Conference Calls with Bravo Personalities

My internship this summer has been amazing, and it'll only continue to be amazing as I get to stay there throughout the school year.  I've been pretty lucky with my assignments.  As I posted earlier, I got to interview Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls and now I've interviewed people from various shows on Bravo.

Picture courtesy of NBC Universal

The first conference call I did was for the season 4 premiere of 'Flipping Out'.  The call didn't last long, maybe 20 minutes or so, but it was an interesting look into the main personality, Jeff Lewis.  I've never actually seen the show, but I had heard about it and Lewis's reputation.  The didn't come out of the fact that Lewis flips houses.

It was pretty informative for such a short call.  You got a sense of Lewis's and Jenni Pulos, personalities and relationship.  I especially enjoyed the banter between Lewis and Pulos.  Some of his comments sounded rude and mean, but you could see it was friendly banter between them.

“She didn’t want to get dumped again on camera,” joked Lewis.
“You’re so sensitive today,” commented Pulos. “Yea, I guess that’s what is was, I didn’t want to get dumped on camera.”
“Again,” added Lewis.

It also added another dimension to Lewis.  On the show, you really only see him while he's working and is very intense, but during the call, he didn't sound that bad.


Conference calls as interviews are very interesting.  You aren't the only one asking questions and you actually have to, in essence, "raise your hand" to get a turn to ask a question.  There were at least four other reporters participating from various media outlets around the country.  I can see how doing these kinds of interviews a lot could be annoying, other reporters might be queued up before you and ask all the questions you had, leaving you to scramble before your turn to think up some king of follow-up question, but at the same time, other people might think up and ask questions that had never occurred to you.  This kind of call was very helpful for me for Flipping Out since the only background information I had was that provided by the person organizing the call.  I did some research, but aside from watching all the episodes before calling in, there was no way I could have been as prepared as I would have liked to be.


If you want to read the complete story I wrote for the Blade, you can find it here: Jeff Lewis ready for more 'Flipping Out'

Picture courtesy of NBC Universal

The other conference call I did was for the series premiere of 'Thintervention with Jackie Warner.'  Some of you probably recognize Jackie Warner.  She was the lesbian fitness trainer who previously had another show on Bravo, 'Work Out' which followed her at work and home.  This call lasted much longer than 'Flipping,' over an hour actually.  The call had Warner, the other trainer on the show, Craig Ramsay, the therapist, and one of the cast members, Jenna Keough, a former cast member of 'The Real Housewives of Orange County.'

This call was a little easier for me.  I had watched most of Work Out and so I knew quite a bit of background, at least for Warner, and while there were three other people on the call, Warner did most of the talking.   'Thintervention' will not be like 'Work Out' at all.  This show is more about the client's lives than Warner's.

“On Work Out, I had to be very vulnerable and I had to be honest and I had to allow that insertion of the cameras,” Warner said, when asked if the new show was easier on her personal life. “I had to be more engaged than ‘Work Out.’ On ‘Work Out’ I had to think of me. In this project, I had to think outside of me. I had to think of [the clients] only.” 

There were some interesting questions asked, some that I'm not sure were really relevant to the reason for the call, such as asking if Keough would be opposed to her daughter posing for Playboy (Keough is a former playmate).  Most of the questions related to Warner's background.  A lot of the other reporters wanted more details on how she went from being a self made cellphone billionaire to a certified personal trainer (it's a long story that really isn't very interesting).  Anyway, while the call was long, it seemed like the other reporters were just asking the same question over and over again.  Part of this may have just been me starving for lunch and wanting the call to end so I could go eat, lol.  :0)


If you want to read the complete story I wrote for the Blade, you can find it here: Working Out an Intervention

P.S. Warner has an amazing laugh, lol.