In fact, many people thought Brat Camp was a staged reality TV show. It's advertised as such all over the internet. But... In fact it is classified as a documentary.... documercial to be more exact.
2004 GRIERSON AWARD
BRAT CAMP series
Shortlisted, Best Documentary Series or Strand.
Tamara Abood, producer for London based Twenty Twenty Television, which created Brat Camp, says antisocial behavior among teen and issues of family breakdown were grabbing headlines and political attention in Britain at the time the show was being conceptualized. "The idea was to show how our cousins across the water tackle these issues," Abbod says. "We wanted to educate and inform families."....
Redcliff claims they were hesitant...and... "The thing that swayed us more than anything else is we were promised we would have therapeutic control over how things would go," he says. "We told the company we would not alter the program or stage events. We were going to do whatever was necessary to make sure it was in the child's best interest. We were there to provide treatment."
When Redcliff was asked to do a sequel they declined, "For a program to continue to be successful on TV it need to continually up itself the next season. When you're dealing with troubled kids and the wilderness, the only things we could think of were tougher kids or worse weather. We're not willing to take that risk."
Don't ya know they weren't.
