Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
I’ve never been good with heights. And no one would accuse me of being a thrill-seeker. And yet, here I am, 12 stories above downtown Los Angeles — about to walk on air. It’s the afternoon before the kickoff of production on “The Amazing Race” Season 35, and the show’s producers are testing out one of the latest edition’s first challenges: Contestants will have to walk a tightrope between two wings of the famed Biltmore Hotel, high above Pershing Square.
The Biltmore is celebrating its 100th birthday this year; I just want to make it to 50. And yet, I have agreed to don a helmet and get harnessed up (safety first, after all) to try the stunt myself. Unlike the “Amazing Race” players, however, I’m not doing this to win a million dollars. Wait, why am I doing this?
Somewhere in Los Angeles, there are 13 two-person teams sequestered in hotel rooms who have no idea they’ll be performing this feat tomorrow. When they make it across, they’ll have to unscramble a word puzzle before securing their next clue (which will take them to LAX and then around the world). It turns out that I’m their guinea pig. If anyone’s going to die, it might be me. (That’s me, in the video above, attempting the tightrope.)
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“We always bring on the best safety crew and riggers,” “Amazing Race” executive producer Elise Doganieri tells me later. Ironically, the show is so known for being careful that contestants will sometimes drop their guard and speed through a challenge like this one. But “you still have to be really careful,” she warns.
Point taken.
Now I’m tethered to three cables, so it feels pretty safe — although the pit in my stomach is telling me otherwise. As I place my weathered sneakers on the highwire, I’m starting to realize just how far it is from end to end. The things I do for this job.
Of course, after more than two decades on the air, and more honors than any other competition show, “The Amazing Race” doesn’t need my help. It’s a reality staple. But the show’s producers are eager for a boost this fall: For the first time, CBS has ordered 90-minute episodes of both “Race” and “Survivor,” which will air back-to-back starting Sept. 27. “Survivor” has always been seen as CBS’ signature unscripted show, while “Race” has been a bit of a network utility player — in recent years, “Race” has rarely made it onto the fall schedule (it usually pops up in spring as a midseason replacement).
Now it will air behind “Survivor,” giving it a time slot that will expose it to more viewers and a longer airtime to showcase its strengths, including the stunning locales that “Race” has highlighted over the years.
“We actually had those conversations about moving and expanding ‘The Amazing Race,’ long before we even started to worry about a strike,” says CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach, who liked the idea of sticking “Survivor” and “Amazing Race” together on a three-hour night, rather than sandwiching a show between them. “The shows always have extra content, and we’re looking for ways to be creative. It just felt like it made a lot of sense to expand both to 90 minutes.”
While I’m inching across that tightrope, across town on a small field just below the famed Hollywood sign (also turning 100!), are Doganieri and her husband, fellow creator-exec producer Bertram van Munster. They’re studying the location with host/EP Phil Keoghan and most of the show’s crew before doing a run-through of next morning’s race start. It’s going to be a bit tricky: The road to the top is narrow, and the area is teeming with urban hikers and tourist looky-loos.
Their job right now is to answer any lingering questions at the starting line. How will the teams make it to their cars and onto the roof of the Biltmore? Will the usual crowd of L.A. joggers upload videos of the kickoff from their phones, sharing spoilers with the world — and is that OK? Is the crew ready to shoot more content than usual for this season’s expanded episodes?
On a difficulty scale, these challenges are actually pretty low for the producers, compared with some of the greater things they’ve faced over 35 seasons and 94 countries, with 352 teams racing a grand total of more than a million miles. Detours and roadblocks are a part of the show’s DNA. Actually, van Munster lives for it.
“I love a little stress,” van Munster says. “That’s the whole idea. Be edgy, be on your toes at all times.”
“The Amazing Race” was born during the early reality TV rush of 2000. Back then, Doganieri was an ad exec, while van Munster was already a seasoned unscripted producer (“Cops,” “Wild Things”). Inspired by her time backpacking in Europe, Doganieri first suggested the idea to her husband (they met during the “Cops” days) — and then the race was on. When Doganieri and van Munster pitched “The Amazing Race” to Jerry Bruckheimer Television, and then to CBS, it was a pre-9/11 world. The show premiered on Sept. 5, 2001, kicking off in New York; it would be overshadowed by the following week’s terrorist attacks and aftermath.
The show struggled to get ratings traction in those bumpy early years. But soon the accolades would come: Boasting 10 Emmys for reality competition — the most of any series in the category — “The Amazing Race” is considered the gold standard for how to pull off an extremely difficult production in a limited time with reality TV budgets.
Doganieri and van Munster have navigated every challenge thrown their way over the decades — including the COVID-19 pandemic. The show’s 33rd season was forced to shut down, and when production finally resumed 18 months later, travel shifted to chartered planes and a limited number of available destinations (due to ongoing global entry restrictions). Season 34 continued the COVID contingency.
“Having the charter was a blessing and a curse,” Doganieri says. “We’re all traveling in one giant pack, so we’re not worried about separate flights being delayed, and we’re able to put all of our gear, all the camera crews, in the body of one plane. The difference is we’re losing a little bit of that excitement of racing to the airport.”
Last fall, “Amazing Race” shot another season on a charter plane with some of those COVID restrictions. That was to have been Season 35 — until CBS came up with the idea for supersized episodes. Rather than just pad the episodes already in the can, Doganieri and van Munster opted to gin up another race to take advantage of those longer episodes.
“We’re now able to show the footage that sometimes winds up on the cutting room floor,” Doganieri says says of wanting to take advantage of those 90-minute run times. “Because we do interview the contestants while we’re racing. We also have our story producers that are out there on the road, running alongside the teams. And we also had extra local camera crews for locations and all that drone footage. We’ve been using a lot of drones lately to show these intimate aerials of different locations. So I think we’re going to let the story play out a little more, get to know the relationship with the contestants a little better.”
Adds Keoghan: “We just let the show breathe a little bit from a travel aspect, because that is a huge part of why people watch ‘Amazing Race.’”
“The Amazing Race” has meant something special to me from the beginning. In 2003, I even organized an entire “Amazing Race” style event in Los Angeles for my birthday, using some of the show’s real envelopes — and Keoghan was even there at the finish line. (I wrote about it on my blog, and then Los Angeles magazine even did a story about it. Now, when I see Keoghan, he always asks me how old I am — it’s a marker to remind us that we’re now, sigh, both 20 years older.) More recently, “Amazing Race” is a show that became appointment TV for my older son and I, something we share together and never miss an episode.
And here’s a little secret: I embedded with “The Amazing Race” crew for the first leg of the show’s fall 2022 shoot. That season remains on the shelf for now — it will likely air next year, so I still can’t tell you where we went.
But I can enthuse, from personal experience, about the true unsung heroes of “Race”: the show’s camera and sound operators, and the location managers. A permanent staff of 80 to 100 work on the race, as well as hundreds of local crew members at each stop supporting the production. Each location has “country producers” that arrive early, along with their teams — including people from the art department and producers coordinating the location’s challenges. They work with local facilitators to make sure locations can work — or must be switched. That way, by the time the executive producers arrive, followed by the camera people and contestants, it’s all ready.
The cameras are always rolling, yet the operators can’t interfere with any game action. If a team is lost, the camera crew is lost. Oh, and they’re doing this all mostly in foreign lands. It’s remarkable to watch them forever on the run, keeping up with the contestants while avoiding the other crews’ lenses.
The camera operators are all assigned a letter of the alphabet (which helps when it comes time to keep track of their gear), while the teams are all given numbers.
“We don’t say their names out loud,” Doganieri notes. “So, if they’re around us, we can say ‘Team 3, Team 4, and they don’t know who we’re talking about.”
Throughout the day on a group text, the cinematographers and producers update each other on when teams arrive at different challenges and clues, whether they’re successfully performing their tasks, and memorable things that they’ve said. The camera operators also know when to stop and ask their contestants a question, always looking for the soundbite that will push the episode’s narrative forward.
And when their assigned contestant teams are eliminated, those camera and sound people are often redeployed to film at the various clue locations, perhaps as a local zone camera, or at a location set up to get reserve shots of teams. Everyone knows how to stay out of each other’s way — and also know how to hide when teams suddenly pop up. (“TEAMS APPROACHING!” a crew member will shout — and everyone knows immediately to jump back and stay out of the line of sight as the camera operators come barreling down a path, following their frantic team.)
Oh, and they’re doing this all in foreign lands, often times in gripping heat and in challenging infrastructure. (The camera people have also occasionally run into crews from other international editions od “Race” in airport.)
“There is definitely a choreography, a ballet if you like, of signals and sign language that they have between each other,” Doganieri says. “It’s pretty amazing to watch.” Adds van Munster, “The camera and sound people have been well prepared. We give them camera angles, where to go and where not to go. With that, they can do whatever they want. You have 20 people making creative decisions.”
While embedded with the “Race” crew last fall, I spent the day traveling from one location to another to witness teams tried to solve clues and perform tasks at various venues. Because the players and the crew were all running and wearing backpacks, it was hard to tell the difference sometimes, until you looked up close: Most teams are color coordinated, while, of course, the camera and sound people are carrying their gear everywhere. There was no stopping for lunch — bags with burritos, granola bars and an orange were handed out to crew when they need it. Coolers with water and Gatorade were at the ready for the production team.
At one stop, I watched and giggled to myself as a team jumped out of their car, screaming at each other. This was the first leg of the race, and I could already tell they would be the players viewers are going to love to hate. (Apparently they had gone to the wrong challenge and would have to figure out where to go next.) I stopped at another location in time to witness the producers scrambling as a racer fainted and had to lie down on the ground to get rehydrated by a medic (who were always around — see, safety first!).
I bumped into Doganieri at one challenge, as she assisted the production crew, directed camera people and coordinated with the drone operator. Van Munster was at another spot, doing the same. Regular people on the street quickly recognized the show, and started trading notes with another. Teams walked up to many of those civilians and ask them for directions. (It’s allowed on the race.)
Back on the producer group chat, the teams were already not in the order that producers expected, and the leaderboard would switch many times throughout the day. Later, on a side street, Keoghan was standing on the “Amazing Race” pit stop mat, waiting for the final team to arrive and be eliminated from the race.
And at the end of the day, I powered up a ridiculous number of stairs to reach the top of a hill, where Keoghan was shooting his episodic opening with the city vistas behind him. Keoghan’s camera team and the show’s drone operator managed to capture the host in epic fashion, as he tried out different variations on his script. Once done, he rewarded the crew with cold beers. That was day one of 21 days on the road — which will be cut into 13 episodes as Season 36. Whew.
Now, fast forward to this spring’s “Amazing Race” shoot, which premieres as Season 35 on Sept. 27. For this edition, the number of teams has expanded to 13 (the most ever for the show, which has previously capped it at 12), which means each episode will feature an elimination. Also, the commercial flights are back, much to the relief of Keoghan: “Right out of the gate, they’re racing to the airport to get on the best flight out of town,” he says. And that aspect is something that the viewers missed. Instead of just sort of guaranteeing them a comfortable seat on charter, this is definitely an element that is a big part of why people love watching the show.”
It was a bit of an adjustment for some of the newer crew members, however, who had only known the ease of taking the charter. “It was, game on,” Doganieri says. “Running through airports, trying to catch flights, getting back on trains, getting in taxis again. I think even our crews were in for a little bit of surprise when they realized the intensity at which the race really runs out there when we’re circling the globe.”
With the return of post-pandemic travel, the producers noticed a change in fewer flights being available (or being overbooked), and how crowded the airports have become. “You’re really at the mercy of the airlines and the weather,” she adds. “There were a lot of tropical storms in the Asia Pacific area. So, we did have some delays. It was exciting. It felt like ‘Race’ was back. But it was also super stressful, hoping that the contestants come in, because we have a whole calendar laid out. You just really have to be on your toes and prepared for the worst case scenario.”
Political unrest also means an increasing number of spots are off-limits. “We have to be very careful and to choose where we go and what we go what we’re going to do there,” van Munster says. “The world has shrunk a little bit. It will open up again, but right now we can’t go into Russia, we’re not going to China. And there’s certainly some places in West Africa, it’s very difficult to operate.”
Says Doganieri: “Every season Bertram and I look at the map and think about places we want to go to, and then we sit down with the security team to see what we feel is safe to go, where we haven’t been. Sometimes we want to go places we think are safe and then we hear things. It’s a puzzle to put together and the world is ever changing. One year we can go one place and then six months later, we can’t. It’s just a matter of doing due diligence.”
On the flip side, “Race” visits Slovenia for the first time this season. “It’s just magnificent,” Keoghan says. “The mountains, the lakes, the culture, the people. Teams absolutely loved it, and they will be getting to see the country in a very unique way. Let’s just say from the sky at some point.”
Speaking of the sky… let’s head back to the Biltmore, where I’m still making my way across that high wire in the clouds. It feels like an eternity, but it’s really just a little more than two minutes from one end to the other. I’m taking my time, inching across the cable with what I assume is an eerie grin plastered on my face. The adrenaline is pumping, and as I get toward the end, so is my heart. As the crew cheers, I dismount on the other side. I’m in no rush to take off that safety harness, even though my feet are once again planted on an actual floor. I’ve survived my little taste of “The Amazing Race.”
Keoghan has come from the Hollywood sign to join me at the Biltmore. He’s already packed for tomorrow — don’t forget, he’s about to race around the world as well, staying one step in front of the contestants. And as Keoghan reminds me, it’s still all about those players and how they experience the race of a lifetime.
“Tomorrow’s exciting. I love the start of it — when we let them go, and then all hell breaks loose. I mean, look at this setup here,” he says, pointing to the rope connecting the buildings. “We have nice drone shots and make it all look really beautiful. But when they go across this and they react like you did, unless we get that, we’ve got nothing.”
The morning of the race, teams are finally brought out of their sequestered hotel rooms and brought to the starting line (which they had no clue where or what it would be until then). This is the first time the contestants have gotten a good look at each other — and can size the competition up. Reisenbach is there (her first time watching a “Race” open). “It was a true pinch me moment,” she says. I’ve brought my son, the “Race” superfan, as well.
Early in the day, it’s a bit of a slog: While the players are surely antsy to get the race going, first they have to shoot plenty of B-roll. There’s the shots of them jogging to the starting point. There’s the video of them in their “ready, set” stances. Keoghan gives his introductory speech several times — and each take, the teams have to pretend they’re excitedly hearing about the new elements (13 teams! No non-eliminations! Back to commercial flights!) for the first time. There are a few fake starts, as the camera get closeups of the players ready to pounce.
And then, the crew pull back. It’s just Phil and the players now. The drone camera is up in the sky. The camera operators are poised to jump into action and follow the team to whom they are assigned. Keoghan is given the go-ahead to kick off the race. This time it’s for real. With his arm and eyebrow raised, Keoghan tells them to travel safe and that “the world is waiting.” GO!
Their first stop? Why, it’s that same challenge I pulled off yesterday. Let’s see how fast they go.
It’s truly a high-wire act that “The Amazing Race” has pulled off for 35 seasons. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go kiss the ground. ◼️
Here’s a first look at the new season, and teams attempting that tight rope walk at the Biltmore: