A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Release Date:
December 3, 2002
Original Title:
The Great Reality TV Swindle
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
Christmas TV and Film Company
Production Countries:
United Kingdom
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 49
In 2002, 30 young people gave up their jobs, homes and relationships to take part in what they believed was a new TV reality game show with the chance to win £100,000. The Great Reality TV Swindle examines how their dreams of fame and fortune disappeared as the project descended into farce. For those who were selected, it seemed to be the chance of a lifetime. But when the contestants arrived to meet charismatic producer Nik Russian they soon realised there was something seriously wrong. There was no broadcaster, no prize money and no show. The Great Reality TV Swindle features exclusive footage of the faked reality show as it unravelled over the course of a week. It looks at what drove the contestants to chase fame and the price they were forced to pay, and follows some as they track down the man they hold responsible to demand an explanation
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.