IT Milk: entry

On December 3rd, Tad Frank, the casting director of the upcoming show Tontine, said:

I SEE EVERYTHING. I have a staff of people that monitor this site 24/7. They keep me updated on what is going on. Frank you are perfect for Tontine. I HOPE to see you soon. We will see soon TAD

See the rest of this thread on Tontine Nation.

This seems to be an official endorsement by Tontine Productions, LLC for the first contestant who will be on the show. Since Tad had created an account on Tontine Nation, there have only been two mentions of names. One is Frank Lopez mentioned above, and the other is David Abreu. But Tad’s language above is clearly announcing his selection of Frank for the show.

This brings us to the question of whether Tontine will continue to announce its contestants before they even begin filming. It would not be a surprise, because Tontine started out with an untraditional approach to reality TV casting.

First, Tontine used a Youtube video contest to generate a heap of buzz among auditioners. Whoever conceived this plan must be a student of viral marketing because this campaign worked beautifully in spreading the word-of-mouth across the nation and building up hype.

Then the social network called Tontine Nation also accomplished what no other reality show has ever done before. The website made the auditioning process much more transparent by connecting the auditioners and the production office. It’s a site where both auditioners and fans speculate about the upcoming show and receive communications from the official production crew.

With Tad’s endorsement of Frank Lopez yesterday, does this mark another revolutionary approach by Tontine Productions, LLC? Reality TV shows generally do not release information about their contestants until after the filming is complete, going so far as having all the contestants and related parties sign strict confidentiality statements. This is especially true for lengthy shows like Tontine, which will span 100 days. But now we are seeing Tontine possibly announcing all of the contestants on Tontine Nation before those lucky candidates even leave their homes.

I suspect that this could lead to another novel approach by Tontine. They may decide to broadcast the show close to real-time. This could be something like filming for a week at a time and then releasing those tapes as rolling footage. This would continue for the 100 days of competition where possession is everything.