Working Crew on Survivor Thailand

some of the cameramen on Survivor

Working Crew on Survivor TV Show: pt 4

Critical Mass Week and The Great Tent Catastrophe

In my last installment, Mishaps and Misadventures Behind Scenes, I detailed many of the unforeseen issues that we faced while setting up an entire tent city to house the film production crew during filming of Thailand Survivor. However, the most exasperating ‘wrench’ was yet to befall us…

Critical Mass week was fast approaching. The week when suddenly all the producers, directors, and large crew of camera, sound, lighting and production people would arrive en mass. When they arrived, it was our job to escort them to their new homes- the hundreds of tents we’d pitched, furnished and organized. The entire purpose of our job from the start was to be completely prepared for the film crew’s mass arrival.

To our great despair and despite our best organizational skills, planning and hard work, we were slammed with a huge blast of unexpected aggravation during the 2 weeks leading up to Critical Mass. That aggravation was almost entirely due to the crazy behavior of the various temporary Thai labor that the production company had hired.

hundreds of tents – Survivor Thailand

My department had painstakingly set up over 200 tents in preparation for the film crew’s arrival one month into production. In the few weeks before their arrival, we also had to temporarily house various Thai labor crews for a few days or one to two weeks in those same tents that would later be used for the permanent film crew.

Temporary Thai teams came in to set up a satellite system; to install computer systems, air conditioning and phones; and to build a large scaffolding. We also had a few ‘longer-term temporary’ Thai crew, including Thai drivers, bargemen, and the restaurant catering crew.

What havoc they reeked! They completely screwed up our well-organized tent city and drove us nearly out of our minds.

Thai staff pitching tents – Survivor Thailand

Being the efficient, professional organizers that we were, we had assigned specific tents to each temporary worker who arrived. Naturally. However, unbeknownst to us, almost every temporary Thai employee who arrived over the course of two weeks completely ignored our tent assignments, wandered around the tent city themselves, and simply took whichever tents they wanted! Even worse, they also randomly ‘borrowed’ various contents from several other tents to use for themselves.

The result: We essentially we had no idea who was living where, which tents were vacant or occupied, or where our contents were! Over and over again a new temporary Thai worker would arrive. We’d escort them to the supposedly empty tent that we’d carefully prepared and set aside for them, only to discover that the tent was occupied or some of the contents were gone.

Survivor TV Show- hundreds of tents - Survivor Thailand

more tents set up under shady trees on Survivor Thailand

Every time a temporary worker left, we were faced with even bigger problems. Inevitably, his tent would have several ‘extra’ contents that he’d gathered randomly from other tents. We had no idea which of the 200+ tents each item had come from.

In many cases, after the worker had gone, we discovered that we didn’t know which tent that person had been living in, so we couldn’t clean and re-prep the dirty tent. We’d head over to the tent we’d assigned him, only to find that tent had been completely UN-occupied.

That meant a search through the mass of tents to try to determine where he had been sleeping. However, when we did find an occupied tent, we wouldn’t know if it had been occupied by the person who had just left or was still occupied by a different temporary worker.

more tents on Survivor Thailand

The temporary catering staff proved to be the absolute worst. New staff kept appearing, unannounced. Couples were announced after we had pitched tents for singles. And other random confusions arose.

We spent days on end just getting the catering staff name list correct and assigning tents. What should have been completely simple and straight forward became a total nightmare. To our western, organized minds it was all just too bizarre, confusing and exasperating.

Amazingly, after the catering staff’s arrival, the nightmare just intensified. They, too, randomly took the tents they preferred rather than the ones we’d assigned. In addition, it appeared that they’d invited relatives and friends to come stay, people who weren’t even hired by the production company!

When it came time for the catering crew to leave, just before Critical Mass Week, we had a huge mind-fuck on our hands. Trying to track down which tents they were living in, and even who they were, was nearly impossible.

Lash with Thai crew – Survivor Thailand

Day after day we’d talk to the restaurant staff, who had the already corrected list of temporary catering crew. By then each list had different names. Some people were missing from the lists. Other people were on the lists who we’d never heard of. And in any event, the restaurant ‘organizers’ also had no idea where each person was living anyhow. I can only presume that, to some extent, they were intentionally giving us the run-around.

We couldn’t get some people out for days. We couldn’t track down who was living in particular tents to ask them to move. And we couldn’t find our contents.

As Critcial Mass week approached ever nearer, and we needed to have all the tents un-occupied, cleaned, filled with the proper contents, and properly assigned to the permanent film crew who were about to arrive en mass, our stress levels and confusion mounted.

Ruby re-organizing tents – Survivor Thailand

In the end, we had to go through all 200+ tents, one by one, day by day, and re-prep them for the film crew. Basically, aside from constructing the tents, we had to do our hard work all over again. Not surprisingly, that took several days.

As we re-prepped each tent, we had no idea whether or not the newly re-prepped tents would remain properly prepared until their permanent occupants arrived, or if they’d be disassembled / re-occupied again before that.

We spent hours and days and conversations and arguments trying to get it all straightened out.

Wendy on ATV – Survivor Thailand

As if things could not be more hectic, at that same time several of the key department staff were sent, one by one, off to the hospital until only I was left to figure out the massive nightmare. My immediate supervisor, Wendy, was sent to the hospital with a serious leg infection from our ATV accident. The Department Head was out with dengue fever. And the office/field co-ordinator, Kat, had gone to the hospital, frazzled, to look after her partner who was also suffering from dengue fever.

Eeeeevvvvvvvnnnnntuallllllyyyy… my Thai crew, the newly-arrived supervisor and I did get all 200+ tents cleaned and ready for the film crew’s much anticipated arrival.

cameramen taking it easy – Survivor Thailand

Critical mass week arrived. Within a few days’ time we greeted and escorted over 150 people to their tents. Even after our carefully executed re-prepping, we occasionally found an assigned tent already re-occupied or some key contents missing. We’d have to kick out the ‘illegal’ occupant and round up new contents as quickly as possible to ensure the film crew’s pleasant arrival. It was extremely embarrassing and exasperating.

Thankfully, by the end of Critical Mass week the entire film crew was finally settled into their tent homes. Everyone had all their proper interiors, at least for the time being. And my own crew was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, slow down, and switch into maintenance mode for the remainder of the production.

Next in this series: Cruising on Crew

Catch the full series of posts here

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