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By Hepcat
FansOfRealityTV.com

Filming Begins for Cycle 9 of America's Next Top Model
Tyra Takes Her Crew to the Sea


Passengers on a recent Royal Caribbean cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico were surprised to find large signs up declaring they were consenting to be filmed just by being on board.

For Dena Uding of Sacramento, California, the signs meant one thing. "I was already thinking, 'Ooh, it has to be for reality TV!'"

Although the camera crew would not admit to what show was being filmed, sightings of both Jay Manuel and Jay Alexander point to the CW dramality "America's Next Top Model."

While Uding did not see Tyra Banks herself, she says that other passengers did - and she herself saw a sign that read, "Welcome Tyra Banks." The crew claimed to be filming a "travel show with beautiful women", but the ship's cruise director admitted to Uding that the show filming was Next Top Model, and that Tyra herself was expected on board for filming for two days.

As a fan of the show, Uding hoped for a sight of the model contestants as well as the judges. What followed was a lesson in reality television: it's not real.

"Every little event that we saw them filming was like a fake event," said Uding. "It's supposed to be reality TV, but the 'real' was staged." Uding explained that the models would be seen in the dining rooms between passenger meal times as if they were spontaneously reacting to a meal, but they wouldn't be eating, just filming.

For safety, all cruise passengers must go through a "muster drill" before leaving port. It's unknown whether the model hopefuls participated in the regular muster drill, but they filmed a separate muster drill on their second day at sea. Why stage a second muster drill? Uding says it was so they could be filmed on the top deck with a more scenic vista than the bottom level of the ship where the life vests are stowed. "It's all fun and games," commented Uding.

Although speculation has said that filming for the next Top Model cycle would not begin until June, spotting both Jays in the company of several young, thin women seems to indicate that the cycle's filming is already underway. Passengers reported seeing numerous contestants on board, suggesting that the episode being filmed was a semi-final round -- before the final 13 or 14 women are chosen who will participate in the weekly one-by-one elimination from the show.

It was during the muster drill that Uding snapped her first photos. With regular passengers visible in their bathing suits and casual attire, the model hopefuls are on the deck above wearing life vests -- and with cameras pointed at them from all directions. In one shot, a man whose face is obscured can be seen wearing what looks like a white Naval uniform. Although blocked by someone in the foreground, the name patch above his pocket is partially visible: "--S J". Top Model judge and runway Diva Jay Alexander is known as "Miss J" on the show.

Uding's impression of the models was that they were smaller than they appear on film; in fact, she says they looked like "malnourished giraffes."

"What I remember was how miserable they looked when they were not on camera," Uding said. "It was sad, really. They looked hungry!"

Curious about the show, Uding used her two-year-old daughter as cover when she got word there was something going on in the Solarium area that the show didn't want the public to see. Pretending that they were "looking for Daddy," Uding and her daughter discovered that the crew was building a plexiglass runway -- right over the solarium pool. Unfortunately, they found the show's crew a little more forceful about keeping the curious out that night.

"They had caution tape up at that point and just begged us to leave the area," she said. "They were saying it was going to be a closed set. That's when passengers really started to get mad, because they wouldn't even allow us to watch it. They made us all go back to our rooms."

According to posters on the cruise message board CruiseCritic.com, not everyone was inconvenienced by the models. But many passengers weren't happy about the show being present on the cruise, causing areas of the ship to be closed off and asking for people to put their cameras down. Occupants of one room with windows that displayed over the promenade deck mounted a sign in their window to protest being denied access to parts of the ship during filming.

After a day trip in Antigua, passengers returning to the ship were surprised to be asked to put their cameras away by crew members who were filming on the dock.

"They were filming the part where the models are cut and sent home, right on the pier," said one CruiseCritic poster. "The production crew were running round telling everyone they could not use their cameras and had to get on the ship." Eliminating several girls at once suggests that the cruise was a semi-final round before the final cast has been chosen.

At various times, parts of the ship were completely closed to passengers and strategically placed crew members kept people from even being able to watch the filming from a distance. Uding's elderly relative was forced to stand in the direct sun for an extended period because of a foot traffic jam caused by lookie-loos. Uding plans on writing the cruise line to complain about the inconveniences experienced by her family, which included her 89-year-old grandmother, her parents, her husband, and her two-year-old daughter.

"We hoped for our first four-generation family trip to be blemish-free," she said.




For the full transcript of FoRT's interview with Dena, as well as all of her photos, click here.