Brothers Joe and Harry Gantz, of HBO’s “Taxicab Confessions” will shoot a reality show pilot here in mid-March they aim will lead to a Showtime series starting this spring.
“A More Perfect Union” will follow three couples through therapy sessions at the Berman Center and “into their apartments, into their bedrooms for ?homework assignments’ to show how the therapeutic process actually takes place,” Harry Gantz said.
If Showtime orders the series, they’ll shoot ten to 13 episodes here, with a possible fall premiere, said Harry Gantz.
The Gantz Brothers are directing and producing through their Woodland Hills, Calif.-based View Film & Video, with financing from Showtime.
Host will be sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman, president of the Berman Center and co-host of the Discovery Health series “Berman and Berman.”
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| Dr. Laura Berman hosts “A More Perfect Union.” |
“We felt that the way Dr. Berman works with her clients, and what we’re doing capturing the most intimate parts of people’s lives, would be a great combination,” Harry Gantz said.
“We’re known as the hidden camera guys, but we utilize whatever techniques we think are going to help us create environments so the relationship can go to the forefront of the couples’ emotional life, and the camera can fade into the background,” Gantz continued.
They’ll shoot the counseling sessions, and possibly some of the bedroom footage, with remote-operated robotic cameras. They’ll shoot the remainder of the verite footage with two camera operators and one sound recordist in the couple’s home, with the Gantz brothers directing their crew through a radio feed “from the next room, or from a van waiting out in the driveway,” Gantz said.
The Gantz brothers are shooting the pilot on 24P DV. “Hopefully we’ll upgrade for the series,” Gantz said.
View Film is bringing in one or two out-of-town crew members, and hiring six or seven locals, including camera, sound and field producers for the pilot. Gantz said he’d expect to bring on ten to twelve local crew for the series.
The Gantzes launched their careers with the 1984 film “Couples Arguing.” “Whenever they got into an argument they would page us,” Gantz said.
The Emmy-winning “Taxicab Confessions” ran for seven seasons on HBO. The Gantzes also directed the 2002 feature documentary “Sex with Strangers,” which followed several “swinging” couples.
“We’re trying to do a type of reality programming that’s a lot closer to reality,” Gantz said. “That word has become a misnomer because of the types of manipulated or competitive or lowest-common-denominator programs that reality TV has sunken to.”
“[?A More Perfect Union’] follows couples in real relationships, helping them overcome serious issues in their relationships and their sex lives. We present real people in an empathetic light rather than as fodder for a joke or a laugh or some humiliation.”
Prospective crew email jobs@viewfilm.com. Couples interested in being featured on the show call 800/854-0018.
