MzWings
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Trivia - answers to some of our questions
« on: Nov 27th, 2003, 9:21pm » |
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I'm just surfin' and Googlin' around and I found an old chat transcript that gives us a few answers to some questions we've had.
http://www.usatoday.com/community/chat/0719burnett.htm
'Survivor': Mark Burnett
Mark Burnett
Wednesday, July 19, noon ET
On Pulau Tiga, a tropical island off the coast of Borneo in the South China Sea just north of the equator, 16 contestants competed for a $1 million prize by participating in challenges and voting off one fellow survivor at a time by secret ballot. The game show, in case you haven't heard, is called Survivor.
Executive producer Mark Burnett, who selected the show's contestants from 6,100 applicants, has a long history of producing unconventional, outdoor competitions. Prior to producing Survivor, he founded Eco-Challenge Lifestyles Inc. He has produced seven Eco-Challenge events, which are multi-endurance competitions that also focus on responsible use of backcountry lands and promote environmental awareness.
Talk Live with Survivor executive producer Mark Burnett and get the inside scoop on this summer's sensation.
Excerpts:
Kansas City, MO: I read somewhere that Sonia received $2,500 for her 3 days on the island. Did all the contestants receive money based on their length of stay?
Mark Burnett: Yes, that is correct. Sonja received $2,500 and the second place person will receive $100,000. There's a sliding scale between those two numbers.
Rochester, MN: Why don't you air out-takes and other background to show us what really happened? We get enough of the scripted version. Let's see some raw footage - behind the scenes.
Mark Burnett: Where do we air it? We only have 44 minutes each week. We have 130 hours of raw footage to boil down to 44 minutes. The only place to air that would be on the Internet, I guess. Unless they want to give us a 24-hour-a-day Survivor channel.
(Wouldn't that be wild to be able to tune in to Survivor online as we do on Big Brother?)
Westerville, OH: Why did you choose the contestants that you did? What were some qualities that you were looking for?
Mark Burnett: I tried to chose people that I felt were in fact real people. I didn't try to cast outrageous character types. For two reasons: 1) I thought that the viewers were far too clever to buy into fake personalities and 2) I felt that rather ordinary people would become extraordinary when subjected to the rigors of the island and the voting process. I think I was correct.
Buffalo, NY: What happens to the contestants when they are kicked off the island? Where do they go?
Mark Burnett: When the survivors leave tribal council, they walk down "snake alley." The end of snake alley is a confessional booth, which is what you see each week during the credits of the show.
After the confessional, there's a clinical psychologist waiting and they spend the entire night talking with the doctor.
Jackson, Mississippi: How do the editors choose which clips to air? In some ways, the show seems really scripted. With 133 hours of raw footage to edit, don't the editors take their own liberties with what they want the public to see? For example, a few judiciously edited clips could make it look like there was a deep-seated romance OR disagreement between two contestants, when in fact there isn't one.
Mark Burnett: The editors don't take liberties because they are given instructions on what was the actual storyline of those three days. These storylines are clearly evident of producers who were continually around the castaways.
The editors' jobs are merely to find the clips to match the actual stories that really occurred. Every storyline is backed up by interviews with the castaways, and we cannot put words in their mouths.
Westerly, RI: What gave you the inspiration for 'Survivor'?
Mark Burnett: My other TV show, Eco-Challenge, proved to me that the communication within groups was much more a factor in an expedition success than technical or physical attributes. And that's what attracted me to Survivor.
The original idea for Survivor came a decade ago from Charlie Parsons, a prolific British producer.
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