It’s the cult hit survival series that the world just can’t get enough of, and now Alone is FINALLY heading to Australia.
The ground-breaking 11 part documentary series will see ten survivalists dropped into the remote wilderness of Western Tasmania, completely isolated from the world and each other, stripped of modern posessions, contact and comforts to self document their experience.
The last one standing also walks away with a cool $250,000.
So with a premiere date set for Wednesday March 29th, TV Week thought it was time to sit down with Executive Producer Rimma Daher.
Here’s what you need to know….
Who will last alone in the Tasmanian wilderness?
(IMAGE: SBS)What items can contestants bring with them?
Meet Beck.
(IMAGE: SBS)Participants choose ten survival items from a longer list of back-to-basics hunting, fishing, cooking, or bushcraft tools.
There are no luxuries, so definitely no toilet paper, toothbrushes or pillows and definitely no matches.
This is an extreme experiment in survival… and 10 items is not much when you think about what you need to keep yourself alive in the wild, so those selections have to be well thought-out.
They can end up being make-or-break choices!
How does Alone Australia compare to the original series in the USA?
Meet Chris.
(IMAGE: SBS)At its core, the bones are the same; it remains faithful to the original format, but the Australian series has definitely forged its own identity within it. We don’t have bears or mountain lions, but we do have just as many things that can legitimately harm or kill you out there, so it’s just as tough, tense, exciting and terrifying.
Both series are ultimately about the human test of resilience, skill and strength in total isolation and under the harshest of conditions, so the human will experiment remains the same, but the people in this series are Australians and all ten of them are very different players; to one another, as well as to their US counterparts.
There’s a diversity in the range of characters as well as their survival approaches, especially with restricted hunting methods (no bow and arrow), that brings out surprising ingenuity and is very different to what we’re used to seeing.
What ties them all together and stamps this series as an Aussie one is that iconic sense of humour we have that carries us through the tough stuff – it’s alive and loud throughout the series and gives it a lightness that I think is new.
Ultimately, Alone Australia is just as exhilarating, terrifying and compelling, but the main character, the one that plays the biggest role is the West Coast Tassie wilderness – and she’s a whole different force with her own set of confrontations to set this series apart.
Did any of the contestants ever come across each other in the wild?
Meet Duane.
(IMAGE: SBS)NO, we’d have to change the title of the series if they did! No contact between participants whatsoever.
The isolation is so integral to the experiment that it’s one of the main priorities when choosing the drop zones.
Participants are placed so far apart that they’ll never see or hear each other, and we ensure there are natural geographical buffers between them that prevent any kind crossover.
When casting for the show what qualities were you looking for in applicants?
Meet Gina.
(IMAGE: SBS)For starters we look for people who can definitely keep themselves alive – so competency.
From that baseline, we then look for people who catch our attention, for any range of reasons; if you’re going to watch someone for hours on end, on their own with no one to talk to but themselves, they need to be engaging.
We want good communicators and storytellers, people who know themselves and are comfortable being vulnerable – this series is as much about learning from failures as the successes, so a willingness to be raw and honest is vital. Importantly, we look for ecologically respectful, authentic people who are genuinely invested in the idea of this experiment and in pushing themselves as far as they can possibly go within it.
What can you tease about the upcoming season?
Meet Jimmy.
(IMAGE: SBS)It’s just so compelling! You’ll laugh and you’ll cry and you’ll gasp lots.
I can tell you that you will get attached to all ten participants and there won’t be a single tapout that’s not a tough one – you will not want any of them to go home!
Where was this season filmed and why did production choose this location?
Meet Kate.
(IMAGE: SBS)The series was filmed in lutruwita/Tasmania. It doesn’t get much tougher than that West Coast wilderness and we weren’t about to do things in halves for our first Australian series.
We wanted a winter series that challenged all of our participants and Tassie is about as harsh – and as beautiful – as winters get in Australia.
(note: lower case for lutruwita is correct grammar for ‘palawa kani’ the Tasmanian Aboriginal language)
How does production ensure the safety of contestants?
Meet Michael.
(IMAGE: SBS)The safety of participants is taken very seriously by ITV and SBS, so it was a very robust system and series of protocols that we had in place.
A 24hr safety team operated in standby mode throughout the production. This included doctors, paramedics, survival/safety operators, emergency camera ops and coxswains.
Participants were also equipped with a GPS device and satellite phone that they could use in the case of an emergency, or to tap out.
How much of the show is real and how much is dramatized?
Meet Mike.
(IMAGE: SBS)It’s all real! TV doesn’t get any more real than Alone.
There are no production tricks, just ten individuals making ten self-shot documentaries. Everything they do is captured as it happens and there’s no producer, no narrator, just participants talking us through the experiment as they experience it.
It’s raw, unfiltered and factual and sometimes it’s a perfect capture and sometimes a badly framed shot, or muffled audio – because not all of them are great at the tech all the time – but that rawness and that authenticity is half its charm.
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