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Truman was adopted by a corporation
The perfect town
The Truman Show, a 1998 film directed by Peter Weir, stars Jim Carrey as Truman. The town looks perfect and polished, and it was shot in a real planned community in the Florida panhandle. Inside the story, the town, the surrounding landscape, the ceiling, and the water around it are all fake, housed in a giant dome built outside Burbank, Los Angeles. The movie puts 5,000 cameras around the town, hidden in trash cans and light fixtures. Early on, it establishes that Truman was the first human baby formally adopted by a corporation, which in some sense means the corporation owns him.
The cracks appear
The cracks start when a spotlight falls from the dome's sky and crashes to the ground beside him, with the name of a star from a constellation printed on it. Then the rain effect malfunctions: for a couple of seconds, rain falls only on Truman in a five-by-five square, and when he jumps out of it, it moves to follow him, before rain starts everywhere. In his car, the radio picks up the actors' earpiece transmissions, describing his every movement.
The escape attempts
Truman begins trying to leave town, starting small with a bus ticket and working up to driving across a bridge. Every attempt is stopped. The bus brakes, a route is blocked, there is fire, and people appear in hazmat suits.
Why was a Florida town chosen as the set?
The town on screen is Seaside, Florida, founded in 1981 by developer Robert Davis, with a master plan drawn by architects Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Its pastel cottages, picket fences, and walkable lanes made it a founding example of the New Urbanism movement, which favors compact neighborhoods where shops sit within walking distance of homes. Duany and Plater-Zyberk later designed many other towns along the same principles.
How close did reality TV come to the film?
The Truman Show was released in June 1998. MTV's The Real World had already been running since 1992, putting strangers in a shared house with cameras. The Dutch show Big Brother, created by John de Mol, premiered in 1999 and filmed its contestants around the clock inside a house. The American version of Survivor followed in 2000.
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