One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes (8 page)

What was I supposed to do when I arrived?

Well, that was a question I had quite a few hours to think about. I knew I was going to the hotel to meet up with people, but I just wasn’t sure what my role would be. I hadn’t been told much about what the problems were. All I knew was that the crew was sick, the events set up throughout the shoot were not as well arranged as everyone had thought, and the race wasn’t running as smoothly as it looked on paper. The producers felt that it would be best to have more bodies helping out to make sure everything was in place. Whenever crews are overwhelmed or it seems like there’s too much work, people are added to help solve the problem. I’m sure there must have been a great deal of miscommunication. I figured someone would give me more information when I
arrived. I landed, got off the plane, and had no idea what to do next. I’m sure I nailed that “deer in headlights” look again.

I couldn’t read French. The only language I could speak was English. I had barely made it through Spanish in high school and college. One time I tried taking a semester of Italian at USC, but I didn’t last for more than two days. No one spoke English in the class, and when I found out that we were going to be tested on the third day of class, I decided to get out while I still could. I have problems with my own language, let alone another one. But there I was, at the Charles De Gaulle airport, surrounded by French. After about half an hour of walking up and down the airport trying to figure out where to get a taxi, I finally took the plunge and walked outside the airport. At that moment I felt very vulnerable, as if walking out of the airport meant that there was no going back, only going forward. And I guess the expression on my face told everyone around me that I was American, at a loss, and couldn’t speak French. HELP! A guy waved me over and found a cab for me. Thank God, I had run into people who felt sorry for me. It was a portent of things to come. I would look for people who felt sorry for me the entire time I was traveling. I figured people who pitied me would be more helpful.

When I got into the taxi, I didn’t know how to say, “Can you please take me to my hotel?” All I did was pull out a piece of paper where I had written the name of the hotel. The driver seemed to know where we were going, and we were off. It was a very long and very, very quiet taxi ride to the hotel. The sign on the hotel matched the one I had written down, and I paid the cab driver with some francs I’d exchanged from dollars at the airport, kept my receipt, and walked into the lobby.

I didn’t see anyone I knew.

For a moment, I thought I might be in the wrong hotel, but then I went to the front desk and signed in. No problem, my reservation was there, so I was in the right place. I went to my room and dumped my stuff before heading back down to the lobby, where I sat down and waited to see who would show up. Finally I started seeing some of the crew. Then I saw Greg, another producer, and Bert, and I started to get the information I was waiting for.

Many of the crew were sick. They were staying at another hotel. Apparently some of the food they’d eaten in Africa hadn’t been cooked enough. The whole thing sounded like a Three Stooges episode. The crew was finding it hard to keep up with the
contestants; the contestants were doing anything and everything they could to get ahead. And sometimes they were doing things that hadn’t been anticipated. Problems arose that could’ve been normal production issues, but they were complicated by the fact that it was a race. There was no stopping it now, no matter how screwed up it seemed to be. So the pressure was on us to fix things as we went along. I had a briefing with Greg, and I found out that Alison had also been called to join the race and help out as needed, so I would be seeing her the next day, which made me very happy. Then I went off to see the crew at the other hotel.

The crew didn’t look good at all. One of my favorite sound guys seemed particularly ill. But I have to say the people that seemed to fare the best as far as I could tell were the South African crews. The four guys whom I’d worked with remotely for three years on
Wild Things
were used to hanging out with wild animals in Africa, and they seemed to take everything in stride. I remember Michael, a South African cameraman who always had a cigarette in his mouth and a smile when I came by. “Hi Debz!” he would say to me. The nickname stuck. I liked it.

Poor guys, everyone was sick. It was really sad. They crew looked tired and beaten. When I went to
the hotel, some of the guys were just sitting on the floor looking really green. The crew was happy to see me, especially since I had brought some Cippro, an antibiotic I’d picked up for myself to have on the road. I put on my “nurse’s cap” and let them know everything was going to be fine as I passed out the Cippro. Many of them knew that I would do anything to make the situation better. And they were very grateful for the antibiotics. I figured I wouldn’t eat anything that looked suspect on the road, so I hopefully wouldn’t need the pills.

After I visited the crew, I went back to the hotel, where I saw some of the contestants. One team looked very upset, and when they saw me, they wanted to talk to me. They came to my room and told me they were eager to quit the show. I was stunned and didn’t quite know how to react, particularly since I had only just arrived. They told me that they were not getting along—they just didn’t like each other— and they didn’t want to move forward. Sadly, I wasn’t listening to much of it; in my head a little voice was shouting that I needed to get a film crew in my room to film what they were saying. This is good stuff; this is what we needed. At the same time I expressed concern and sympathy for the couple. I told them to hold on a second and left them in my room. I ran out of there looking for a crew, and I happened upon Greg
and a field producer. I explained to them that there was a team in my room that wanted to quit, and we needed to get it on film. They immediately went to get a crew that wasn’t sick. I headed back to my room and realized that I’d left the couple in there with a lot of confidential information about the show. For all I know they could’ve been rifling through my stuff. What a bonehead move! But nobody else thought of it, so I kept it as my little secret. When I got back, it didn’t look like they had gone through my stuff, so that was good. The writer, video crew, and producer came in and talked to the contestants in the little ante room of my suite while I shut the door to my bedroom and waited for them to leave. At least they could have some privacy. I’m sure they argued in front of the cameras, but they were ultimately convinced to stay. When I opened my door, they were just leaving, and everything seemed fine.

There was to be a production meeting to talk about the next phase of the shoot, that is, what we were doing in France. We found a small café that squeezed in the entire crew and staff (about thirty of us in all). I can’t imagine being the owner of a place in France that’s overtaken by Americans so that they can have a meeting. During the meeting, I found out what the producers wanted my role to be. They wanted me to check in with the
contestants, count their cash, time their arrival, and generally see to their needs. In fact, the meeting was just getting everyone together to talk through what was going to happen on the race, reviewing any changes and challenges that would be coming up. It was the only meeting I remember participating in. After that, there was little time for a complete team meeting. Some of the guys were still feeling a little sick, but like all the cameramen I’ve ever known, they powered through their pain to keep the show going.

But first things first…

I had to hit an ATM machine or a bancomat or whatever they call them overseas.

I needed cash. Since I had left too quickly to get a cash advance or per diem, I needed some paper money to take with me because I would be paying for myself (meals, taxis, phone, incidentals, etc.) along the way. I took a walk from my hotel to an ATM machine. It was all in French, but somehow it made sense to me, and I was able to get some francs out of it. I checked in with Los Angeles and told them that everything was fine and that I had arrived safely. I filled them in on the contestants wanting to quit and how that had ended up working out.

After another night, we were continuing the race again in France. As we drove to location, I realized that I hadn’t paid much attention to where I was. I was in Paris—one of the most romantic cities of the world, replete with beautiful scenery and amazing restaurants—and all I was thinking about was the day’s shooting. We ended up on a boat on a river, and I was hanging around in the background, trying to stay out of the way while the crew set up the shots for the contestants. Finally the contestants arrived.

They seemed to be as happy to see me as I was to see them. I counted their money and did what I had to do, and then tried to walk away. But the contestants followed me and wanted to talk to me to see what was going on. I was the only one on the trip with whom they had any established relationship. I was what I like to call “Friendly Fire”—they felt like they could talk to me and tell me anything. And since I’m a bit of a chatter box, I was happy to talk to them too. This started annoying Bert and the producers a bit. I had to leave the area so that they could continue filming because I was a too much of a distraction. I went outside and hung out with one of the new soundmen I had met on the show, a really nice guy. “Do you know where you are?” he said.

“Sure, France.”

“Uh, yeah, but do you know where this is?”

“No,” I said.

He told me that we were behind the Notre Dame, and then he pointed it out to me. I had to get a picture. I went to the University of Southern California, whose arch rival in football is Notre Dame. Okay, it was Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, but still… So I put my USC cap on, and he took a picture for me. Good times.

I only remember eating once, during the production meeting at that café. I was always running around. I don’t know if I had that much to do or if I was just plain running around looking important. I’ve always hated standing around aimlessly, so whenever I didn’t have something to do, I took on a new task.

One of those tasks was collecting the trash.

This was a new show and everything had to be kept confidential, including all the clues the contestants were getting. Anytime they had an envelope or a piece of paper with anything about the show or the show logo on it, and they wanted to throw it away, they gave it to me. Nothing could be thrown into
the trash that could possibly clue some reporter in on the details of the show. I had never heard of this on any other show before, but it made sense not to leave any clues about the show lying around in case someone in that country ended up finding them and perhaps publishing the information on a website or blog. The race was going to air on television after it was over, so it was important for nothing to be given away. That’s why anything even peripherally related to the show needed to be accounted for. I didn’t know who was traveling except for on CBS Executive, so we erred on the side of caution.

I also started to collect the shot videotapes. I would either send them home or make sure that someone from the production had them shipped. We had “fixers” in each country that assisted our field producers and put the shoots together. So there were times when I relied on the fixers to take care of shipping the tapes back home, along with the occasional bag of
Amazing Race
trash. At least we could get rid of the trash in Los Angeles. As the contestants continued the race in Paris, I had another job to do.

I sent one of the crews home.

I took a detour from being with the crew and the race to escort one of the teams to the airport. We
had lost a couple of contestant teams already, so we didn’t need as many camera crews. In fact we had set things up early on so that our crew would be depleted as the contestants were eliminated. We just didn’t know beforehand which crew members we’d be sending home. We figured it would be based on the teams that were eliminated. But it didn’t end up working that way.

There was a camera crew for each team, and they did a bit of switching around, depending on what the producers wanted or the strength of the camera team filming the contestants. Well, it turned out that every time a team was eliminated from the race, this one particular camera crew was the last one to be with the losing team. They were sort of seen as bad karma for the contestants, and no team wanted to work with them. Somehow the contestants had a say in who was eliminated, and I sent this crew back. For the crew guys, it was like getting fired. Why them? It was hard to explain that the contestants considered them bad luck, but it was true. They had some outstanding costs that they paid out of pocket. I went to the ATM at the airport and got some money out to reimburse them. They didn’t live in Los Angeles, and I felt it would be easier to buy back their receipts than for them to carry them home. It wasn’t much, just a hundred francs or so.

After I left the crew to board the plane, I had to catch up with the production.

I can’t remember the details of every moment I was on the trip, but the facilitators had organized vans and cell phones for crews and staff. The cell phones came in handy because we could stay in touch while on the move. I was usually stowed away in the last van…at the last moment…as late as possible. Sometimes this was good. It gave me extra time to strategize and think about what was going on. However, at one point we made a large move to a castle in France that required a train trip. The host and I were left behind. I got the feeling that we had been forgotten. We kind of looked at each other, and I made an executive decision to get us on a train to the next location. I left a message with one of the facilitators about what I was doing. So I purchased a couple of tickets for us, and the host and I had a long ride to our next location. We didn’t do much bonding, but we both got some sleep. I can’t remember the name of the location, but I do remember finally stopping at the train station and getting off the train. It was like something out of a foreign film. Here we are in the middle of the road, tracks on either side, with a lot of luggage (the host had to have wardrobe options) and no one in sight. I knew that someone was supposed to pick us up,
but wasn’t sure where. And in truth, it was the first time I had ever been on a train, so I had no idea where to go next. We looked around, leaving our luggage within eye shot, and then we started to slowly struggle forward, carrying a couple of bags at a time. We did this for a few minutes until we finally met up with our driver.