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Thank you for the great response.
I also wondered how Moore's, Roger and Me  "documentary" from years ago would have figured into the changing standards of today.

It was interesting to hear Mr. McKee’s thoughts about a filmmakers contract with the audience, on what is real, or pretending to be real, and that exploiting the promise to the audience would be something that he would have a problem with.  Even though one has the obligation or contract to set up a work in front of an audience and bring them in on how much is fact and fiction or a mixture of both, Exit Thru the Gift Shop was kind of an anomaly; a weird, platypus, link.  I don’t know where it fits, but I also loved it and don’t care. That it didn’t fit the paradigm is what helped to make it interesting and I’m left to think that the only thing that really matters in whatever truth you write          ( fact, fiction or combo) is that it better be good.

This subject reminds me of some conversations I have regarding a motoring magazine show over here called TOP GEAR.

The show is hilariously entertaining even for someone like myself who doesn't care about cars because the three presenters are often given challenges to perform, and they are extremely confident in their abilities to perform these challenges, and then fail spectacularly. I often joke, "It's the best sitcom on British TV right now." And they really do appear to be comic characters, with blind obssessions and everything.

But some people get rather annoyed with the show claiming that it's all faked and rehearsed and that it couldn't be 'real'. But the way I see it, is that it's both fact and fiction. The producers and the presenters know that these guys will overplay their confidence if they put them in an outrageous situation, and so they create a bizarre situation and then the presenters choose to not be inhibited and so exaggerate themselves. The actual events therefore, do not need to be coreographed because the challenge will be maybe 40 minutes on TV and they'll film hours and hours and hours of footage and so they can easily edit that into an entertaining segment of the show.

Much in the same way that WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? will film two hours of material for a 20-minute show, and the improvisers have rehearsed, again and again, the games beforehand so that when they step on stage, they understand the basic structure of the game, if not the actual shtick they'll be doing.

In other words, they prepare to improvise. Which sounds like a contradiction, but to anyone who's done it, it makes perfect sense.

I find though, that these people only complain when they're not actually watching the show. When they watch it, they laugh uncontrollably and don't care if it's 'real' or not.

But then, I'm someone who feels that you should be honest, up front with the audience, if the programme is fact or fiction. So perhaps, no one really cares so long as they love it.