Cavechat.org

I agree with Allen and think there should be alot of caution used here. Sure it'd be cool to have a caving reality show but we need to look at the consequences. We all know the reality craze is all about drama. If viewers tune in every week to see a group of cavers go underground and narrowly escape death by the skin of their teeth its gonna send a bad message to land owners. They are gonna be saying I don't want people getting killed on my property and close their caves. A documentary might air on the side of conservation.... a reality is gonna be about getting ratings.

Serious? Some of you want to make it hard for the production company to work with the caving community and ignore these type of requests? If they want to film something like this they will find someone and that someone may not cast a proper light on caving, caving safety and cave protection. The smart move is for the NSS to officially call her back and lend all the assistance they can possibly give with the proper representation to film a show like this. Done in a partnership will give the NSS and the Caving Community more respect in the public eye and increase NSS membership. What is the NSS there for unless they take hold of opportunities like this?

I completely agree there are some very fine caving shows/documentaries out there, I love the McBride rescue by Benji, but I was just talking about "reality" shows. Yes, showing cavers struggling, and at times making it seem a bit more than it is, seems to be what they would be looking for. But safety and cave conservation should be of the highest priority. In our "caver constitution" for the show we wrote up some of the main points that we had the final say in what kind of activities we would do. Like it may look good me climbing up that waterfall, but I aint going to do it because its not safe, but we can find a safe way to do it and still be exciting. We also had a clause speaking about conservation and good caving practices. These were all to insure that that we as the cavers had the final say in regards to our safety and the safety of the cave. I agree that the NSS or responsible cavers should at least try to see what their ideas are before ruling them out.

I would definitely tune in to watch Andy cheat death in the deepest, darkest caverns on earth. Especially if he's shirtless.

It is absolutely in the interest of cavers and the NSS to engage in discussions and possibly even facilitate requests such as this. It is also absolutely in our interest to read the fine print and go running and screaming BS to the world (and landowners) if we discover the intent or logistics of the production are counter to our own interests.

I do question the motive for a UNSCRIPTED TV production. To me that simply screams " lets get a group of people, get them mad tired and frustrated, then cut and paste words without their knowledge or consent".

Of course I'm serious, I always put on the little smiley or some such emoticon if not. ; ) As I mentioned before, the proposed Paradox rescue documentary never came to pass so the rationale that this is inevitable, so we might as well join in, is not necessarily so.

The NSS Mission Statement:

The National Speleological Society (NSS) is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the scientific study of caves and karst; protecting caves and their natural contents through conservation, ownership, stewardship, and public education; and promoting responsible cave exploration and fellowship
among those interested in caves.


I see nothing there about helping a private company make money by exploiting caving and potentially creating bad publicity. I'm not against caving shows or profit making per se, but I don't think the contrived "reality" and pseudo-drama, i.e., a "Keeping up with the Caverdashians" or a bat eating Bear Grylliss or similar shows of that ilk, would serve us well. Fine if that is your cup of tea for entertainment, but I don't consider them public education. ( There can be exceptions though, as I do enjoy and think "Survivorman" is well done and don't view it in the same vein).

But, perhaps others are right and talking to them to see if they would be willing to present a realistic, non-inflammatory show, along the nature of Survivorman, of what caving is about is reasonable. The "scariest" and "most dangerous" just makes me seriously doubt it.

My gut reaction to this request is the same one I had about the expiditions to the edge about geralds fall. Only if benjy von cramen is involved. Well maybe someone he would rcomend. He does have a track record of being a producer of tv documentaries about caving that cavers actually gave awrds too.

Just saying my 2 cents, but it seems this show is still in the making did you think that maybe they might put up another post asking for anyone with Cave Photography/Filming experience to help film the show. At least I hope they read this post so they might. It might give some unknown people are chance to help work on a major project. We should be happy that non cavers (Im guessing) are wanting to take an intrest in our great hobby/sport/LIFESTYLE. I %100 support this show and if they want to film anywhere in Australia I would be happy to try and get my 2 seconds of fame showing the world what i love to do and what i spend alot of money (Equipment wise) on.
I think they would personally be better of putting money into getting an international team together to spend two-three weeks in a cave infested area of mostly unexplored caves like PNG and spend that time trying to find caves, explore, survey. But at the end of the day any advertising in good advertising how many people started or wanted to go caving after seeing: The Cave, Sanctum, The Decent or even The Cavern??? even though it was about people getting ripped to shreds in a cave. I took heaps of my friends after they saw those movies just cause they wanted to see what it was like.
Come on guys lets support this at least its not like they are trying to get non cavers on this show but people who love to cave!!!!!

Yeah. Having seen "reality" shows ad nauseum with people living on islands, building motorcycles, making cakes and dresses, and sweating out the booze in rehab, all the Producers seem interested in is getting people to scream at each other. The context you find them in is incidental.

Oh, and "Survivorman"? Don't get me started.

Seems like a wonderful idea, but the most dangerous project caving out there is the vertical stuff.
Do these people seriously think that they can find camera operators who possess the underground skills to go where we go, to follow us on rope, on rebelays, horizontal traverses, etc? If anything, this situation has a serious potential of something going wrong, an we cavers will have a rescue situation on our hands.
But perhaps that's what they want... more sensationalism for the show.
LOL

BrianFrank wrote:If they want to film something like this they will find someone and that someone may not cast a proper light on caving, caving safety and cave protection.

No "reality" show has ever cast anything in a proper light. Commenters on this thread seem to be confusing reality TV with TV documentaries. They aren't the same, and even documentaries are usually emarrassingly overdramatized.

Cavernuke wrote:Yeah. Having seen "reality" shows ad nauseum with people living on islands, building motorcycles, making cakes and dresses, and sweating out the booze in rehab, all the Producers seem interested in is getting people to scream at each other. The context you find them in is incidental.

Oh, and "Survivorman"? Don't get me started.

cavefox wrote:Do these people seriously think that they can find camera operators who possess the underground skills to go where we go, to follow us on rope, on rebelays, horizontal traverses, etc?

Of course they can. "We" aren't that special.