The experienced producer Michal Malek knows something about making
reality TV – he’s shepherded contestants, animals and even aerial drones across
South Africa in multiple shows.
When the chance arose to work on the latest season of Survivor South Africa on M-Net (DStv 101), of course he packed a bag to the Wild Coast to go capture blindsides, betrayals and whispered conversations.
He spoke to me about what content producers actually do on a reality show like Survivor SA: Immunity Island, and why the job is actually the closest thing to being a contestant in the show itself.
Thank you for the time. I'm wondering, the first thing that I wanted to ask, how was it for you working on Survivor SA as a content producer?
Michal Malek: Hello, Thinus, it's nice to see you again, long time. I mean, it is the closest thing you're going to get to actually being a contestant - that's what I can tell you. You are on the island you are among the contestants every day for up to, sometimes 14 hours a day. You are there, in the muck, in the cold, in the rain, in the sun, you know - you're are there!
So, for some people that can be daunting. And for some people like myself, that is the opportunity and adventure of a lifetime. So it is absolutely amazing.
The production company, Afrokaans, and the way everything is run is incredibly professional. You don't feel it as much as you would think - the content producers have a lovely time. You go there, they see what's happening, and then they go home to their lovely warm bed, and food.
What did your role as content producer on Survivor SA: Immunity Island entail?
Michal Malek: So the content producer, essentially, is on the island with the contestants in-between the challenges.
So the challenges are a different kind of almost, a different kind of production. When the castaways are back at camp the content producers are there to essentially "gather" the story.
We're a small team - I think this year we had around six - and we rotate because it's quite a demanding position. And we follow the crew around, and we follow them - we have a crew with us, and we follow the castaways and we observe. Our job is to observe.
Our job is to take notes of the essential moments of you know, betrayals, alliances, strategy - that kind of thing. And then we come together at the end of the day, content producers with the director and the head of content and we discuss the stories and the main storylines; the main narratives that are coming out of the island.
So that is in a nutshell, we are observers, we are note-takers. And whenever you see a moment where they're - where the show cuts to someone talking in that "diary-style", we're the ones who ask the question - the real questions.
So we uncover, so if someone is talking to someone else, we will take them aside, and we'll ask them "what was that conversation really about?" So we get the real story out of them in those "diary-type" sessions.
What was interesting for you personally working on Survivor SA and that you realised you had to perhaps adapt to or figure out, that you maybe haven't encountered before?
Michal Malek: I think from a technical perspective, Thinus, you and I go way back in terms of the various first productions of mine that you've covered. And on those productions, I had to wear many hats. I had to be the assistant director, I had to be the director, I had to ask questions; I had to solve problems left, right and centre.
And this is a strange thing to say but on the Afrokaans production of Survivor SA: Immunity Island, it was so weird for me to just have one job. I could - everything else was taken care of.
Everyone knew their position, everyone did their job incredibly well. And I could focus on the story. I could focus on what I needed to do without ever having to worry about anything else. It was so professionally done.
And the level of professionalism was so great that I had to adapt to not being responsible for other things. So, sometimes in past work there were times where I found myself directing. But I wasn't a director. So I'm not used to that. So that's what I had to adapt to.
And then also from being out there, you really underestimate how physically taxing it is. When we go out to the campsite, it is a grueling journey. At one point you're driving in the back of this big Land Rover thing, and then like a safari vehicle through mud and water and you're in the rain and it's cold.
Then you have to walk. You walk far. So that is something I underestimated, like, it is physically taxing. You really are out there in the middle of nowhere with these people, surviving - not quite as extreme as their survival, but it is something else.
The times I've observed you work - your energy, and how fast you work, and just your confidence in yourself that you also instill in the crew around you and in participants of a show: You're really well-honed in terms of multitasking that I find really exceptional.
Your ability to take charge and just do it - is that an innate quality that's part of your personality, or something that you had to learn to do and be because that's what the creature of TV demands?
Michal Malek: I think it's definitely the latter. I think Thinus if you had met me in high school, I was not a very confident person. I was a bit of a nerd. And I was a very kind of, a bit of a weirdo.
And, yeah, I mean, productions that I started on, there was a fight-or-flight element, it was a sink-or-swim kind of scenario where you either step up to the plate, or you leave, you can't take it.
And there were those scenarios where I had to adapt. I had to, I just had to do it, there was no option and I had to power through.
And once you've done it, once you've gone through a few of those moments, once you've seen that, yes, I can do this, it becomes easier and easier. I think that builds confidence within you.
Energy-wise, I think, I'm naturally a very energetic and a very bouncy and an optimistic person. So having that kind of internal energy in the beginning, helped me get through those moments where I could feel that slump coming but the energy helps me to push through. So yeah, so definitely, it's the monster of television that has made me who I am today.
In reality TV, you can't really "direct" the events or people but you also want the buzz-worthy moments and you want the dramatic narratives. To what degree are you however able to shape or mould the situation or the circumstances to build a path that you then just hope people decide to walk on?
Michal Malek: Well, I think it starts with casting. I think if a show does its casting well, and I think Afrokaans did an absolutely spectacular job casting Survivor SA: Immunity Island this season, then the content comes truly natural and the content producers just have to observe and take notes.
In terms of moulding - various shows, allow for various levels of moulding. I can't speak to reality TV as a whole but I mean, as you know, something like Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Osbournes is highly moulded; it's highly constructed. It's even actually a separate sub-genre of reality.
Something like Survivor where it's a competition and there are rules and it's an internationally acclaimed series - it's almost like sport.
There's nothing you can do and nothing you should do. Because anything you do, you would be affecting the rules and outcome of the game.
In Survivor you film for such a long time - you're there for 40 days - and the tensions are high. Everyone's hungry. There are competitions, there's backstabbing with alliances and those moments come completely naturally. You don't need to prompt or mould anything.
Then in those "diary-style" moments that I spoke about, that's when we unpack what key conversations were about. That's what those moments are for so that you don't have to interrupt scenes because you can unpack them in these diary moments.
You left South Africa, I think you went to Dubai or some Middle Eastern desert country, and then back to South Africa, and then Covid-19 lockdown happened. How did you end up working on Survivor SA: Immunity Island?
Michal Malek: Doha! So my history with Afrokaans goes back a little while. I had a friend of mine, who was a camera operator there - her name is Fahema Hendricks - she is now a director of photography on various productions; at Die Boekklub on kykNET at the moment and she just DoP Temptation Island which I'm also working on.
She recommended me to the Afrokaans team and I got a call from them in 2018, to be a part of Survivor SA: Island of Secrets in Samoa. And I literally - I had just moved, I had like a weekend to go and I said "I can't".
But we stayed on good terms. I interviewed physically with them as soon as I got back - we got along like a house on fire, they saw my experience with Cardova and with Tropika Island of Treasure, and Presenter Search and Win a Home.
So they felt like I could step up to the position. I think I did okay.
So yeah, it was a matter of staying in touch, and I follow up with them a lot. Thinus, I bothered them a lot. Every month, I would send them three or four emails or WhatsApps saying, "Hey, don't forget about me". It was persistence, persistence. But polite persistence.
And then during Covid - did you think now you can't do it?
Michal Malek: Survivor South Africa has been on my bucket list. So no matter what I was doing at the time, I was going to drop it and do Survivor SA.
So when I came back from Doha, I joined a company called Special Effects Media, which is run by Danilo Acquisto, who I met on Presenter Search on 3, and he and I worked together on Win a Home for many years.
And I worked with him for about a year and a half, and I told him before I joined him that "You know, I'm in contact with the production team of Survivor SA, and If I get it, I'm going to go, I'm going to go do it".
And then the time came and luckily Danilo's company is a digital-first company, they're a YouTube specialist company, they're a digital video company.
So under Covid and during the national lockdown period, we were lucky in that digital video was all the rage. And it was booming because everyone was stuck at home watching content on their computers and on their phones. So we were very lucky in that sense. So I had a bit of work still over Covid, and then I got the call from Darren [Lindsay, supervising producer], saying - I didn't get a call, I got a Whatsapp saying "Are you ready for the island?" And I said "Which island? Wink, wink."
And without a thought, I said yes. I said yes to Darren first from Afrokaans and then I told Danilo, "Listen, I'm going to Survivor SA" and the rest is history.
I think as an audio-visual storyteller you're really incredibly gifted. What do you think South African producers doing reality-genre content don't maybe yet know or grasp about what they need to do? What needs to be done more or differently to take it to that next, let's say "American" level?
Michal Malek: The first thing that comes to mind - look, having worked in in reality for a long time, I know the budgets that people are working with.
When you look at your American TV shows - one or two episodes of an American series is how much our entire season of most shows cost.
So we have to kind of take that with a pinch of salt when you say "Why is it not like America? Why is it not like Australia?" We just don't have the budgets.
We just don't we don't have all the fancy toys and all those kinds of things. Having said that, if you look at the American Survivor credits, especially season 40 Winners at War, you can count on your fingers and toes how many South African crew are on that production because our crew and our talent are incredibly good and I think we know what we're doing.
I have to say, one thing in general that producers and directors maybe could improve on, is with casting.
If you take your time casting a show "correctly", or if you cast a show with the cast that is going to give you the content that you expect from the show - so, finding personalities that are going to clash in the circumstances that you're going to put these contestants in - then half the battle is won in casting.
I think a lot of the time, because of the time restrictions and the budget restrictions, we simply just don't have the resources to cast better. So for several shows we just take whoever just entered and it's "go, go".
I'm not saying it's their fault, or it's anyone's fault. I'm just saying that if we could improve on something, then we could spend a little bit more time on better casting because I've seen the results with great casting first hand.
Can you share something interesting from behind-the-scenes during the making of Survivor SA: Immunity Island?
Michal Malek: I mean, we don't have enough time to discuss all the things that have happened behind the scenes. Ha ha. I don't want to give anything away. Give me a minute to think about something that's not going to compromise the viewers' experience.
So let me ask you, it feels that with every season, the show gets better in terms of even capturing moments that it seems the castaways themselves are not aware of is happening.
The camera captures the dramatic irony and we get the sound of who's talking to whom. And there are no do-overs. You capture it or you miss it. The split-second decisions of the camera and sound operators and where to focus and it's incredible.
Michal Malek: There are so many stories, and so many kinds of narratives happening that, you know, inevitably there's going to be drama because you can't stick a bunch of people on an island, not you know, not feed them and have everyone getting along all the time.
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In terms of capturing those candid moments - quite frankly contestants very quickly forget the cameras. Even after day one, they get there and they used to get food and suddenly it's dinner time and it's a feeling of "I haven't eaten today". And now their priorities are completely different.
You as a producer become second nature. You don't even become a consideration for them. All of a sudden for them, the cameras disappear, and microphones disappear.
Kudos to the sound guys and the skill with which they operate those booms. The sound guys are incredible in the way that they operate to capture contestants' conversations.
Camera operators zoom in from far away. They're so skilled in capturing moments where you can tell that if they were to just stick a camera in a contestant's face, they're going to get skittish, and you're not going to have that intimate conversation where they speak with each other but don't want other people to suspect they're having a conversation.
Previous seasons of Survivor SA have been great. This current one I think is really excellent in terms of the narratives and the blindsides and the cinematography and editing - it's even more "turbo-charged". What factors do you things influence this elevation in the end-product?
Michal Malek: Firstly, I think the talent of the technical crew is, as you say, the cinematography is amazing. Every camera operator on the island with me is almost like a storyteller in their own way.
So are the sound operators - even more so - because you can tell a story, you can cut away to an iguana while people are having a conversation, and so long as the sound is there, we have a story.
So what I think really makes it amazing is the talent pool of operators, and technical operators that are just incredibly skilled at finding moments and as I said before, that is why many of them end up in Fiji on the American series, because they're just so good. So I think that helps, that helps a lot.
Also, the streamlining of the system that the content directors, content producers have, is also incredible for distilling the core nature of the cool narratives and the cool stories for each episode.
At the end of every day, we have a meeting of all the content producers, and everyone knows what the main story is. Then a comprehensive list goes back to the editors saying, "this is our story". That then goes into the edit, and that gets further editing tweaks. And the editing is so good. the editing is good. I think that's what enhances it, what makes a turbo-charged.
What makes Survivor SA so good compared to other productions I've been on is that the distillation in the capturing of the story is done really well - both technically on the island by the crews, and also taking those notes and taking those questions that we have asked as key moments and putting it all together so that the editors know exactly.
You can imagine, there are petabytes of footage to go through. And we help with that as content producers in that content meetings to really streamline that and to help make it so that you as a viewer can know that you're going to get to see the very best moments.
How has Covid-19 impacted you and your business? I'm so sure that M-Net will do several more seasons of Survivor SA - would you be willing to work on further seasons?
Michal Malek: I mean, absolutely I would work on further seasons.
As you know Survivor SA: Immunity Island was done in a so-called "production bubble" They were very, very strict with their production bubble. I'm not sure it's my place to say how strict but very strict.
It was organised in such a way where you still had your basic freedom - you didn't have to sit in your room the whole time when you were not working. There were dedicated areas where you could go, although often you were too busy to even notice to be honest because you were on the island most of the time.
Covid-wise, business has taken a hit obviously. Smaller productions, especially smaller productions that can't afford to be in a production bubble - they can't afford to lock away crew in separate accommodations for weeks on end - are definitely struggling a bit more.
Video is booming. People are finding ways. People want content. Luckily, we're on the provisional end of that, you know. We're providing content, so it's been okay. This new Level 4 has seen some jobs disappearing. But I'm not out of jobs, I've just found ways to adapt and to push through.
