Monday, January 17, 2005

 

Survivor auditions come to MY town!

Last week, I went to the Kitsap Mall. I have not been in the mall for over a year, but I just had to go. They were holding auditions for an upcoming season of Survivor. Silverale, Washington, is a small town of a bit over 20K, mostly Navy because of the major Navy bases in the area, most notable being the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) and the Bangor Submarine Base, (NSB, Bangor). PSNS is a major base with the largest drydocks on the west coast, capable of holding the largest of the aircraft carriers. NSB Bangor is famous as the home base of the west coast Trident submarines. I do not know why Survivor chose our little community to come to, but they did, for whatever reason. I am not interested in being a contestant on Survivor. I fail to see the point of the program. As a matter of fact, I fail to see the point of MOST reality TV programs. Leading the list of reality TV programs I do not watch on a regular basis is Survivor, followed closely by The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and others, I could go on ad nauseum. What intrigues me is, the people who are on these programs, so I just had to go to the mall when I read in the newspaper that Survivor was going to hold auditions in my little community. I went, and I was NOT disappointed. I arrived at the mall around 10 AM or so (I later found out some people had waited overnight to be the first in the door) , and immediately saw the long line of people waiting. My rough estimate was about 300 people. I estimated how many were in about 50 feet and then the length of the line to arrive at my estimate of 300. As I was standing there, I saw the line was gradually getting longer as people joined at the end faster than people were entering for their interviews. In a 15 minute period, I counted 30 people who did not join the line, but joined a 2nd line to pick up an application and drop off a prepared video. I was curious, so I picked up an application, as I wanted to see just what it was they were asking. It was complicated, information areas of all kinds asking for a lot of detail on friends and family as well as personal things like the usual name and address. If you are curious, you can go to the CBS web site and find an application (downloadable in PDF format as I recall). What struck me was the extent of medical and psychological questions. Maybe that is not so much of a surprise afer all, considering they would not want anyone with a severe emotional or physical problem. I decided not to fill out their application and gave it to someone waiting for one. Next, I went out to my car and picked up a notebook I keep with me when I travel. I have pre-printed "model releases" with blanks for the name and such. These releases allow me to use pictures and interviews of people I enounter in my travels that I may speak with or take pictures of in a book or an article without having to worry aboout a person coming back to me later expecting a royalty or fee for the use of their image or words in something I may publish for profit. Armed with my release forms, I stopped to talk with several people waiting for an interview. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me, so no pictures, but I did tape record the interviews. I first sat down and prepared a set of questions. I started with the usual things, who are you, where do you live, what do you do for a living and such and then the things I was really interested in, what they were there at all. I started with introducing myself as an independent freelance journalist and got them to sign the release form. I was surprised in over half the people I approached would not sign the release. If they signed the release, I started the recorder, spoke some indentifying things so I could associate the release with the interview and then I asked the things I really wanted to know, I asked questions about why they might want to be on Survivor. Bottom line, most said two things, experience and money, which led the pack in responses so much as to be at no odds with any other reason. Experience and money were tied for number one and number two. Following way behind at number three was meeting other people. One person said his family talked him into it and he really didn't want to do it and was secretly hoping they would not choose him. He stated he would not accept if they called him to tell him he was one of those chosen. I wonder at this, if they called would this man really decline? After all, he was there, so there must have been a level of interest even if he was there because he was coerced by his family. Just as an aside note, of the people who did not want to sign the release, most stated they did not want to put their own rights at risk if they were chosen and went on to win. Evidently, someone in the legal profession advised them not to release any rights of any kind even if it was for an interview prior to ever being on the program. One person (obviously very confident of selection) admitted to already having hired a publicist! I seem to remember at least 3 (also confident of selection) saying they had hired an agent as preparation in case they were accepted! After 2 hours or so, I finally left the mall and went to the post office and about my usual business. Later, I catalogued the tapes with the signed releases. I doubt I will do anything with the tapes. Notice I did not quote anyone here. The only things I have said here are the opinions I have formed and held on what I heard and atrtribute nothing to specific people I interviewed whether they signed a release or not.

After this experience, I can only conclude that I am even more mystified and amazed than I was previous to visiting the mall to witness this event. Some reality TV things are self evident, "This Old House" for example, in which they film the restoration of a home, which is reality TV which rings true. Survivor, seems scripted and the story line is written. Why else would Survivor have a credits for writers? This Old House does NOT have a credit for writers! Well, they do have writers, but it isn't to create a story line or drama for the show!

Would you go onto a reality TV series like Survivor or Big Brother or any of the others? I want to know your opinion and your view.

You be the judge, and tell me at "rvgetsla at yahoo dot com" what your opinion is. You can figure out what my real address is from that, I'm sure. My email link to the left will get you a automated response directing you to the yahoo address to get in touch with me. Can I help it that the bots have scammed my shorttime dot com address for spamming? (The bots scan pages and glean email addresses for spam lists and I have not yet figured out how to hide my real address on this page from the bots, so bear with me here.)

Reality TV, what is up with that, anyway? Maybe I will never know...

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 1/17/2005 09:13:00 PM

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