BackstageProject

We shot parts 2, 3, and 4 of SummerProject in 3 days. We filmed the market and gym scenes in Budapest, then after 9 hours of shooting, we went to Lake Balaton. But not Siófok, but to the middle of nowhere, Vonyarcvashegy, near Keszthely, which is 250 km away. Plus 3km to Szentgyörgyhegy where we stayed. The next day, we filmed part 3, where we made fun of Pest and talked about "do you have hot water," then on the third day, part 4, where the focus was on wakeboarding and outdoor training. Of course, this was not the original schedule, but our sound engineer completely screwed up two full days of audio, so we had to re-record everything at a frantic pace. That's why there was a delay, that's why there was almost a 2-week gap between the first and second parts, and if the second part was bad atmospherically, it was because we were so fed up with having to re-record everything. In 3 days, we filmed for 20 hours, resulting in 7-7.5 hours of recorded material. From these 7 hours, we put together 2x5 minutes. Don't ask, I know too, because it's useless for me to tell Ádi, "but damn, 5 minutes is just enough for nothing to be in it, and it's impossible to fill the episodes with informative content in that amount of time, because it's ridiculously funny somewhere that we shoot 5 hours at the Fővám Square market, and then a minute and a half about cheeses and rye bread gets into the episode, even though we recorded everything. Ham, meats, fish, milk, we stood by such a huge vegetable stand that the fruits almost fell on us, we recorded material about alcohol, sugary drinks, dairy products, really everything, and then it turns into this 5 minutes. What's the point of this? Then Ádi says: people don't watch videos longer than 5 minutes on YouTube. My jaw drops. How the hell wouldn't they watch it, just don't cut out the scenes that would fundamentally carry this whole show. Like when I kick the damn pigeon at the market entrance because they keep flying into my face, or when we improvise incredible stupidities. Shows written and presented online are shared for three reasons. Creative, humorous, or because they push the boundaries. If this show can't do that, we might as well go back to ballet. LifeT!lt didn't become popular because I wrote in it about cottage cheese, vegetables, and running, but because I shove the faces of obese, self-critical people into their own fat and let them choke, hoping they'll come to their senses. This way, maybe it will reach their brains that what they're doing to themselves is like sticking their heads into a gas stove and turning on the gas tap. The result will be the same anyway, only without gas, the suffering will last a little longer, as the end of a undoubtedly suffered, self-confidence lacking, complex-ridden, inhibited, constricted life...

We need to reach people, and it can't be with content that makes me feel like I'm watching "Neighbors" in a housing estate in Gazdagrét while watching SummerProject. I told Ádi too, it's one thing to have an idea about SummerProject, but believe me, it's worth jack shit. Ádi wants to copy the series called "The Hills" as it is and transplant it into Hungarian reality. He won't succeed because something else is needed here, this is a different culture. The thresholds are different, and the entire implementation process is different. Entrust me with the marketing, the direction of the episodes, increase the airtime to 10-12 minutes, and I guarantee you'll get viral episodes that thousands will watch simply because they'll like and share them on Twitter and Facebook. Ádi, to this, was able to say that it has to be informative and the sponsors... I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE SPONSORS!!! We shouldn't have to worry about what UPC and Nike's business-conform marketers think. We're not at a corporate reception where you don't know whose ass to lick, so you just charm everyone. We're making a show and entertaining, but if Ádi wants to throw a few million out the window, then let's rather go play roulette on a 100-credit basis.

The problem is that the same thing happens to me here as always in life. The show, Ádi, and the participants in the show are simply not prepared for the style that I am capable of pushing. That's why I'm being watched for my extreme behavior among the seventy remaining participants of VV5, and that's why there have been more than one filming moment when Peti wanted to quit because we created such footage that one of the cameramen actually fell into the live fish pond at the market from laughing, but this was too much for our Peti. "I still want to live after this, people know me at home, I still want to appear before others," he exclaimed. My patience is incredibly thin with many things regarding SummerProject, by the way. Primarily because much more could be made of it than messing around in 5-minute segments with half- or quarter-information and making cutaways for sponsors. For a few hundred thousand forints in support, the show sells its soul to boredom and mediocrity, so that the gray bird of mediocrity can screw us in an EU-compliant way next to the 12+ age rating. Anyone can make an average show, just turn on 81 out of 86 cable TV channels. None of them stick with us, and not just because there's a huge selection, but because no one is interested in trend-following, universally visible, regulated crap anymore. Let's make a show where we call out damn Nestlé, Chio, Pepsi, that the products they sell are destroying millions of people with their sugary, fatty crap. Not to mention, going into schools and into children's heads with the most despicable advertisements is the most rotten thing since Gábor Printz's acquittal and the bombing of Hiroshima.

But of course, you can make a generic show for faceless masses without any character. These 10 episodes will run, and I'll get my money anyway. The only problem is that I already have a useless and pointless pastime in my life. It's red, shitty, and has bad coverage, it's called Vodafone.