Back in October, we reported here on Inside Survivor that Survivor South Africa was preparing to film its eighth season domestically due to international travel restrictions caused by COVID-19. Filming wrapped earlier this week and the season, titled Survivor SA: Immunity Island, looks set to premiere in 2021.
The season was filmed in an “extremely strict COVID-19 safety bubble,” according to News24.com. As we previously reported, cast members were made to quarantine for up to 10 days before filming began, and the entire Afrokaans production team lived and worked within a social bubble set up in an area of South Africa that M-Net describes as “a place of isolation, deprivation, and deception.”
According to News24, M-Net plans to reveal the season’s exact location on Sunday’s edition of current affairs program Carte Blanche. Sources previously told Inside Survivor that the season would be filmed on the Wild Coast—a section of the Eastern Cape coast, a province of South Africa. The untamed and desolate beaches of the Wild Coast would certainly make an ideal location for a Survivor social bubble.
Update 12/20/20: The official Survivor SA Twitter account has now confirmed the new season was filmed on the Wild Coast of South Africa and will premiere on Thursday, June 3, 2021.
https://twitter.com/Survivor_SA/status/1340707284129783808
“When international borders started shutting down in early 2020, we scouted for a local alternative in order to relocate the shoot to South Africa,” M-Net told News24. “However, lockdown measures thwarted this option. When levels were lowered, we reinvestigated those options and decided to shoot on home soil.”
M-Net continued: “The fundamental principles were, how do we keep the cast safe and allow them to play an authentic game within a safe environment? How do we keep the crew safe? How do we preserve the reality storylines by ensuring that there are no stoppages required due to COVID-19?”
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The cast and crew remained isolated from the rest of South Africa during the entirety of filming. There was a support team on the outside that dealt with suppliers. Local hotels made sure that certain areas were off-limits to non-crew, ensuring that hotel guests and the production team were kept separate at all times.
“All cast and crew did quarantine time, under supervision of production, before entering the production bubble,” M-Net explained. “Health and safety functions were paramount to the operational structures and support services like marketing and publicity operated outside the bubble.”
https://twitter.com/Survivor_SA/status/1339918344607023105
On Friday, the official Survivor South Africa Twitter account posted a video from host Nico Panagio on location, suggesting an announcement of a premiere date is coming soon. Finally, we might have some new Survivor to watch!
Stay tuned to Inside Survivor for more info over the coming weeks.
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Well here it is, the South Africans are also proving that it is possible to shoot, even if it is not in the place originally planned, the Americans will seem totally overwhelmed and I would not be surprised that they would be the good last to start filming.
So, I suppose emojis don’t work here. I did NOT make a blank posting, it was (supposed to be) a mind-blown emoji….
So it is perfectly OK for Survivor South Africa to film but US Survivor can’t! How, exactly, does THAT make sense?
because they are top lazy and Fiji made them lose their minds whereas before they did not know how to shoot in the planned country they were looking for backup places.
I thought the DR was the back-up location but that hasn’t happened.
Because “Survivor plans to film in Spring 2021”.
Yes, but if he would have thought of the Dominican Republic much earlier, they could have filmed this fall the 2 seasons and therefore they could have broadcast season 41 in the spring of 2021. But as he does not make any effort. Because moreover if Fiji is still closed in spring, they will have no choice but to go to the Dominican Republic or why not to French Polynesia since the place is accessible by following the protocol as the French did.
it is all the same annoying to see that they do not eat while the South Africans have succeeded, the French too, the Mexicans a few months earlier, the Swedes too, and the Australians normally too.
The Fiji have made Americans lose their minds
Probably because America has the highest rate of COVID-19 cases in the world and is handling the whole thing terribly. So it’s far riskier and more difficult organising bringing 200+ Americans to a different country. Not to mention the 100s of Australians that work on US Survivor and are restricted from international travel until AT LEAST the end of March.
for Americans they could very well go to French Polynesia and follow the same very strict protocol as the French, the French were tested twice before departure: 10 days before departure and again 3 days before then when they arrived in Papeete they were tested 1 time, put in isolation for 4 days, tested again, then they went to Raiatea to be tested again and then the shooting started in Taha’a. The French who had local Fijians and Cambodians who worked with had for several seasons did not work on this shoot and it was mainly Polynesians who worked with the production and they were trained and can now work with any production. Americans could very well only work with Polynesians.
How do survivor fans in the US watch international episodes?