Reality Tv Needs Your Ideas

'Platinum Hit' exclusive interview: Melissa Rapp

So what does Melissa think about her exit now? She spoke with me recently via email, and she was more candid about some of her time on the show:

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Since you weren't featured too much on the show at times, what would you say were your strengths in the studio?

In many of my teams, I became a real source of lyrical strength. Almost all hit songs have gone through several revisions. Since I was always put on teams where the original hook melody wasn't mine, I found the best role for me was to focus on lyrics. First, I tried to ask a lot of questions to get my teammates to dig deeper and avoid generic statements. Often in songwriting, the first lyric that comes to mind is cliché and you really have to work to push past that. Although one contestant may have commented that I hadn’t been contributing, that simply wasn’t the case. Prior to my final episode, the teams I worked on never ended up in last place.  My consistent lyrical, conceptual, and editorial work helped ensure this.

While you don't see it in the first episode, for example, my co-writers had to leave the room for about half of our 3-hour session to do interviews. I finished the song, including a second verse and a bridge. You can see that verse has a lot more concrete references like 'Los Feliz' and lines that create a visual statement about living in a small apartment. That's more my style. I have learned that just as in most types of writing, strong imagery in lyrics generally makes for a stronger product. My question asking and brainstorming during sessions wasn’t a lack of focus—it was my tactic to help us write more robust lyrics. The judges’ detailed critiques demanded this, and you don’t arrive at high-level lyrics without continuing to ask why and push past the obvious.

The next week, in the dance song challenge, I was paired with three of the biggest personalities (Nick, Scotty, and Sonyae). They sang the main melodic sections of the song in our first few minutes together, so again, I focused on lyrics since that is what needed to be done. Scotty had a stanza of lyrics for example, that had a decent concept, but didn't make total sense. I reworked the lyrics so that a listener could understand them. The judges definitely took notice and praised us in this department.

I appreciated my team’s willingness that week to let me push further with the lyrics, and also to accept my final ideas. I had a similarly good experience when working with Sonyae on Ms. Make the Boyz Cry,' where she welcomed and thanked me for good line suggestions. Unfortunately, I didn't have such luck on my love song co-writing team in terms of respect and acceptance and that was frustrating.

Why don't writers have their own reality TV show? I'd watch it ...

Writers should totally have their own television show. Give us a chance. Come on.

We could start off with like twenty contestants and every day there would be a new writing challenge. Then each writers work would be read aloud by various celebrity voices and presented to the panel of judges—Kathryn Stockett, Sara Gruen, James Rollins, Oprah (this could be adjusted based on availability and balance between fiction and nonfiction, of course). At the end of each day, one writer would pack up their things, their laptop, and leave The Writers Loft (The Writers Loft would be where all the writers hang out at the end of the day and complain and moan about the challenges and talk about the other writers they don’t feel deserve to be there, you know, where the real drama surfaces).

The winner would receive a top notch agent and a three book deal with a top notch publisher (to be battled out for the best deal).

It could be awesome. It could.

Okay, maybe not. But still.

I could dream couldn’t I?

Ahhh, well. I’m off to finish the 8th season of Project Runway. I need to see who wins. I hope it’s not that one witchy girl—she drives me crazy, and what’s with all the African animal print? (See, I could totally add drama—good TV).

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