Mitch Burman: Executive Producer & Showrunner, Old Enough!

Mitch Burman has spent three decades shaping unscripted worlds where nothing can be faked twice. His track record runs from Old Enough! Canada to Brother vs Brother to the hidden-camera and competition shows that built his reputation for engineering real reactions. He builds the conditions where ordinary people carry the story. Most of the work sits off to the side. It’s casting calls, structural choices, and small adjustments that decide what the audience believes. We talked about setup, pressure, and how a showrunner crafts moments without ever letting the seams show.

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When you’re building a moment that relies on real reactions, what’s the earliest decision that quietly dictates whether the audience believes it?

Working in unscripted television, real reactions are key, and trying to fake them after the fact rarely works because real people aren’t actors and can’t always do it again in a believable way. You may shoot it a second or third time for coverage or to see if you can milk a bigger or smaller reaction, but in almost every case that initial, real reaction will be the most honest one and the one you end up using. A good unscripted director knows how to set up a moment to make sure they get the reaction they need, or put the talent in a situation where the moment has its biggest impact. All of this needs to be planned before getting to set so you’re setting yourself up to make that honest first reaction work.

You’ve run shows where the cast ranges from kids to families to celebrity hosts. What’s the unseen variable that changes the entire production plan before anyone steps on set?

Everything starts with good casting. It’s essential that anyone who will appear on camera, especially in a major role on an episode or series, is cast properly. This means getting self-tape submissions, Zoom interviews or, in the case of hosts, a proper casting process, and knowing how to recognize who will and won’t make good TV. If you're building an entire episode around a specific person or family, you must make sure you have someone who will be good on camera before you shoot anything. A good casting producer or showrunner will know how to sift through hundreds of submissions and find the ones with the right personality traits to carry a show. You can have the best show or episode idea, but if the people who need to carry it on air are duds, the whole thing falls apart.

Hidden camera and competition formats both depend on tension the viewer never sees building. How do you engineer that tension without tipping your hand to the people on camera?

In both those types of shows you’re following the action as if it’s live theatre. In a competition show, you need to let the action play out organically so the gameplay isn’t compromised. In hidden camera, the subject doesn’t know they’re on TV, so creating the tension you need has to be planned out. That means preparing well in advance what the steps of the competition or hidden camera scenario will be so you can control when key moments of tension are going to occur. All of that still doesn’t guarantee it will happen when or how the way you want. In both cases you need to pay very close attention to what everyone is doing and saying at all times. That keeps you one step ahead so your camera ops can grab a proper reaction shot or swing over to show what the people on camera might have missed.

You’ve worked across networks with very different appetites. What’s the invisible pressure that shapes a show long before the creative team talks about “tone”?

Before you can even talk about what the tone of the show will be, the pressure is on delivering a format that fits the style and needs of the network you’re pitching to or producing for. Every network knows what kinds of shows work for them and the manner in which they need them to play out. They are elements that the networks know work for their audience and their programming lineup. Even if you’re pitching or producing a show that’s a big departure from a network’s normal slate, figuring out what the show is and how it breaks down are the first things that need to be established. Tone is obviously very important, and that will be determined once the type of show, its structure and the end goal behind it are figured out. Once those are set, then the tone in which it will be produced can be discussed.

When a moment on set isn’t landing, what’s the first adjustment you make behind the scenes that the audience will feel but never notice you made?

This is a hard one to answer because it really comes down to assessing why the moment isn’t landing. If it’s not working because of how it’s being shot, then a few camera angle adjustments or camera setups can fix the problem. If it’s not landing because of how the scene is playing out story-wise, then a quick conversation with the on-air talent about tweaking their delivery or how they set things up can also fix it without compromising what you want the audience to feel. Sometimes a moment doesn’t land simply because it just doesn’t work, and then you need to make the decision to move on to something new.

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When Mitch talks about making television, he isn’t talking about tricks or second takes. He’s talking about the setup that lets a real moment happen once. For him, the invisible work is the part that makes the reaction believable and the story hold together.

Learn more about Mitch at:

• IMDb

• LinkedIn