"Survivor 3" - Sets Off On African Safari
Credit: USA Today
07/09/2001
As Survivor 3 begins production in Kenya this week, questions linger from the hit series' trips to Borneo and Australia.
How will producers escape the tedium of the last two-hour Survivor finale, which stretched out the fate of Keith, Colby and champ Tina? By reducing time spent in Africa to 39 days, from 42 in Australia, so that four contestants remain in the 13th and final episode.
Will charges that Survivor rigged contests or staged scenes affect viewers' devotion to TV's top series?
Hard to tell, though it didn't hurt Survivor 2. Still, for the first time a CBS program practices executive will monitor the entire production, to provide the network with a safety blanket.
"It's an extra person to be there to say to, 'We're about to do this; any thoughts?' " says producer Mark Burnett.
But will he back off from playing tricks to heighten drama, like using stand-ins for the castaways in aerial shots to avoid showing camera crews on the ground? No. "I'm not changing anything; the show works," he says.
Filming begins this week at the Shaba National Game Reserve, about 140 miles north of Nairobi, and will run through mid-August.
Already spoilers are awaiting clues about the show, to premiere in October and run on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. (Survivor 4 follows in March.)
CBS has encircled the reserve with tight security, and the Kenyan government, unlike officials in Australia, has agreed to designate the site a no-fly zone to prevent prying helicopters from buzzing overhead.
As in Survivor 2, the winner won't be revealed until a live segment of the final episode airs in December.
The biggest changes, of course, will be the setting and the contestants. The chosen 16 are likely to fall between Pulau Tiga's mostly regular-folks looks and Australia's more model-pretty makeup, and some hail from states not represented in previous Survivor casts. "Some are really cute and some are really ordinary people," Burnett says.
The difficulty in casting is figuring out which auditions are mere performances. "People behave very differently when they're suffering than when they're in the casting room."
As for the setting, don't look for tigers, despite a Survivor logo designed for CBS' Web site. There aren't any on the continent. But expect to see lions, leopards, gazelles, zebras, giraffes, elephants and wildebeests.
"This is not a jungle. This is classic Africa, with the savanna, incredible cliffs and typical acacia trees with the flat tops," says Burnett. The setting also was used in the 1985 film Out of Africa and 1966's Born Free.
Although a river runs alongside the reserve, the location — just below the equator — promises to make it both dry and hot, a contrast to the heavy rains that buffeted Pulau Tiga and Australia. The site will make climate the harshest factor, and Burnett has said the castaways will subsist much like the native Maasai tribe.
CBS is mum on details of the Tribal Council, where contestants are voted off every three days, but local sources have speculated that rock outcroppings, called kopjes, provide an ideal home for the nighttime ritual.
Environmental groups protested at the new Survivor site, citing concerns that the TV production crew of more than 300 would harm the land. But Burnett says his company has improved existing roads to minimize dust and pollution, will import sewage treatment equipment and recycle water.
