Random New Yorker: Anthony Mastanduno, Reality TV Director

by Andrew Piccone

Tell me about your job.

I am a producer/director of reality television. I’m a freelancer so I have clients that are production companies, and I can kinda hop from job to job depending on my schedule and what I’m working on. I’m called in to produce and direct, I talk with the families, talk with the participants, get them comfortable, fill them in on what to sort of expect, the process of making a television show, and get them comfortable in a way so that they’re sort of providing material for the show that doesn’t come across as fake, so that they’re themselves. One of things people always say is ‘Well it’s fake, it’s not real.’ I would respond to that attitude by saying ‘if this is fake, then tell me what’s real!’ If you can tell me what’s real, than you can tell me that what we’re doing is fake. My job has a lot to do with getting the participants comfortable, it’s sort of like a brokerage, everything that we do has a process, and if we sort of give them parameters-’here, interact with this person knowing that you each feel a certain way about this, see what happens’-and it sort of evolves from there.

How did you get into this field?

After I graduated from Rutgers with a degree in English and Anthropology, I bought a camera and moved to Albuquerque and started making short films. Then I moved to Philadelphia and started shooting people doing performance art type stuff, and then I was dating a girl that worked on a reality show as the prop coordinator, interviewed to be an associate producer, and got the job. That show was “Design Invasion,” where designers would pair with individuals to give their friend a room makeover in their house, because they had awful design taste.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

Um, the people. The people that you come across and the situations that you end up being a part of. You find yourself in such unique and different situations. I would never be on a drag racing track in my life, for example, until I find myself on a show working with a family of drag racers, and having the opportunity to just get in a drag racing car and race around the track. It’s crazy stuff like that, and definitely the people. All walks of life, definitely. Part of my role is that I’m able to kind of become the person that they need me to be. You’re no longer this person from New York, you go in and you’re on their turf and you’re working with them and you become their friend. You have to make them feel, every step of the way, comfortable, and ok with what’s going on. Reality television is like an amoeba. You come in and you have to give structure to these situations, you have to make sense of it.

What do you hate about your job?

The fucking hours. Typically 12 to 14 hours a day. The shitty food too. I hate when people don’t belong in the industry. Because it’s not an office, you’re out in the field, you’re with a group of people trying to make this show, everyone has a title, but you’re pretty much on the same playing field. But some people try and turn it into a power thing, a lot of people kind of fail upward, aren’t really good at what they’re doing. I’ve got a good horror story about a show I did once: In Indiana with a truck-pulling family, and we’re all from New York, and it was sort of like we were dropped behind cultural enemy lines. The family we were with were pretty intimidating. This guy was very tough and I think he felt he was getting a bum deal, he wasn’t really cooperating. He proceeded to rip off the mic and wanted to talk to me in private, he brought me into his work shed, turned on all the machines so no one could hear him outside, picked up a metal pipe and started yelling at me to tell him what the fuck was going on. I backed up and left the room, and later I was successful in connecting with him about cars and shit and he calmed down, but later that night I drove back to the hotel and I fucking cried. It’s very surreal when you’re in a place where there are no cell phones, and you’re really in the middle of nowhere.

What’s your favorite place to hang out in New York?

Friday night you can find me hanging out at Timboo’s in Park Slope. It’s a dive bar, but more specifically like a very old neighborhood bar, where the first time I went in I was asked if I was a part of the gentrification of the neighborhood and if I was there because it was funny or if I was there to drink. I said I was there to drink, and well, yeah, that’s a good place to go drink.

What do you think about Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino and the ever-growing popularity of the Tea Party?

I don’t really follow politics.

What’s your least favorite thing about New York?

It’s filthy.

Previously: Matthew Sterling, Costume Character

Andrew Piccone is a photographer in New York City.