Is the TOP SHOT drama real?

Gabby Franco tells more from behind the scenes of TOP SHOT. Did the producers influence the on-screen drama?

Tomorrow is the second episode of Top Shot All Stars and as you can see from last week’s episode, the producers have changed the format of the competition. Did you notice how in TOP SHOT Season 5 you don’t see much of what happened in the house or hear the conversations between shooters, except when we were at the range? That’s because there is no drama, it’s all about competition.

With or without drama people always ask me if I was told what to do or what to say in Top Shot. Some are more direct and convinced that the drama is created by producers for TV and ratings purposes. So, is it real? Are the shooters of TOP SHOT influenced by producers?

I’m going to put it this way… In your house you have drama. You might have a fight with your wife over a dinner, or with your kids because they are rebellious, etc. Now imagine being in a strange house with 15 other unknown individuals with type A personalities (most of them); then you eliminate the television, radio, music, cellphones, books, and on top of that you cannot leave the house where you are living for now. Is everything happy and cool in the house all the time? No. For example some competitors play head-games in an attempt to destabilize opponents in the competition –But, not all the competitors are like that. Do we fight and argue all the time? No. At least not in Season 4, where I had a blast! So, everything you saw on TV is real. The difference is that in previous seasons the producers showed the audience all the drama. But, for Season 5 they’re keeping the drama out of the show, as so many fans have requested.

I remember one of my first interviews the producer asked me about the confrontation between Gregory Littlejohn and Frank Melloni; I hesitated to answer just because I didn’t want to say anything about anyone. At that time I had only known them for 2-days. The producer saw that I didn’t want to answer the question and He said: “Gabby, you are free to say whatever you want and if you don’t want to say something, just don’t say it.” I was relieved, because for me all this TV competition thing was new, but I wanted to be comfortable with everything, and I was. I never said anything I didn’t mean to say.

Conclusion: In TOP SHOT We don’t have a script, we can say whatever we want in front of the camera and if a shooter gets hyped up about something (which is normal) he might reflect it during the interview. Likewise if he or she is happy, then you can see that on screen as well.

Have questions for me about TOP SHOT or about shooting? Send them to me and I will try to address them in my posts. Thanks for reading!