Jeff Probst
Appearances
Fresh Air
Writer, Critic & Curator Hilton Als Looks For The Silences
This message comes from CBS. Survivor 48 is here, and alongside it is a new season of On Fire with Jeff Probst, the official Survivor podcast. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor. New episodes are available every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
This message comes from CBS. Survivor 48 is here, and alongside it is a new season of On Fire with Jeff Probst, the official Survivor podcast. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor. New episodes are available every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
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Fresh Air
'Hacks' Returns! With Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs
It was like being back in high school, but with sex.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Rachel, first podcast with you. Second, really insightful thing, because most people are going to say, well, you get your pot and your machete and your flint. But a little insight into how we design this game. The pre-merge game is all about tribe versus individual. Every decision you have to make is ultimately going to be, do I help myself or do I help my tribe? There's no right answer.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
It depends on where, like you just said, if I'm the person who has to go fight for supplies, I might feel on the outs. I might have to choose the path of individual. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
He was our first. Then we have the winner from 45, Dee Viadaris. Then last season, we have Charlie, runner-up, season 46. This season, we're going to keep the bar just as high. Our newest co-host, both a brilliant strategist and a challenge dominator. In fact, she tied the record for most individual immunity wins. She is the winner. of Survivor 47. That was a long buildup, Rachel.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yeah, fight for supplies, which is what we call it internally. is an evolution of the sweat versus savvy element that we use for the first few years of the new era. In sweat versus savvy, you had to make a choice. Do you want to take the path of just hard work with sweat? You'll probably finish, but you'll be exhausted.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Or are you confident enough in your cleverness that you could try to solve it quickly through savvy? So Fight for Supplies combines both elements of sweat versus savvy. The players who take this on, they're going to have to exert physical energy. That's the hard work. But you also have to solve something. That's the savvy. And we've been very happy with how it's working.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And Team Flint has done a great job and had some really fun takes on it.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Well, and that is really Team Flint. We didn't have Team Flint a few years ago. That's Jimmy Quigley who runs it, and we've got Andrea Joint and Keone Smith. And that team has been a massive help in terms of designing some of these games. They're not easy to do. They have to be really simple, easy to play, easy to follow along with, and have a consequence.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And when you see a good one, you go, oh, it's kind of basic. They stack cards. Yeah, okay, well, you come up with five and send them to me.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And this goes back to what we just talked about a moment ago, tribe versus individual. Kyle's now out on his own. He has to make a decision. I'm going to help this guy. Individual moment. I've started a bond with this guy, Kevin. If you flipped it and Kyle was winning, maybe he leaves Kevin on his own with his injured shoulder to hurt the other tribe. That would be a tribe decision.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Let me make my tribe stronger by weakening their tribe. It's always going to be situational. Always. The key to every great survivor player is what Rachel just said, is they're always aware that every single second is a possible opportunity. The question is, what do I do with this opportunity? Kyle made the choice. I'm going to help Kevin. We'll see if that pays off.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yeah, we're lucky to have you and have you join us. All right. So that's the show, Jay. We don't dilly dally. Let's get into it. Where should we start? It's the premiere of Survivor 48.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
I think it's a great question because the social experiment has not changed. It's still the same. How do you take a group of people, strangers typically, force them to rely on each other in often a real storm, but then conspire against each other to get rid of each other? How do you do that? How do you play that game? What we've done is change the intention.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
This won't be the last time this season you cry. Survivor's evolved in a lot of ways, and we talk about it a lot on this podcast, but Survivor now is an intentional journey. When players leave and I say somebody's gonna go on a journey, We didn't say field trip. We said a journey. These words matter.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
When we redesigned the game for the new era, I went through the game as though I were Joseph Campbell. And if Joseph Campbell were alive today, how would he see this adventure? So we're creating a gigantic life adventure that has total deprivation. You're surviving in the jungle. You've got to earn everything.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And then you've got to contend with unpredictable, always shifting game twists like Shot in the Dark, Beware Advantage, Risk Reward Games. It's a completely different game. But the key to every season is the player who takes on that game. And one of the biggest changes is the type of people we put on the show. Who's fitting into that tapestry?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
We want players who are compelling, who can tell their story, who are willing to be vulnerable, who will play to win. And then when you do that with 18 individuals, it changes the entire dynamic and personality of the game. So while I agree that episode one was an emotional and moving episode in a beautiful way, I'm also not surprised.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
That's part of what we're doing all year is trying to create this intriguing, addictive, but also aspirational and inspirational television show.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And that's what Joe said. This changes everything. There you go. Presented with an opportunity. What do I do with it? In Joe's case, it appears that he decided to genuinely say, I got you. And the minute that spreads to other players, the other players will see an opportunity. What do we do with this pair? What if they stick together? Who do we take out first?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
All of these are real questions and all of them are fair game. That's why it's so fun. All right, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll talk about the latest Beware Advantage, plus those curious colored animals around Tribe Camp. And ultimately, the first player voted out of Survivor 48. It's never easy. We'll be right back.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
This was designed by Team Flint, and the big picture intention was this. Let's give the players everything they need to exist in this new world. And the question for them will be, what is it? How does it work? How do we solve it? We know it's all here. We're just not sure what to do with it. So their approach was to start at the end and say, how do we want this to pay off?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And then work backwards, which is a really good method for approaching a problem like this. So they start with, all right. They have to solve this alphabet lock. Okay, how should they solve it? Well, let's have them create words that they need to use. Okay, well, which words do we want? And they need to be similar but different because we always want symmetry in our ideas.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So then the words give them the letters they need. Then the next question is, okay, how should we hide those letters? How will they discover them in three similar but different ways? This led to, how about animals? We'll put different animals at camp. And now you call in the rest of the team from art. You've got Tuna from art. He does all of our printing and graphics.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
You got Greg and his team who painted those graphics and secured the props at the tribe camp. You got Lin-Lin who made the locks. So it's a big team, but it starts with this idea. And I think it's worth mentioning two of the people that I've talked about on Team Flint, Andrea Joint and Keone Smith. And how they got there. Andrea Joint, former Dream Teamer.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Are you kidding me? What? Oh!
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
That is basically our entry-level position. She applied three times just to be a Dream Teamer. Three times. Then she got on. She was a superstar. She became a night segment producer, then a daytime segment producer. And then when Quigley was tasked with forming a department... which became Team Flint. He hired Andrea as one of the team. The other person, Keone, started as a Dream Teamer.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
He was 22 years old. He was a Quigley recommendation. He also was a superstar, became a Night Seg producer, and Quigley grabbed him for Team Flint as well. So it's just another example of two former Dream Teamers. I can't emphasize it enough. Our entry-level position on the show, who are now in very big positions on the show. So I would just finish as the old man here.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
If you're a young listener, say yes. to every opportunity. Then deliver when you get the opportunity and good things will happen. That doesn't mean every opportunity is the one you're dreaming of, but it's a step toward that dream.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Damn, you're really going to go there? Okay. I've never talked about this, but yes, there is a whole process. I will tell you about it. Okay. Here's what happens with the black shirt. Every season before the game begins, I perform a sacred ritual with my black shirt. First, I take it down to the ocean where in the glow of the moon, it's bathed in the salt water.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And I soak it just long enough to remind the shirt the challenges it will face. Heat, rain, sweat, sometimes all on the same day. Then I gently lay the shirt on a bed of palm fronds under the sun to dry while absorbing the essence of the island. And then the last step is I Put the shirt on. I stand in front of my survivor mirror. That's the one the art department made for me.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And I look really good in that mirror because I need confidence in my job. And then the last thing I do before I walk out to become survivor guy is I repeat the same solemn vow. And this is the vow. May you survive another season, sans a wrinkle or a stain. May you stay strong, unfazed by sweat and even rain.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And like my hair, wild and free in the air, may you always drape my body with effortless flair. I know that sounds like it's a lot, Jay, but you asked and that's the truth.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Welcome to On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. I'm Jeff Probst, the host and showrunner of Survivor. This is the fifth, that's right, number five season of this podcast. And for those of you who've been with us, whether it's for one season, two, three, or all four seasons, I want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for spreading the word.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yes, I do wanted to talk about this, Jay, because we did something very different this season. Zach Jensen, who builds and designs all of Tribal Council, he had a different way to approach it. He said, I want to create a new fictional civilization as our Tribal Council. And I'm going to start with the name, the civilization of Izodega.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So what he did first is he built tribal council as it would have looked in the beginning of this civilization. And Isodega was magnificent. These beautiful domes of color and tentacles and tapestries. And he would build it right out in the arts department on the airstrip. And we would see it looked like a carnival had come to town.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And so his thing was, I want to see what it looked like thousands of years ago. And then what? Once he built it, he said, OK, now I'm going to imagine the history that has taken place over these thousands of years. And I'm going to add that visual impact to the overall look. So they started by aging it. What would it look like thousands of years later?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yeah. Well, it's funny you bring that up because we've talked about doing this for a few years. Meaning, what if we just use their Zoom calls where we record and say, hey, congratulations, you're on the show. And every time we talked about it, I was always open to it. But in the back of my mind, I thought, I don't know how I'm going to feel about starting an adventure show with a Zoom screen.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
That's the artistic process for making something look old. Then he imagined what if there had been a massive war? And so now pieces of Isadega were destroyed or damaged. So he added repairs they'd done over the years. And then he imagined, what if for the last several hundred years, it was abandoned?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So then he and the team went through it one more time to add the visual impact of sun and sand from storms and heavy rains and flood. And then the last thing he did, it's a very tiny thing, but you'll see it At spots throughout the season is he added one small animal that survived with these colorful penetrating eyes. And those are the eyes of Daga, the civilization eyes of Daga.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And now he said, OK, tribal council's ready. Let's vote somebody out.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
I think that's a really good example that continues the theme of this whole episode, which is the player has to come in with one thing they know is true. And that is the game is alive every single second. And just look for these opportunities and then decide what you do with them.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Well, my first thought on Stephanie is I never predicted she would sit on her hands because that is not her personality. My notes from her are I love her. Home run all day, every day. Must be on the show. I mean, she's a leader of a lot of people. She's gregarious. She's outgoing. But as we've been talking about this episode, she made a choice. She read the room.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And in this case, she read it wrong and it backfired. That's not to say we couldn't bring her back as a returning player and she plays a completely different game. Rachel, what do you think?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And then Dave Armstrong says, what if we don't? What if we start with the audio? But what you see in the visual is adventure. And that probably sounds very simple and obvious, but it took us a minute to find it because you can get locked into a box and you get locked into seeing things a certain way. Even us who do this for a living every day. But the minute you put
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
That's why we're doing this is to connect with Survivor fans. And for those of you who are new to On Fire, Welcome to the tribe. Here's what we do. After each episode of Survivor, we dig into the biggest moments from three different points of view. First, you got my point of view as a producer.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
How many are on a season? 18, 20, whatever? Not many. We started with a list of 200 people. And we're like, I could actually see any of these people representing the season. And then we got it down to 100. 70 was the first difficult cut, where we're all like, man, now it's getting bloody. Then we get down to 50. And at that point, you're just looking going, man,
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And people will say, well, do 50 players. You can't. You can't because of math. You just can't. You'd have to do 70 episodes. It just doesn't work. We would love to do it. You also can't track 50 players. You can't have 50 interviews. You can barely track 18 players. So it's just math. It still has to be a small number. And so that's where we're at. We're still whittling it down.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
I can tell you this. Here's what we want. This is what we're trying to do. Because we want to satisfy you. We want a cast that represents all types of players, spanning all the eras. An array of people who have slept, bled, battled this ever-changing game design for the last 25 years. Because really, Survivor 50
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
is a representation of everyone who has ever played and the fans who've been with us for the entire time. So that's what we're endeavoring to do. So you can see how difficult it would be to get it down to a handful of men and a handful of women. Very difficult. We hope we get it right. Just know we're trying. That's what we're intending to do.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So that's the first big thing, because we want to satisfy the fans, because 50 is going to be a thank you to our fans. So here's the first part of that. For 50, we get this Fiji Airways jet with brand. It's got a big giant Survivor logo on it. I'm going to fly out on it. The players who are on 50 are going to fly out on it. It's very rock star.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
They're not the only people that are going to fly out. First thing I'm announcing is five tribes, a tribe could be your family, it could be a group of friends, are going to win. tickets to come to Fiji on that branded Fiji Airways jet, come to base camp, hang out with Kurohofer, go find where Quigley's hiding the idols. I'll be there.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
You'll see everything about Survivor inside, just like we tried to take you tonight, literally inside. Put you in a nice resort for a few nights. It'll be truly, for a Survivor fan, the trip of a lifetime. So that's one thing we're doing. Then the really big announcement, and I need to set this up.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
The Zoom call audio on top of this crushing shot of islands, now you got Survivor. And now you have that call to adventure that we were talking about.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Okay. Let's do it. This is the theme of 50. OK. Damn, this is big. I hope you all like it. If we've talked about one thing tonight, we've talked about the key to longevity is adapting. You have to evolve. The player has to evolve. I have to evolve. The game design has to evolve. Survivor 50 is going to be the next evolution of the game. Here's how it's going to work.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
For the first time ever, the producers will not be in charge of the game design. You will. Throw up the logo. Survivor 50 in the hands of the fans. Here's how it's going to work. Throughout 48 at various points, you're going to vote on key elements of the game that you want to see in the game. You're going to design the game that the players are going to play.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
I'm talking everything from idols, twists, advantages. You're going to have a say in all of it. And what's really cool is the players will not know. We're not going to tell them in advance. You're going to vote before the season starts. When they hit the beach, Literally anything is possible. This is like going back to season one.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So all the assumptions a player may have are pointless because you're going to design the kind of game you want to see. So for the premiere, the first four categories, are, which will happen right after the premiere. You'll have a week to vote on it. First, we'll give you a little aesthetic. You decide this color scheme, the buffs. What do you want the players to wear?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Then we'll get into camp life with a vote, which is, I hear a lot of people say rice is nice. They should have rice. Okay, you want to give them rice? Give them rice. We don't care. We have nothing to do with it. I would say rice will make them happier. They'll think smarter. Maybe they'll make better decisions. Maybe they won't. Who knows? If you like it being hard, you can vote no rice.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
That's kind of a simple one. That's a binary yes or no. Let's get into a little game design. If I hear anything a lot, it's this. Final Four Firemaking, love it. Final Four Firemaking, hate it. Okay, get rid of it then.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
If last season had one of the most dramatic moments in our history when Sam and Tini went toe-to-toe in this fire making, but if you don't like it and you want it to be a social game where it's like three people can vote somebody out, that's how the game should be played, great, vote for that. The players won't know until we get there at Tribal and I say, so... There is fire. Or guess what?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
There ain't no fire. So they have to play the game not knowing what's coming. And then a fun one that we thought we'd put into the first vote, which is we could do for 50 the reunion in Fiji. It's really fun. Or we could do a live finale in Los Angeles. So that is really just the beginning, and you'll have various points.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
You'll know, because in the episode, there'll be a promotion saying, starting tonight, there's a few more categories. But this is what I encourage you to do, is think about the way you can create the game that you want to see played knowing that the big issue for the player is going to be the lack of knowledge.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
They are not going to know until it unfolds in front of them, meaning you could have a situation where somebody says, The idols are water bottles this year. I just gotta know. And you won't know if they're telling you the truth or not because it's not like you're playing Survivor 49 where you can make an assumption about a beware advantage. Maybe. Maybe not. So that is what we're gonna do with 50.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
We hope you like it. We're gonna try and find you a great group of players spanning all eras and then you tell them what you want them to do.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Follow and listen to On Fire on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Well, first of all, dig in because it's a long process. If you're going to apply to be on Survivor, it's probably not going to happen overnight. But it starts with the player, the person at home that says, I just watched Rachel. I think I'm like Rachel. I think I could do as well as Rachel did. And they finally say, I'm doing it. That's the first step.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
From this point forward, this is the subject line. It's subjective. So don't get offended if you don't hear back from us or you don't end up on the show. Everything is seen through the eyes of our team. And that includes me and a bunch of other people. And the questions we're looking for is, are you ready for Survivor? And is Survivor ready for you? Because sometimes somebody's great.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
They just don't quite fit. fit in that season. That's why I remind people, keep applying, keep applying. But the way it works is you send in your submission. And if our casting team likes it, they send a link to me, Matt Van Wagenen, Hudson Smith. We all three look at it independently. If we agree, yeah, we see something here. Then we set up FaceTime calls with the players. These are very casual.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
I think for the player, often surprisingly casual. Very casual. There's nothing to prepare for. Well, Rachel, I remember our first call. Let's just talk through it. What do you remember about it?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Right. And why we ended up talking about dogs, who knows? Maybe my dog was in my lap or something like that. But It really is that casual. And then I take my little notes, like I have my notes from the very first time I talked to you at that kitchen table. Love her, love her, love her. Super likable, instantly into her. And she started applying six years ago. Wow. So there you go.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
This was not an overnight process for Rachel, who went on to be an alternate and then went on to win Survivor. So sometimes we do know what we're doing in terms of who we put on the show and when. Yeah.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
We'll get into the juicy behind the scenes details about how and why we do things, why we built that money marooning challenge and how do we build it? Or how do we put together that opening sequence with the S48 players hearing the call and learning they were going to be on the show? So that's the whole point of this podcast is the how and the why of everything.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yes. Yeah. And so if it goes well after that, then it really gets deep. You're going to have a lot more conversations with our casting team. Then you would start meeting with our show psychologist. Then you might get to the point where you meet with the CBS executives. And then we do background checks and then we scour your social media. And then we start to look at who should be on this season.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And it can be as arbitrary as this. If you had a season where you had three amazing women and all three of them were named Rachel, you're probably not going to put all three on simply because it's going to be confusing.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yep. Rachel, what you just said is exactly why you're on the show. That's the best casting advice we've had on this podcast. Straight from a player's mouth about how, you know, your journey was seven years from the time you applied to the time your show was on the air. Just be yourself.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yes, I can. I can do it by taking you inside what it's like for me. This is the best job I will ever have. In my life, I still love doing this as much as I did the day I got the call that I got the job. That does not mean it is not without stress. I do worry a lot about Survivor. I don't want to be part of messing it up. We want the show to be great.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Then we get your point of view, the fan point of view. That's where Jay Wolf comes in. He is a bona fide Survivor super fan. He's also the executive producer of this podcast. And his job is to ask the questions that you want answered. What's up, Jay?
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And it starts and ends with the people you put on the show. It is the single most important decision we make every season. We spend most of the year, thousands of hours, a lot of money and a lot of thought, a opinions, discussions.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And if you look at our casting, even just since the new era, Jesse Tannenbaum and his team, I feel like our casts have been incredibly diverse and interesting and compelling and fun and entertaining and emotional. That's our team just spending all their time looking for people. And so I'm extremely proud of the people that we are finding to be on Survivor.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And I think the proof of how good the survivor casting is can be seen in how many other shows simply wait for us to do a new season. And then they ring up the most popular survivor players and say, hey, we'll pay you some money if you'll come do our show. That's a great casting strategy for other people. And it's a big budget saver. And I get it.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And if I was producing a show, I might do the same thing. I like the fact that people want our players. I see that as a badge of honor. And we take a lot of pride in finding new, super cool, amazing humans, and then doing our best to offer them the adventure of a lifetime.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Yeah, it's a great why. Why isn't it in the show? Kevin did have a shoulder injury. We did have a full medical visit. The medical team said he's fine to stay in the game. It's going to hurt and it might bother him a bit, but we resumed the challenge. And at that point, absolutely intended that it would be in the show. That's why it was in the promo until we started editing the premiere.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
When we finished our first cut of this premiere, even with it being two hours, it was still 20 minutes long. And for just a little perspective, If you were watching your favorite half-hour comedy, it's roughly 20 minutes long. Everything else are commercials. So just for the perspective, it's a whole half-hour show long. So you have to start cutting. And how you cut is you ask questions like...
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
Are there any big scenes or sequences that take up a fair amount of time that do not have a significant impact on the final vote? Because that's our central dramatic question. Who's going to be going home tonight? And if that's a yes, then you start looking at the character moment you'll lose if you lose that scene.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
So am I, and I'm very excited because now we can round it out with the third point of view. Arguably the most valuable insight you're going to get comes from a former player. That's the critical inside baseball that only somebody who actually got up off the couch and played Survivor can give you. Every new season of On Fire, we get a new returning player. We had Rick Devins, a legend.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And if you're still OK with losing that, then you look at what else might be impacted by removing it. And in this case, we just had to accept the fact that, yeah, the promo showed it. So people will be confused and wondered what happened. But that's what happened. And it's a big loss. You don't want to lose anything. But the truth is it didn't impact the game.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
And so the way we solved it was we always interview everybody about everything. And in the interview, Kevin had talked about hurting his shoulder. So we just made sure to include that part of his interview where he explained what happened. And now the audience realizes, OK, he's got a bit of a shoulder injury. And that took care of pulling the medical visit out. Yeah.
On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast
You've Been Marooned | Survivor 48
All right. When we come back, there's a new battle for tribe supplies. We'll unpack how it changed and why we changed it. Be right back. Welcome back to On Fire, the only official survivor podcast. All right, Jay.
We Can Do Hard Things
Dylan Mulvaney On the Hardest Thing She’s Ever Done
Survivor 48 is here, and alongside it, we're bringing you a brand new season of On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. If you're a Survivor superfan, you won't want to miss this deep dive into every episode where we break down how we design the game, the biggest moves, your burning questions. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor that nobody else can.
We Can Do Hard Things
Dylan Mulvaney On the Hardest Thing She’s Ever Done
Listen to On Fire, the official Survivor podcast with me, Jeff Probst, every Wednesday after the show, wherever you get your podcasts.
We Can Do Hard Things
No More Grind: How to Finally Rest with Tricia Hersey (Best Of)
Survivor 48 is here, and alongside it, we're bringing you a brand-new season of On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. If you're a Survivor superfan, you won't want to miss this deep dive into every episode where we break down how we design the game, the biggest moves, your burning questions. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor that nobody else can.
We Can Do Hard Things
No More Grind: How to Finally Rest with Tricia Hersey (Best Of)
Listen to On Fire, the official Survivor podcast, with me, Jeff Probst, every Wednesday after the show, wherever you get your podcasts.
We Can Do Hard Things
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Yes, that's it.
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Survivor 48 is here, and alongside it, we're bringing you a brand-new season of On Fire, the only official Survivor podcast. If you're a Survivor superfan, you won't want to miss this deep dive into every episode where we break down how we design the game, the biggest moves, your burning questions. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor that nobody else can.
We Can Do Hard Things
Indigo Girls: Sexuality, Sobriety, Faith & Freedom (Best Of)
Listen to On Fire, the official Survivor podcast, with me, Jeff Probst, every Wednesday after the show, wherever you get your podcasts.