Premiers, Thursday, February 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM (EST)
Greetings folks.
First off, let me say - My Bad!
It seems I used an old, outdated ping list for my original ping to this thread, so for some of you, this is your first ping to this thread.
Well, when you get as old as I am, they say the memory is the first thing to go!
I’ll try not to let it happen too often!
Anyway, here is a transcript of Jeff Probst’s Teleconference with the Media.
Part 1 is posted below with part 2 to follow tomorrow.
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Jeff Probst Media Teleconference
Transcript courtesy of the great folks at SurvivorFever.net
Part 1 of 2
Question: I was wondering if you could start off by telling us something about the fans who are a part of this season. How did you pick them and what are some of the different personalities?
Jeff: How we picked them was, for the most part we wanted to find the biggest fans that we had. Kathy applied, I think, seven times. In fact, we almost put her on Vanuatu. She didn't make the cut and so we kind of had her floating around. She's crazy...crazy to the point of being so wacky that it's peculiar and entertaining. She is at her core a huge Survivor fan. She knows everything that ever happened on every episode. She knows everybody that ever played and she wants to play. That was sort of what we were looking for in everybody. We have this kid, Erik, from a really small town, Pinckney, Michigan. He's 22, he's been watching the show since it went on the air. When we met him in casting he said, "I've been waiting for this day. I've been praying that the show would be on long enough so that I could get a chance. Erik is this kid that, he's so endearing. He shows up on the island wearing...he's a runner. He's a long distance track runner, a cross-country runner. He shows up in a track outfit, green. Everything is green, his shoes, his pants. He's got this long almost lion-like mane of hair. He's bouncing with energy. He can't believe it when he finds out that he's playing against people like Ozzy and James, his idols. There's another kid, Jason, he's the same way. He's a young guy and kind of aspires to be Ozzy. He talks the talk. Jason Siska is 22 also. He was from the Virgin Islands. He really fancies himself Ozzy Jr. and that's all he could talk about, "I can't wait to meet Ozzy." Almost like he has a man-crush. He says, "I can't wait to get out there and show him what I can do." I was sitting there thinking, 'It's one thing to talk the talk that you think you can take on Ozzy but it's another thing entirely to do what Ozzy does in this game.' And Ozzy comes out on day one and is just as good as he ever was. That was the idea. We wanted people that would be enamored when they discovered that they were playing against some of the favorite people to ever play Survivor. We hoped what would happen is that that idolatry would turn into animosity and then it did. The first few moments of the show we bring out the fans onto a beach and it's pouring down rain. It's raining so hard and the camera lenses are getting water on them. Everybody is just obliterated, drenched in water. Then we bring out the favorites. It's like they're at a rock concert, watching their favorite rock star. They're just applauding, here comes James, here comes Yau-Man, and oh my gosh, Ozzy. Then when they realize that the favorites weren't really there to make any new friends, the game quickly became us against them. That's how they hunkered down. The fans wanted to be sure that a fan won the game. The favorites wanted to be certain that no matter what a favorite won the game.
Question: Who did you think had the edge? The favorites, who have all been there before or the fans who are an unknown quantity and who have watched the favorites?
JP: I think it's a little of both. When you look at the favorites, you've got ten people who average maybe 30 days out there. That's 300 days, that's nearly a year's worth of experience. When it comes to building shelter, making fire and knowing how to play this game from a strategy point of view. That's a huge advantage. On the flip side, you can't hide if you're a favorite. Everybody knows Yau-Man is not just a nice older guy who's trying to help you find coconuts. They know this guy is a strategic player and has to be watched. There's nowhere to hide if they know you're a physical threat in every single challenge. So that puts a big target...I think if you're a favorite, you have a big target on your back. Everybody's afraid of James. They know he could've won it last time if he hadn't made such a blunder with the idol. So, there's nowhere to hide. If you're a fan, nobody knows you. Nobody knows Erik is athletic. Nobody knows Jason grew up on an island. I think the advantage that the fans have is that they can become whoever they want to be. They aren't a known quantity. The other things the fans have going for them is that they don't know how hard it's going to get. When we did the last All Stars season, about day 9, 10, 11, some of the All Stars started remembering how miserable this experience can be and they were only a 3rd of the way in. It kind of took a dent out of their enthusiasm whereas the fans have no idea. They're going on pure adrenalin.
Question: To what extent where any of the fans able to change their game up?
JP: That's the big question. If you're a favorite and you want to win this game, you'd better have Plan B. If all you're going to do is be Ozzy and come out there and try to win challenges, you have no chance. You look at somebody like Parvati. Why is she out there? She's out there for the 2nd chance. That's the same reason we had Amber on in the All Stars. We looked at Parvati and we said, "She played one beat last time, the flirt." It didn't work. It got her a long way but it didn't work. What if Parvati can combine being a flirt with some newfound strategy. That's what Parvati has to do, come out and have another layer. Same with Jonathan. The guy was completely exposed as being absolutely untrustable. You know, you can't trust Jonathan at all. He showed you that. He betrayed everybody in the Cook Islands. He flipped from one side to the other. That was everybody's task coming in, how do I reinvent myself in a way that can fool people who have already played.
Question: Can you talk about what it feels like to get the renewal for another two cycles of Survivor and any thoughts on what those two cycles might entail?
JP: Personally, for me, all you'd really have to do is step inside my shoes for a single moment and you'd understand why I'm still on Survivor. I travel the world. I get to host and produce one of the most fascinating shows on television. I get paid more money than any college drop-out should ever dream of making. When I'm not working, I have a lot of free time to think about what a great life I have. For me, it was an easy decision. As far as the show goes, I think the reason that Survivor is still on the air and why it's endured is, great story-telling. I've always felt that Survivor is Joseph Campbell at it's best. It's unscripted, real life drama. Everybody in this game is on their own journey. They leave their ordinary life behind and they embark on this adventure that will forever change their life. Anybody who comes onto this game, whether they last three days or 39, their lives are forever changed. They almost always experience a spiritual death whether it's being voted out, which is a death in this game, or whether it's finding yourself so low you don't know how you're ever going to make it and you think about quitting. Then you dig deep and you revert and you're a new person. Some people would say, oh Probst, that's really corny. I don't think it is. I sit out there and watch these people cry and cry and cry and say, "I think I gotta go home." Then somebody comes up and says, "Just hang in there another day." Before you know it, they're kicking ass on day 35 and they got a shot at a million bucks." That is a death and rebirth and your life is forever changed.
Question: In selecting the people for this season, what was your role and who did you want that you couldn't get?
JP: We did something interesting with casting of the favorites. We refer to it as "the big con". We alluded to the fact that there would be 20 people on the season. So when we started talking to the favorites they figured there must be 20 favorites going, it's an All Stars season. So, we had 20 people on the hook thinking they were going. Knowing all along we were only taking 10 and that the other 10 were going to be fans. That for us was important because we knew all these guys were talking on the phone to each other and trying to build alliances before the show even started. So we wanted to complicate it a little bit. I think it worked. Some of the people that we wanted on the show and just didn't have a spot for...Shane from Exile Island. Yul, we wanted back. A couple of the people that we wanted that didn't want to do it were Tom Westman from Palau. I ran into Tom in New York. We were talking. I said, "If we ever did another All Star, would you do it?" He said, "There's no chance. Look at how it played for me. I came out as a hero. Everything went my way. I'm the fireman who was the nice guy and won. All I would do is tarnish that image. I'm not going through it again." The other person we really wanted back was Courtney from last season. She didn't want to do it either. So we had a couple people turn us down. But for the most part as you can imagine it was a feeding frenzy of favorites calling our casting director, pleading their case as to why they would make a good choice.
Question: You talked about this season and how you picked the people. Have you started to even think about the next two that CBS has picked up and you might be able to twist things up a little bit more?
JP: We just had a creative meeting last week with two executive producers, a casting director, myself and Mark. We're already looking at a couple of big locations that would be fantastic if we can work it out. We started the process of how do we change the game up a little bit. It's always a balancing act. We have something like Fans Vs. Favorites and we feel like, okay, that's our creative. Now we just spin off of that. If we have a really great location like going to China, that can be your creative. If you go back to the Cook Islands, if we were to go back into a situation we've already been in then we have to find really big creative. So, we have a few different options that we can use for new creative but we're always thinking about it. More emails go back and forth during the off-season about creative than anything else.
Question: Where's the line between creative and cheesy?
JP: Uh, boy, that's great. In the eye of the viewer, I guess. One of the things that I always admire about Mark is that he's not afraid to take a very big chance. Even looking at Pirate Master. Pirate Master is easy to look at now and say it didn't work. What to me is more impressive is that Mark was willing to take a chance that it might work. Historically, I think if you look at all of the things that we've tried, in 16 seasons, the majority have worked. It's only the exception, like the outcasts or Fiji, the entire season, it happens. There's really no way to know until you do it. You can't go re-shoot the ending.
Question: You kind of speak with a reverence for the favorites. I was wondering if you feel passionately about the alumni or are rooting for them. I know you have a history with them.
JP: Yeah, that's fair. I certainly don't root for them. For me, a good season would be lose one from each tribe every single week. That keeps the game interesting. We have some fans that people are going to like and root for. But yeah, I know these guys so there's a report that we have. There are people like Jonathan Penner, one of my favorite all time Survivors because he gets it, quote, unquote. He knows what the show is. He knows that it is a game for a million dollars. He's also aware that it is being televised. He's a great storyteller. I appreciate that. Jonathan complains more than anybody has ever complained in this game. At every challenge he's whining and bitching that something's not fair. It cracks me up. It gives you an opportunity to go back and forth. Same with a guy like Jonny Fairplay. Not my favorite person in the world but in terms of the show, he's gonna do something. In the very beginning I made a point of going over to the fans and saying, "I know you guys might think I'm more friendly with them or you see a history but I'm completely objective in this game and I really don't care who wins. I'll be the same with you as I am with them." I think they were feeling that. I think the first couple of days they thought, 'Oh, Probst likes those guys better than us.' And so, I tried to remedy that.
Question: After 16 seasons would it be fair to say that you know all of the strategies to winning the game?
JP: No. We have a record number of blindsides this season. It is amazing how many blindsides happen in a row. You would think after this many seasons that pulling off a blindside would be tough. But it just showed me, you really have to have your wit about you in this game. If you are not aware then you're in the fog. If you're in the fog, you're in trouble. My jaw dropped at so many votes. At so many Tribal Councils, the Tribal Council would end and I would say to them, "Got me again. And you got them again." You had people scratching their heads going, "How did this happen to me?" So, I definitely don't think I know all of the strategies. I think the best players play the game moment to moment.
End of part 1
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Take care,
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