
Speaker 3: in the context of the show.
Speaker 2: Was nothing.
Speaker 3: You did nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Bachelor's filmed over what is it, two free months,
Speaker 1: so of course you're going to be horny for the
Speaker 1: guy you Therefore, I shocked people on the first day.
Speaker 1: I'm honey for them after an hour, got for their two.
Speaker 3: Months exactly, and Australia hated her. And it's like Australia
Speaker 3: gets so well. I don't think it's specific to Australia,
Speaker 3: just the Internet. Let's just say the Internet gets so
Speaker 3: outraged and angry that they'll hate on anything really, and
Speaker 3: then it feeds. They feed each other in the comments
Speaker 3: section as well, and they fight with each other and
Speaker 3: they get all worked up.
Speaker 2: Yeah I get that.
Speaker 1: Because you know, they making a show for they want
Speaker 1: people to respond. Then like I get outraging and I'll
Speaker 1: be like, you know, I'll see a friend the next thay, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, can you believe that, But I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna then go I know where she lives.
Speaker 2: Let's drive past and shout.
Speaker 1: I'm like, kill you bitch, Like I'd never understand, Like
Speaker 1: what what person in society thinks, Oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is a normal response to someone who've just watched them
Speaker 1: to tell you like, it should never get to that extreme.
Speaker 2: It's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It's fucking ridiculous. And that is the That is the
Speaker 3: risk of putting yourself out there. You know, I have
Speaker 3: only been on TikTok putting things up on there for
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, and people are starting to hate me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, shit, imagine if I was faced with
Speaker 3: death threats and whatever, I'd get pretty I would be
Speaker 3: pretty worried about that. But that's showbiz. That's that's that's audiences,
Speaker 3: that's Australia. Baby.
Speaker 1: Well, to get back to you as a producer, I
Speaker 1: want to bring up this topic which always comes out
Speaker 1: in the media every year called frank and biting.
Speaker 3: It's actually called frank and grabs. Think when they say
Speaker 3: frank and bite, it's week all them frank and grabs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So for the listeners to this who don't know
Speaker 1: what a frank and grab is. It's where you would
Speaker 1: essentially take maybe a few words from one sentence, a
Speaker 1: few words from a sentence a few days later of
Speaker 1: a participant, and you mash it all together to make
Speaker 1: a whole new sentence, which is often not what was
Speaker 1: said in the slightest Uh.
Speaker 3: That is not what my definition of it is. But
Speaker 3: the technical side is correct, Yes it is.
Speaker 1: Well, look before we let me play a couple of
Speaker 1: examples of this. So take a listen to these.
Speaker 3: I guess for me, when I said I wanted to leave,
Speaker 3: it was because I was scared.
Speaker 1: No matter what happens tonight, I think it's important for
Speaker 1: me to like Carolyn and know how I'm feeling. So
Speaker 1: to me, there I can hear that, you can hear
Speaker 1: the like different inflection in the words it goes. I
Speaker 1: do not like this about like you can tell this
Speaker 1: yeh fake?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well but why did I do that?
Speaker 1: Because to me that feels like a sloppy, desperate attempt
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, we have this storyline, we need to
Speaker 1: run with it. But they haven't said anything to keep
Speaker 1: that storyline going, So fuck do what you have to
Speaker 1: to just like it's it's not real. Once, psych Alex,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say before we jump into that, because
Speaker 1: it's a big topic, and before I ask you the
Speaker 1: big question of do you have any regrets and did
Speaker 1: you ever feel like a bad person, I'm gonna say, guys,
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow for part two. You know what we
Speaker 1: call that in the industry, a cliffhanger and a hook. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm only doing this because, to be honest, I always
Speaker 1: said I wouldn't do a big, hour long episodes because
Speaker 1: I know people drop off after about twenty minutes. So
Speaker 1: let's so chill, Let's have a refresh and come back,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna get even juicier.