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'Amazing' Hit Races to a Finish By Gary Levin
« on: Sep 22nd, 2004, 1:28pm » |
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http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-09-20-amazing-race_x.h tm
'Amazing' hit races to a finish
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY
It's been an Amazing climb.
While Chip and Kim, Colin and Christie, Linda and Karen and Brandon
and Nicole head for The Amazing Race's finish line (tonight, 9 ET/PT),
the show has completed its own obstacle course, improbably becoming a
hit — but only just this summer, in its fifth season.
The show, hitmaker Jerry Bruckheimer's sole reality series, premiered
three days before 9/11, but though beloved by critics, it never proved
more than passable in the Nielsens.
But a year ago, Race won the Emmy for reality series, a win it
repeated Sunday. And this summer, in a new 10 p.m. Tuesday slot, the
show is more popular than ever, averaging 10.3 million viewers
enthralled by pint-sized Charla and tantrum-thrower Colin.
To capitalize, CBS has bumped Amazing Race 6, which starts in [SPOLIER - EDITED OUT BY SONIC],
until late October or November, when it will likely return on Tuesdays
instead of a planned berth on low-rated Saturdays.
Compared with other, more stationary reality series, Race is a
logistical nightmare. The travel budget alone for each season is $2
million, and it's no surprise: Race 5, at 73,000 miles in 29 days the
longest yet, started in Santa Monica, Calif., and so far has
globe-trotted to Uruguay, Argentina, Russia, Egypt, Tanzania, India,
New Zealand and the Philippines.
How do they pull it off? Here's a peek behind the scenes:
Q: How does the show map its route?
A: In planning each season, producers haul out a map and find
far-flung places that are both TV-friendly and safe. They need 12 "pit
stops" to end each leg of the race, a starting point and a finish
line, both usually in the USA.
"A lot of the show is based on personal experience, where I've been to
many times in my life," says executive producer Bertram van Munster.
With wife and co-producer Elise Doganieri, he travels the same route
once or twice before filming begins.
Q: Is there any place Race won't go?
A: "Of course — we're not going into Iraq and Afghanistan," he says.
Ditto parts of Africa such as Nigeria or the Ivory Coast.
Q: Who finds those wacky challenges?
A: Once locations are selected, a team of researchers seeks local
flavor for tasks: in Uruguay, carrying sides of beef from a
slaughterhouse to a meat market; in Egypt, hauling bricks as if
building a pyramid. "We have some of our weaker people test this stuff
to know if it's physically doable," he says.
Q: How do Racers gain such cooperation at airline counters?
A: Producers hire local "facilitators" in each country who cut through
red tape, securing permits for filming at airports and landmarks and
arranging cooperation of local shopkeepers and others enlisted in the
show. Contestants are given cash for each leg of the race, but
airplane tickets are purchased separately using credit cards given to
them by producers.
Q: How do contestants pack for extreme climates? Their backpacks seem
awfully small.
A: "We tell them, 'You're going on a trip around the world, bring
whatever you want,' " van Munster says. Teams get coats or heavier
clothing only for "extreme cold."
Q: Have contestants ever refused a task?
A: No. But eating 2.2 pounds of Russian caviar "was very hard for a
lot of people. They made it harder for themselves because they decided
to pour water in it and eat it like Cap'n Crunch."
Q: Which scenes are most difficult to film?
A: Grueling physical stunts such as zip lines and parachute jumps:
Experts must accompany each contestant, and "it needs to go like
clockwork because we never reshoot anything."
Q: What does host Phil Keoghan do while contestants are racing?
A: He's racing to the next pit stop, where he readies the mat that
welcomes each team and conducts initial interviews. Unlike the teams —
which must rely on clues — "we know where we're going," Keoghan says,
"but that's not to say we don't get lost or get caught in traffic,
either. There have been a number of occasions where I've been running
up the mat from one direction and the team is running up from the
other direction."
On rare occasions, the first-place team departs for the next leg,
after a mandatory 12-hour rest period, before the last-place team
arrives. Keoghan once spent 14 hours in choppy waters on a Hong Kong
junk waiting for a team. Once in a while, a last-place team (Mary and
Peach in Race 2, for example) is fetched if all the others have
checked in.
Q: How does Keoghan keep that poker face when telling each team
whether they've been eliminated?
A: "I really like to play up the drama when they come in, they make
the assumption that because they made an error, everybody else didn't.
I love seeing them coming in and watching their eyes."
------
The starting city was in the article, edited it out.
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