Contestants Brad Baker, Jeremy Hegarty and Rose Reilly vied for pride (and $200). Photo: Supplied.
In the land of the knowledge worker, traditional survival skills have grown increasingly superfluous. However, they may finally be put to the test, Survivor-style.
The first-ever season of Canberra Survivor will begin on 4 February.
Filmed in March last year at Murrays Corner on the outskirts of the ACT, organisers have been busy editing content and spreading the word of their show’s arrival.
How did the idea come about? Trapped in the house and bored during the original lockdown, Daniel Moore was inspired by similar ideas taking place across the country.
“There are a couple other YouTube franchises in Australia – there’s one in Melbourne and there’s one in Perth, and I was watching those because I had a friend in the Perth one, and I said ‘why don’t we do one in Canberra?'” said Mr Moore.
He spoke to several friends interested in the idea, and it wasn’t long before they were organising challenges and looking at logistics. The entire 10-episode program was filmed over one weekend, a weekend not without its share of challenges.
“The weekend that we filmed it, we actually had a severe weather warning, so we had rain the whole week, and we had gale force winds, so the biggest challenge was audio,” said Mr Moore.
“We learnt more about the actual production side of things because none of us are from TV or anything like that, so I think that was the biggest takeaway, just how to get good audio when it’s windy and rainy.”
Timing was also problematic.
“There are things you don’t expect when you’re filming and how long it takes to film. That was probably the hardest part,” he said.
Contestants were voted out every 90 minutes due to the tight time constraints, bringing the original 16 contestants down to the final three.
While somewhat stressful, Mr Moore said it was a lot of fun to be a part of.
“We will keep doing it as long as it’s fun. I think the most surprising thing out of the weekend was that Olivia (the co-host) and I would just look at each other and go, ‘this is so much fun'”, he said.
“Just meeting new people, people who had the same interest as us from all over Australia really. It was a no-brainer for us to do season two because it was just so much fun.”
The major prize on offer was pride … and $200 cash.
Profiles of the 16 contestants are available on their YouTube channel. The 10 episodes start on 4 February and run weekly through to April.
You can keep up to date with all the Canberra Survivor happenings on Facebook.
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