TVLINE | What does your day-to-day look like on location now that the season is officially in production?
Days are long and with 24 players, there are going to be a lot of Tribal Councils, so we have busy nights. On a regular day, it usually starts with downloading the challenge crews on what’s going on out on the beaches, so they know what stories to look for when they’re covering the challenge, what’s going on with certain characters. Then, we’ve got a challenge which we’re shooting and I’m meeting up with the producers who are out on the beach to see if there are any updates. And then obviously assisting in any way and being involved in the actual shooting of the challenge. Then we usually have a rehearsal for the challenges which we’re involved in. We’re just trying to do the final tweaks on a challenge before we’re ready to shoot. And then usually, a test block — we usually do a test block rehearsal and then we shoot the challenge — and the test block is just some of the general, figuring out if everything’s going to work as it should.
Then, at the end of the day, we have a producer download meeting where all the segment producers, we all sit in my office and get a download of what happened. We’re talking about what happened, but we’re also sometimes already coming with ideas about how we’re going to tell that story in post[-production], and those are only on nights we don’t have Tribal Council. If we have Tribal Council, then [I’m] meeting up with the producers before Tribal and sitting in the control room and watching Tribal. Throughout the course of the day, there’s so many different things that can come up, whether it’s taking a look at something that’s being built in Art, whether it’s checking in on some of the Dream Teamers who we have been bringing up in the ranks. As you can see, — I mean, you’ve only spent a few days here — but you can see there’s always so many moving parts that we’re doing. My first season was Season 14 and I remember [my] first day watching this group work, these hundreds of people, everyone knowing their roles and just seeing it happen. It’s just awe inspiring.
TVLINE | Twenty-four castaways is a lot of people, the biggest cast the show has ever seen. Did you increase the amount of cameras and/or camera crews for “50”?
We’ve added more camera crews, more sound, more producers. Usually seasons these days are 18 [players], now we go up to 24, so it’s a big add. You think about how much time we have to spend just doing interviews, so suddenly we need to bring in another producer. So where a lot of times you might have just one producer and segment producer out on the beach, we’re having two producers handling it, sometimes three producers. The amount of people who are involved, the amount of people who are playing, to cover those stories… and the same with the camera crews. We’re also keeping the camera crews longer. It’s a Herculean effort, for sure. Luckily, being around for so long, we have so many experienced crew. There are also some camera operators who are getting new opportunities to be elevated a little bit, but yes, we’ve increased the size to handle 24 players.
TVLINE | Being here and speaking with so many of the crew, it’s clear that everyone here absolutely loves this show. What’s your favorite part of the production process?
Honestly, the last thing we do… there’s pre-production, there’s the production, and then in post-production, we’re putting it all together, and the last bit of post-production is the mix. It’s the last thing we do and at that point, the show has been completed. The episode has been completely edited. We’re just changing the levels on the music, we’re adding little bits of sound effects here or there. The show has been color corrected, all the details have been finished. It’s an extraordinarily gratifying feeling to watch a completed episode because you’re talking about months and months’ worth of work finished.
Don’t get me wrong, there are so many highlights when we’re out here producing. I used to be a producer on the beach and I got to see epic “Survivor” moments in person. I was on the beach when the Black Widow brigade convinced Erik Reichenbach to give up immunity. I mean, watching that in person, epic! I got to see the, ‘It’s a f—king stick,’ moment. I have that stick sitting in my office. I got to see some amazing things. Here, I don’t spend time on the beach, but I spend time at challenges. To see Christian Hubicki talking to Alec Merlino on a challenge for six hours [on “David vs. Goliath”], all these things are great and seeing it as a “Survivor” fan myself, watching it play out in front of you is amazing. But there is something about watching something that hundreds of people have worked [on] together. To finally have the finished product, that’s extraordinarily gratifying.