Farewell to the Oddens Farewell to the Oddens - The Taft School

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
Alumni
IN THE NEWS
Cord Keller ’69 Down Under on Survivor II, the sequel to the hottest show on TV last year. Directing everything except the day-to-day
campsite reality of the contestants, Keller says, as far as he’s concerned, he got all the fun stuff.
Survivor, Too
You may not have seen Cord Keller ’69
snuff his torch at the last tribal council or
display feats of bravery in one of the challenges,
but Keller is a survivor, too. As senior
producer, his main function on Survivor II
was to serve as the show’s director. “I directed
anything that was essentially
directable,” he says, “the marooning, the
challenges, the tribal councils.”
It’s a real fleece-jacket, rugged crowd
over there at Survivor, according to Keller,
and for good reason. “The shoot was very,
very difficult. The hours were long, the
terrain and weather challenging. I was one
of a multinational crew of 250 who ultimately
inhabited our little camp-town in
the bush; I lived in the Outback for 11
weeks with a three-man tent as my home.”
Keller headed a team of 35 Australian
and U.S. camera operators, sound
technicians, and assistants in the multi-
camera coverage of those one-time events.
(“We did insert shots of body doubles,”
he admits, “to add a cinematographic element
to the games!”) His counterpart
supervised the four producers who managed
the shooting of the reality segments,
“which, believe it or not,” he adds, “was
entirely documentary. There is not a
scripted moment in any of the shows.”
To describe the experience as enjoyable
would be all too limiting, he says. “I
was shooting 53 days in a row (10 days in
rehearsal and 43 with the contestants) with
only a brief 30-hour break somewhere in
the middle there; it was agonizing at times.
“We had an early wet season, and the
rising river threatened to take out our massive
Tribal Council set. We lost a few lights
to the current as it was. At one point we
were marooned in our camp, forced to cross
the river by boat, and then hoof it a half
mile to our bus when the road was washed
out. But I don’t believe a day passed without
a moment of deeply felt appreciation
for the magnificent countryside that I had
the privilege to know for those many weeks.
Life was simple, deconstructed to suit the
demands of the isolated environment.
A rare simplicity that I cherished even in
the worst of times.”
Keller is supervising the production
of yet another vérité-style show, “so I am
pleased with the audience response that
these shows have generated,” he says. “I
think people have tired of the old formulas
and are hungry for something new.
I also have always felt that television is
a medium of immediacy, conducive to
a direct, unsullied connection between
the human drama and the spectator.
Unscripted, real people behaving questionably
will always have a home there.”
Taft Bulletin 5