Man vs Wild
Man vs. Wild is a UK show hosted by Bear Grylls as he survives really tough conditions. Here is what the show’s Assistant Director says about the production of the show and the difficulties the camera crew had to deal with:
“We had proper food packed with us, but I would occasionally try some stuff Bear had — like live fish or the rocks in Mexico.
We would try to control the risk where possible, though. We shot Bear walking along the edge of a 600-foot cliff in Copper Canyon, and Simon was following him with the camera, but could not see the edge because his eye was on the eyepiece and the camera was obscuring his field of vision toward the cliff. So we had our mountaineering safety guy, Dave (the other unsung hero of the series) put a harness on Simon and keep a hand on him at all times, ready to pull him back if he looked like he was getting too close.
I suppose the only ’cheats’ per se were that whenever Bear had to do something dangerous, like jumping off a waterfall, we’d thoroughly check it out first, testing the depth, checking for hidden obstacles underwater, etc. before letting him jump off.”
KenTheExAD, Assistant Director
Hell’s Kitchen
The point of this reality show is simple: 2 teams of chefs compete against each other supervised by Gordon Ramsay. He screams and criticizes everyone.
Regular people take part in the show because of the pressure and the surprises from the crew like when the ingredients are switched, it’s almost impossible to stop watching. And according to one of the cameramen, this
“The way the show is devised made it so we didn’t have to stage things. Quite frankly, it would be too difficult for us and I doubt any of the contestants could pull it off convincingly. Actors they were not.
The trick was simple: cast hotheads, turn up the heat, give them only a little rest then sit back and watch the fireworks.”
John Douglas, camera operator
By the way, during the second season, one of the producers noticed that at the beginning of the show, only 4 participants were smokers. And by the end of it, there were 10 smokers among them. Isn’t this proof of the atmosphere of the show?
