South African TV: " FEAR FACTOR "

Magus Visual provides technical support for the second season of Fear Factor:

Magus Visual recently provided the equipment and technical expertise for the second season of Endemol South Africa’s production of Fear Factor. Endemol South Africa’s sister affiliates from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Belgium participated in the series. Over 300 contestants were flown in from Europe to participate in the series.

The series has proven to be extremely successful internationally, with its format of six contestants, competing for a substantial cash prize in three phobia-exacerbating challenges during the course of a single, hour-long episode.

The first season began in Cape Town on January 21, and was completed on March 4. After the highly successful first season Magus Visual won the contract for the second season.

Marius van Straaten from Magus Visual Cape Town acted as the overall technical supervisor on the production. "The brief was vague which complicates the design requirements as we have to be ready for anything” says Marius, "we were given eight helmets and asked to design rigs to support the cameras. Each helmet was then equipped with three cameras, side and top mounts, with an articulated arm on the front of the helmet."

Sony CVX V1's and V3's were mounted on the helmets in order to provide footage from the points of view of the contestants, and with the articulated arm designed to look back and provide a medium CU of the contestant's face. It proved a particular challenge, as it had to have a degree of flexibility, but still be sufficiently rigid to follow the contestant's face if the head was quickly turned or jerked. An additional design challenge was that the arm had to be stable, yet able to break away in case of an accident, in order to prevent injury to the contestants.

Magus Visual also designed the packaging and equipment harnesses that were to be worn on the contestants.

In the six weeks of the first season, Teams 1 and 3, the primary stunt teams with the most equipment, recorded 162 stunts. This included the larger cameras: five DSR 500 cameras and eight DSR D35's. To complement the large cameras, these teams also used five medium-sized DSR PD 150's, and eight pencil-cameras. Team 2-filmed Edibles, where the requirements were less intensive, as the contestants attempted challenges such as eating worms and lying in pits of spiders.

Five 4.8:48mm wide angle Fujinon zooms were used, as well as two J33 - lenses with own support. "This provided extreme close-ups", says Marius, "at the end of the lens, it has a focal length of 726mm. We've also used twenty-times lenses, fifteen times lenses and a number of wide angles on the pencil-cameras". The latter also provided some interesting angles when hidden in the skids of a helicopter, or on the end of a rope pulling someone through the desert.

"Competitors and stunt people had to do many things which require a great deal of body movement, so, for the equipment they had to wear, we developed special harnesses to facilitate the movement range", says Marius. These recorders and radio microphones worn by operators and contestants had to be well padded, with the equipment fitted as snugly as possible, to prevent jarring or the recorder from moving around the body. The recorders could be worn on the backs or stomachs of the contestants, and in such a way that these would be out of the way of the safety lines of the stunt people. Crash-housings for the cameras were made in aluminium or plastic, with splash proofing being an essential facet of its design.

Certain stunts took place in tunnels, absolute darkness and there was a great deal of water. These sequences were recorded with infrared cameras in the tunnels under the Castle in Cape Town,” In these extreme situations, we used rigs specially designed for the conditions.” Marius explains. "The helmets were rigged with Infra-red cameras, and we used Infra-red illuminators to light the contestants".

A further challenge was the extensive fireproofing of equipment for the “Tunnel of Fire” stunt. This included the fireproofing of the equipment on the helmet worn by the contestant.

Two Magus Visual broadcast engineers, Steve Lawton and Gordon de Beer were on set at all times, providing assistance. Marius explains: "The shoot was very demanding on both gear and personnel because of all the extreme sport type set-ups. It certainly wasn't a case of giving Endemol the equipment, and off they went. Everything had to be supervised, maintained, and technical solutions provided for all the challenges that arose. We basically provided a complete digital broadcast solution.”

Visual Impact in London functioned as a core component to servicing the client as they provided the equipment and spares to maintain the equipment.

Remote systems were mainly used for the PD 150’s when, for example, they were mounted at the top of a crane or on an interesting camera rig, where the camera travelled on its own rig next to the contestant, who was falling nine floors down the side of a building. Both wireless and cable remotes were used with success. For the body kits we designed a cable remote system that allowed us to activate the recorders without opening the harnesses on the contestants thereby saving valuable set-up time.

Teamwork was an essential component of the making of Fear Factor and Magus Visual with Visual Impact provided a world-class service and satisfied client.

Visuals Group Technical Department.