One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes (21 page)

One thing that was great about this job, which wasn’t true of the other shows I’d worked on, was that we were encouraged not to allow a lot of overtime. It was not the kind of show that needed cameras running or on call 24/7. I did work long days like most of my staff, but not compared to what I’d done on the other shows. For the first time in a few years I was able to get at least eight hours of sleep during the week from time to time. I wasn’t used to that.

Another cool thing was that I was finally able to get health insurance. I am a member of the Producers Guild and they offered a health insurance program. So I signed up. The last time I’d had health insurance was on
Wild Things
, as Paramount offered it to their shows after the first season. It was a great thing
to have. I was never able to get insurance coverage on my own because I was considered a cancer risk. While in college I had developed a cervical tumor that was only partially removed. Although it was benign, I had been turned down by several health programs because of the tumor, or the monthly payments they’d offered were so high I couldn’t afford them. But now I was finally making some money and had the ability to have health insurance. I was grateful. I had taken a real financial hit when I broke my leg, and I couldn’t afford for something like that to happen again.

So I was almost an adult. I had a good job, a car, and health insurance. Now I needed to finally start saving some real money and buy a house someday.

I was a freelance person and I needed to make this job last for as long as possible. Since the show was very popular, my goal was to work hard enough and well enough that I would be able to stay on until it was cancelled.

But then the first nail was hammered into my coffin.

First, the line producer who hired me was summarily fired. I wasn’t sure why, but my theory was
that the line producer who had worked on the show’s first season became available, and they wanted him back. Freelance people can be fired at will. I’ve seen that kind of language in quite a few of my contracts. And even though the executive producer came into the production office to assure us that none of us would be fired, we figured that his guarantee was only good until the end of the season. Then the “new” line producer would probably want to bring in his own team. And in all honesty, I could not fault him for wanting to bring in the people he knew and liked. I could only hope to become so necessary that they wouldn’t let me go.

The other nail in my coffin was that I fired one of the production assistants that the executive producer had recommended, and I did it without his knowledge or permission. I’m sure that this particular PA is now a very capable producer or in some other high position. But he wasn’t doing the job as capably as we needed; he would frequently fail to finish tasks or else completely forget about them. My office coordinator had many talks with him. But the final straw came when we needed equipment at a distant location and he forgot to pick it up. The coordinator let him go under my instructions. One of the other PAs heard my conversation with the coordinator and alerted the
about-to-be-fired PA that he was getting the ax. When the executive producer found out, he was furious (in a nice, calm sort of way, but I could feel the vibe) and told me that he wished that I’d consulted him.

And as it turned out, even though the producer promised that no one would be fired, we had one early casualty.

The office coordinator was a friend and someone I had worked with in the past. We had been on a particularly difficult show together, and I felt that I owed her a good experience, so I’d been happy to hire her. When I was in the office, I felt she did her job, and I figured she was equally capable when I was away from the office. However, one night after a shoot, the new line producer asked me into his office and told me that he was not pleased with her work. I reminded him of what the producer had said to us—that we would all be able to keep our jobs— but he was not dissuaded. And in truth, I’m not sure how effective I was at trying to convince him to keep her. I certainly didn’t threaten to walk out if he fired her. At that point, I figured I was on my way out in a matter of weeks anyway. I asked to be in the room when he fired her, but he told me no and asked me to send her in.

I walked back to the production bullpen. It was after 7:00 p.m., and everyone was in the office—the location coordinators, the assistant coordinator, and me. When I told the office coordinator that the line producer wanted to see her, she knew what it was about. She even said to me and everyone else in the room, “What, am I going to be fired?” A few minutes later she burst out of his office. She was very angry with me for not sticking up for her, and she left with a lot of anger. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could have done. I figured at that point our friendship was pretty much over. The assistant office coordinator spoke up and defended me, but my friend wouldn’t hear any of it. It was a long time before we spoke to each other again.

Being freelance can be difficult: You can be fired at will, and you don’t have any sort of 401K plan or insurance from your company. That’s not unique to reality television. What is unique is that most of the shows are not union.
Fear Factor
was the only show I’d been on that had any union presence. The stunts had to be tested, and the people who assisted the contestants were all professional stunt people (primarily from feature films), so the show was an AFTRA show for these performers. And while the rest of the show was not union, most people were treated in a union way and were given overtime for additional hours.
Because I was a supervisor though, I was paid a flat rate regardless of my hours.

Reality shows had not been unionized like scripted shows, which is one reason why there are so many reality shows—they can be made for less than scripted shows. So when a union rep visited our location one day to solicit for joining the union, I notified the line producer. The union rep told me that a union would be good for me because I would make more reasonable wages. I told him that while that was true, it would cost a fortune to be a member, and even then I would have to maintain a certain work load to keep any health insurance, which was the only reason I’d want to be in a union as it was way too expensive. Ultimately, I heard that
Fear Factor
went union for many positions in later seasons. Looking back now, I think that unions would be good for reality TV, if only to keep producers from abusing hourly rates and long work hours. Sometimes being non-union is synonymous with saving money at the cost of the crew.

Shooting did not stop as a result of the union reps coming in for a visit. I continued my work and had to deal with a new situation…injuries on set.

The coordinators and I had all taken an OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration
designed to keep people safe in the workplace) course on safety. This was important because we wanted to make the set as safe as possible. I was the safety officer on the set, and it was my job to make sure that pathways and walkways were smooth, there were no poorly placed objects that could cause an accident, and people were working in a safe manner. This was new to me, since there had never been a safety officer on any of my other shoots. On
Wild Things
, one of the crew members had a recurrence of malaria, but other than that, we were pretty fortunate in that we didn’t have many injuries, particularly given the fact that elephants chased a car down in Tanzania and a crew had a nasty encounter with some armed poachers in Kenya.

Since it was a stunt show, I figured that we would probably have some injured contestants. This did happen a couple of times, and I remember one occasion when a contestant had to ride a bike across two buildings. He fell midway through and hit a wall. That wasn’t supposed to happen, and the stunt had been tested without a problem. But at the last minute, they lengthened the rope which was attached to the contestant. That was part of the reason why he’d hit the wall, but thankfully he was okay.

As it turned out, only two people were injured enough on the set to need hospital attention during my time on
Fear Factor
. The first was the head PA.

The head PA had been recommended by the first AD. They must’ve worked on something together in the past. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful colleague. She was tough and a real go-getter; she was always running around set to get things done. I had a lot of respect for her. The day she was injured, we were filming down by a lake. I had checked the area for safety issues, and people were moving around stones and brush so that there was a clear walkway to the lake. When the contestants showed up at this location, they were blindfolded because we were going to surprise them, both with where they were and with what they were going to do. Well, when the contestants got out of the car, they held one another’s hands and were led, in tow, by the casting person. The head PA was behind them to make sure they didn’t trip or fall. Well, they were going underneath some trees and one of the contestants swept aside a branch as she was passing underneath a tree. That branch whipped right into the PA’s face, and she was in an enormous amount of pain.

I left the location with her immediately and brought her to the hospital. It turned out that she had a broken nose. Not something she’d expected, but she was going to be fine after a couple of days off and some painkillers. I always try to inject a little humor into painful situations, and I know she appreciated it that day. And if I’m not mistaken, someone had to drive her car home because she was not in a position to drive. While it was bad, it turned out that she was going to be okay. And being the safety officer, I notified everyone who needed to be notified and did all the paperwork that needed to be done, ensuring that the report at the end of the day reflected the injury. That was the first time I’d ever needed to write up an injury. As it turned out, it was the last.

On a lighter note, we all looked forward to the day when we had Celebrity Fear Factor. Donnie Osmond, Brooke Burns, Coolio, Joanie Laurer, Kelly Preston, and David Hasselhoff were on that episode, and Coolio and Donny Osmond were the two finalists. I couldn’t help but root for Donny, who was a fierce competitor and a childhood favorite of mine, but Coolio was definitely in shape and very ripped. A few of us went up to Donny and wished him luck, telling him we were on his side. But apparently that was a violation of the rules. No betting and that sort
of thing. So the producer had to send out a memo telling us not to do that kind of thing again. Oh well, another thing for the producer to be annoyed with me about.

If I was keeping score, it seemed to me that I’d done more to annoy the producer than please him at that point. So I tried to lay low and finish out the show, learning all I could from what was going on around me.

Meanwhile, I continued to do some more taste testing. I tried quite a few things, but I never did eat bugs. The assistant director on the show tried worse stuff then I ever would. Even so, I tried different pig and cow parts and a one-hundred-year-old egg. If you can imagine eating something that tastes like a combination of sulfur and your high school biology experiment and has the texture of an old tire, then you have a pretty good idea of what it’s like to eat a one-hundred-year-old egg. I tried the egg on location right before they were going to do the actual stunt. The producers needed to time how long it could take someone to eat the egg. There weren’t any volunteers. I remember saying that I would do it if I could keep my job, since I knew it was just a matter of time at that point. There was definitely a pregnant pause, but I tasted the egg anyway. It was
absolutely gross. I wanted to spit it out, but I heard the producer say that I couldn’t. So I pressed both my hands on my mouth and forced myself to swallow the thing. I believe it took twenty-five or thirty seconds to eat that horrible treat. Eggs like this can be found in the “dessert” aisle of Chinese grocery stores. Yuck. I hated it, but I ate it.

One of the more fun taste tests was the habanera pepper. Fun because it was going to be videotaped, and I really wanted to pass the challenge and defeat the pepper. It’s worth mentioning that I am not a spicy food eater. I ate that small, innocuous looking pepper and stared down the camera for what seemed like several minutes, probably more like several seconds. I fought to maintain my concentration without reacting, though I could feel myself burning up. It felt as if my head was filling with helium and about to explode. The staff’s cheers in the background only made it worse. Finally, I broke my concentration and immediately went for some water, which didn’t much help. The burning just went down my windpipe. For the rest of the day I felt like my chest was in the middle of a raging forest fire.

Then came my final taste test—I tried the “blender of fear” for the World Wrestling episode.

Kelly and I were planning a trip to Vegas for New Year’s Eve during my Christmas break from the show. I had never been to Vegas on New Year’s Eve and was looking forward to bringing in the New Year in a big way. It had been a year filled with hard, rewarding work, and I wanted to celebrate. I knew Kelly was in a money crunch, and I found out that the show was paying to have people test the “blender of fear.” I told her to come on down to the office so that we could be taste testers together. Figuring it would be an easy hundred bucks, she agreed.

It turned out not to be so easy…

Blender of fear was a concoction that started with pig’s brain, and then we had to roll the dice to see what other two ingredients would be added to it. I went second, which turned out to be a good strategic move. I rolled the dice and the next two ingredients added in were cow’s eyes and bile. And yes, I saw them go into the blender, and all of it was mixed together. It was a good-sized glass, not small at all. I could smell the stench of it, so I held my nose and drank the thing. And I received my hundred dollars. There were about six or seven volunteers. By the time the fourth person volunteered, the smell of formaldehyde spread throughout the room and the entire office. Kelly decided the drink was far worse
than she’d ever imagined, so she didn’t do the stunt and didn’t get her hundred. Oh well, we tried. But at least I had a hundred bucks.