bucket along around the ball for a million - dollar bill - prize sound like a great time , as long as you ’re not the one creditworthy for set it all up . For the producers in rush of two - time - Emmy - winning reality series , The Amazing Race , it ’s a logistical incubus of the highest order . Moving mass and equipment around the globe for a month requires accurate planning and a small US Army of hoi polloi to pull it off .
" We have over 2,000 people work on the show worldwide , " says producer / creator Bertram van Munster , who take off planning out eachRaceedition three month ahead of time . " so as to lay out theRaceand make it financially , creatively and logistically work , I go everywhere and lay it out , and hand all that knowledge over to the balance of my team , " he says . " Then I jaunt with my squad again around the world and plan on the dot where the camera position is run low to go , what we ’re function to do , and arrive up with all the challenge . "
Planning and More Planning
Not astonishingly , van Munster know quite a lot about getting from one place to the next . " People in my office are sometimes shocked by the amount of airline schedules I have in my foreland . I can tell you where Air Nepal is flying at 1:00 in the afternoon . I can tell you how many flights Air Botswana has between Gabarone and Johannesburg , " says the Dutch - stick out manufacturer , though unforeseen travel roadblocks needs turn out .
" Every time we get on a carpenter’s plane and we go to an airdrome , it ’s like rolling the die , " saysRacehost Phil Keoghan . " Is there going to be a mechanical [ problem ] on the plane ? Are there going to be weather delays ? We ’ve been sitting on planes with the weather closing in and a team might be on another plane that get out before the weather closed in . Now we ’re sit on the ground and we roll in the hay the teams are racing onward of us . It grow really challenging . I ’ve literallyRaced teams to the orchestra pit halt . One time I was literally running up to the mat while they were running from the other direction . "
Then there ’s the altogether out of the blue obstruction that can force the production to vary locating . " In Argentina , about two years ago , we had a office where the full banking organization collapse . I was about to cable a substantial amount of money there because we were operate to scoot there . We change the itinerary from Brazil - Argentina - South Africa to Brazil - London - South Africa , " commend van Munster . " We had a situation in Rio where the paparazzo found out where we were go to be shooting and we switched samba bars . "
Going Local
With the popularity ofRace , it ’s now necessary to have security department , bait and overlay stories to fool the curious , especially in places American tourists frequent . " We have the Pied Piper motif going on a little minute , " allow van Munster . " We ’ll call the show something else - they cerebrate we ’re filming a commercial , " total co - producer Elise Doganieri , van Munster ’s wife . " We ’ll be set up a nightclub box and Americans will ask , ' Is thisThe Amazing Race ? ' And we ’ll say , ' No , we ’re doing a documentary . ' "
Doganieri and van Munster employ a web of local facilitator in each locationRacevisits . " I position up a ecumenical infrastructure years ago to grow a unlike show and I have planet offices around the world that we ’ve used through the age . These are people I know for many years and through these billet we get our permission , " says van Munster . Adds Doganieri , " We tell them ' We demand this many cars at this location , ' ' We need this many hotel elbow room , ' and we talk terms the plenty when we get there . "
As you might expect , their phone bills are astronomic . Typically , " one country alone was over $ 25,000 , " notes van Munster , who calls communications their biggest logistic challenge . Satellite cell phones " keep us aware of everybody and where they are , " he tell . " Each squad has a crew and so does Phil , " adds Doganieri . " Everybody has a cubicle earpiece so they can stay in contact . "
As for the challenges they create for the teams , van Munster and Doganieri strive to make them endemic to the location . " You have to observe things that the locals do , and you do n’t look in a tourer guidebook , " says Doganieri . " You labour around the countryside and you look for the little thing , because the locals sometimes do n’t even realise how unique the things they do are , like building a mud hut . "
Keeping Things Safe
The challenge must also be hard , exciting to watch and safe . " dead everything is totally check over and over and over again . We ca n’t open to put these people at risk , " assures Keoghan . " It ’s perceived danger . To me what really lick about theRaceis not when we put people in harm ’s way . It ’s when they ’re labor outside their comfort zona . follow ordinary hoi polloi in a totally unusual , utmost post is interesting telly . "
Doganieri is among the challenge testers , and vividly recalls a 134 - meter bungee jump she made in New Zealand a few time of year back . " I ’d never done that and I ’m a piffling afraid of heights . I took about four minute before I stepped off . I bonk if I was that frightened we had to do it for the show . But I almost had a eye attack doing that one , " she admit .
In the event of a real aesculapian exigency , contingency plans are in place . " We have first aid , and we make out all the hospitals and have MD on call . We have ambulance fend by , " say van Munster . There have been a few mishaps . A rescue boat in Vietnam murder a sandbar , injuring a producer , and another producer broke her articulatio radiocarpea . Several contestants have been hurt , though not seriously .
A Road-weary Host
The current edition ofThe Amazing Race , its seventh , commence in Long Beach , California with 11 team , including engagedSurvivor : All Starswinner and runner - up , Amber Brkich and Rob Mariano . Keoghan greets the teams as they arrive at the pit stop for each ramification of theRacefor a 12 - hour rest . " They really do reek . And they always want to squeeze me , " laughs the New Zealander , who adopts a stony demeanor for a 2d or two before he tells them they ’re still in theRace . " I desire the tension there on the flatness , " he explains . " The feedback that I ’ve gotten from the audience is that they bed not knowing , and they love that I mess with them a piffling . "
He interviews the objector after they arrive , and those sound bite are used throughout the show . " When they fall in , they ’re excited and pump up and want to share their experiences . I get a front words seat to this amazing game , " says Keoghan , for whom the hardest part of the line is tell the last team they have to go home . Once eliminate , teams must get on the next plane to the U.S.
Keoghan , who bring about and hostsNo Opportunity Wastedfor TLC and wrote a book of the same name last twelvemonth in addition to hisRaceduties , had two mean solar day off in 2004 . " I was so fried when I got home . But on the twenty-four hours when I did n’t have anything to do , I did n’t quite jazz what to do with myself . I could n’t in reality think that I had a sidereal day off . I added it up and I think I did something like 450,000 mile last class . I was speaking to a pilot program who flies for Virgin about it and he said , ' Dude , you fly more than I did . I fly four time a month . ' It was mad . I would wake up and go , ' OK , where am I ? What land am I in ? ' "
He ’s not disordered , however , about the appeal of this show and what sets it apart from its reality brethren . " A huge part of it is that we ’re always in unique position and can show you something you ’ve never seen before , " says Keoghan . " One of the thing that makesRacestand out is that we have consistently had a show that has accentuated the positive , always gone for something uplifting that is a celebration of the human spirit , rather than a train - wreck show . The show is not about going to extremes to make television . "
Nevertheless , the producers wish to change things up from time to time , sum up new element to the secret plan . Season eight will feature teams of four role player instead of two , all with some transmissible connection .
