SHAMINEAU REALITY TV: ENDURE

To start, let me give you a bit of background of how this (Endure) started.  We wanted to reach the senior high and college age group better, and one of our counselors at the time suggested something like this... or this.  When it comes to camps, events and activities, Herb, our executive director, allows us to try things that may seem way out of the box as long as it falls into our mission.  This is one of those ideas.  It was also obviously inspired by Survivor.  Herb was even willing to be a counselor / coach, which also helped us to control the tone of that tribe and the game as much as possible.  The other counselor / coach was a summer staff counselor, Jay.  He just showed us he had a heart of gold and that he was responsible, so we picked him as well.

The point of the whole thing was to reach kids with the Gospel in a much different way.  Also to create a survival type experience that was nothing like anything they could find anywhere else.  We filmed the whole thing and made our own reality series called Endure. 

You will have to watch the episodes as there is too much to explain.  It was a difficult challenge, they got rice and water and could win other food at challenges.  After the votes, those that didn't make it would hang out at our main island camp.  Some had even more fun there.

Before the whole thing started, we interviewed the players.  We didn't end up using those interviews in the episodes as it didn't seem to add much.  We did use many other interviews we took throughout the game.  It was very interesting because based off of that, we knew what would happen at the vote and how things were going around camp.  It was really fun to see that after only a couple days, these campers got to know each other closely and as you will see a couple of episodes in, they were even willing to make some huge sacrifices for each other.  

Jeff, a co-host is our program director.  I (jeremy) was the other co-host.  We were squeezing this in to our normal super busy summer week, which is why we needed two of us to host.  

We told both coaches that we didn't want them to give too much information to the campers, so they could figure it out on their own and be challenged.  For example, Herb kept dropping hints of different knots when building a shelter but wouldn't just do it for them.  Also they would let the kids strategize for challenges to let them succeed and fail at times, then they could talk about it later and lead into great conversation.  

We actually planned on doing this a second year but couldn't get enough campers.  Ten was the minimum and we had 6.  We already had most of the challenges planned, which we now use a couple every year for our senior high camp called Encounter.

As we watched the game play out and one team started dominating challenges, we were trying to decide what would happen if one team got too small.  So we had to be fluid in the planning of the rest of the challenge.  

So you watch the episodes, you see the winner... It was a really interesting experience for the campers, and also for us running and filming it.  It was fun to watch them figure out the game and put their good qualities to the test.  

Production alert, not everything you see on tv is real!  After summer was over, I really got into the editing of the episodes.  Man that was a lot of work.  There were some times during the actual game where we didn't get the right shot of a host explaining a challenge, or at the vote, so we would have to shoot some clips during the fall to help explain what was going on.  We would find a spot that had a good green background (trees) so it looked like summer.  Did you spot any of these when you watched?  It took a long time to edit on top my other duties so I didn't get done until late fall.  I remember it was too cold to shoot outside for a fill in clip because we could see our breath, so I set up some plants in the prayer chapel.  It's hard to tell in the episode... that's tv magic.  

So this was one of those ideas that worked because our exec director was willing to trust us and think with us outside the box.  It was also so much work it would be REALLY hard to do again, but I don't say never.  

Also, full disclosure... bringing up this memory was in part due to trying to get our youtube subscribers over 1000 so we can do some different things on youtube.  So please go and subscribe to our channel at - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTDvjvWWLj3FqK0Rah5-EEw

Thanks for watching!