WEDDING DOWN UNDER

participants go Orienteering

Orienteering in Tasmania received some great frontline publicity when a Belgian TV crew arrived to film a reality show. Bert Elson takes up the story:

Soon after the World Orienteering Championships in August 2006 a Belgian TV production company contacted Orienteering Tasmania, through its website, to inquire about the possibility of holding an orienteering event in Tasmania. An exchange of e-mails took place and gradually the full story emerged. It seemed that the company was responsible for producing a reality TV show. The first series had been Wedding in the USA and involved eight young Belgian couples being taken to the US where they underwent a series of challenges with a couple being eliminated each week. The surviving couple was announced winner and received a wedding in the USA! This had been a big success in Belgium and accordingly Series 2 was in the planning stages. You guessed it - Wedding Down Under. This time it was a joint Belgian/Dutch production with couples from both countries and expected screenings across much of Europe. With publicity at that time arising from the connection between Princess Mary of Denmark and Tasmania and the three Tasmanians competing at WOC, Hanny Allston, Grace Elson and Danielle Winslow, the producers saw an opportunity for one of their challenges. And so it was decided. Episode 3 of Wedding Down Under would be an orienteering challenge in Tasmania. The planning commenced, with filming scheduled for 19 October 2006. The location chosen was Hobart’s Risdon Brook Dam Reserve which is particularly scenic, has lots of wallabies hopping around and is easily accessible from the city. E-mails flowed backwards and forwards for months leading up to the event and the producer made a quick visit to Australia to confirm locations for the various challenges including Risdon Brook. On 18 October the director, chief cameraman and other key organisers turned up and went out on the course in groups of two and three. This was a first for most and they came back having had a lot of fun but with a few key recommendations. 1. Move the start/finish to a scenic gully half a km away which gave a better bush backdrop. 2. Shorten the course so that camera crews could follow competitors around. 3. “Hide” some controls so that competitors would have difficulty with some and start arguing (the producers were very keen on this!) Hobart Water obligingly unlocked the vehicle access gate to the new area and, with some late night rejigging of the maps, everything was ready for filming. When the full production team arrived it was an amazing sight with 15 hired 4WD vehicles and vans loaded with equipment, four independent camera crews, two safety officers, a catering team, any number of production assistants and two minibuses with the competitors parked out of sight of the start area. SportIdent had to be replaced with punch cards in case the camera crew following a couple got tired. Each group had a timer who could stop the watch till the camera crew got their breath back and then start the clock again to maintain integrity of elapsed time. Couples were to go out at 30-minute intervals, three before lunch and three after lunch. Two couples had already been sent back to Belgium following earlier challenges in Victoria and NSW. The first couple was a real worry. They were city kids who had obviously never orienteered or indeed, seen a map! One of the organisers reminded me that they were from Holland and probably hadn’t seen a hill either! All of us watching from the parked vehicles 100m from the start saw them zig-zag haplessly across the hillside opposite with camera crews and sound people plus the stopwatch holder in hot pursuit. Fortunately things went better for the other couples and several were very close in their times, making for an exciting presentation to be shot that evening when the winners of this challenge were to be announced and the losers relegated back to Belgium or, as it appeared likely in this case, Holland. There was action in all directions. One camera crew was chasing the current couple around their course while another crew was filming the next couple getting their briefing prior to starting. Meanwhile a third camera crew was holding the post race interview with the last couple to finish and the final crew was taking background footage of the scenery and wildlife. Then the local media, having been invited by Orienteering Tasmania, arrived on the scene and we had local TV crews interviewing the producer and director and filming couples being filmed and taking their own footage of couples heading off through the bush as well as footage of the Belgian crews filming the event. At one point two local TV news crews were filming and interviewing, the Hobart Mercury photographer was taking shots, the Mercury reporter was interviewing the producer and I got a call from ABC Radio Hobart who wanted a live-to-air report on how the event was going. The outcome was highly successful all round. The producers said they believed the footage they took would make for a great episode and were very pleased with the day. Orienteering Tasmania got extensive news time that night on both WIN and Southern Cross news and the Mercury ran a large article with photos the next day. The show goes to air in Europe in about May this year and I have been promised a copy of our episode. Who knows, it may make it to Australian TV in competition with Survivor and Amazing Race.