Secrets of Survivor
Contestants travel in a van to Tribal Council and are forbidden to speak -but how does Bob Geldof fit in?
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Australian Survivor fans might be interested to read a good behind the scenes article written by Cameron Adams at News Corp.
It covers everything from contestants having to lie to friends before the show, arriving in Samoa, marathon Tribal Councils, maintaining the site, backstories and diversity. And what’s the link to Bob Geldof?
Here are two of the more interesting aspects:
As tribal council is so pivotal to the show there’s a whole routine to getting the contestants to tribal and keeping their conversations for the camera. They travel in a van to the set where tribal council is filmed and a producer makes sure nobody talks to each other — as there’s no cameras there to catch what’s said that could make for great TV. These journeys can be up to an hour each way. Same for the return journey, no chat. Producers hope the fireworks will brew during the silent trips and they’ll unleash once they’re allowed to talk — when the cameras are rolling.
Just as there’s different Survivors in different countries they all have different incarnations. Some are once a week, some are stripped across a whole week. After initially planning two nights a week, Channel 10 are serving fans three episodes a week. “The US model is the classic structure — 14 or 15 one hour episodes, airing once a week,” [Julia Dick, head of business development at Castaway] says. “Around 2003 we had our first deviation away from that in Latin America, where we tried a stripped version. It worked really well in Colombia. That made us think out of the box. We’ve had Live Survivor in Italy and Spain, a few countries who do two or three episodes a week. It works in all those different structures.”
The show returns to TEN on Monday with another series surprise.
You can check out the article here.
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9 Responses
Great to read this David, shame you couldn’t investigate and make it a TVT exclusive!!!
TEN keeps giving the lion’s share of its exclusives and previews to News Corp. Online media is about a week behind print despite everyone being online. I was glad to have the Jonathan interview.
No surprise Tribal Council is filmed on a set. It looks very contrived like Gilligans Island or something. I’d love to know how much of a set it is, is it indoors in a studio? This is not a jibe I love the show.
It should be outdoors are the US version always has weather elements… Australian too?
I often wondered what happened when they went to tribal council because they leave camp when its daylight and then the next scene they are walking into council in the dark with their torch thingies. Did I miss something or do I have to read the whole article to find out the Geldof factor?
Yes sorry in the full article, but basically he was there at the start with Charlie Parsons.
Thank you and also thank you for the behind the scenes posts. I love reading them.
They normally walk during Sunset on the US version where as the Aus version seems to be a bit earlier where the sun is still out… I guess it gives the viewers a sense of time. Cast members walk a while until it’s dark to Tribal.
Thanks David, I love hearing about behind the scenes stuff. Very interesting about tribal council, going by van & not being allowed to talk. We get the impression it’s a short walk.