BEAUTY Cinematographer Scott Duncan shares his favorite images

BOLD VISION

Scott Duncan reveals the beauty and essence of Survivor

Whether in an inland jungle or on a tropical beach, near ancient ruins or beside natural wonders, Survivor’s players and places will be captured for posterity through Scott Duncan’s distinct lens. Daring aerial photography, dramatically lit set features and intimate contestant close-ups are all part of his visual playbook, one that he’s been refining for more than 20 years.

“I go back to the core foundation of ‘outwit, outplay, and outlast’ in this landscape, but elevate it with technology,” Scott says of his approach, adding, “I feel like I have plenty of ideas for more than 20 more seasons, too. The show’s evolving, and we’re evolving together.”

Mark Burnett had no choice but to hire the gifted cinematographer for his new show after the pair met on EcoChallenge. Seeing Mark’s one-sheet summarizing the idea behind Survivor, “I said, ‘Oh, I need to give you the most amazing, amazing visuals for your show ever, and they’re just going to be powerful, powerful visuals with all types of details,’” Scott recalls. “Thankfully he said, ‘Yes, let’s do it!’”

Drawing on his experience filming the Olympics and the NFL, Scott decided to amplify the refrain of a singular champion in his creative storyboard. “As a group or as isolated individuals winning, what do people do?” he explains. “They hold up their trophy, stand alone, or stand as a team, things like that. And I think the torch was just a natural progression coming from where you have to use fire to light a lot of the sets. Obviously, the show dynamic is, ‘Fire is life.’”

He also liked how the physical terrain acted as negative space to contrast with a solitary figure. “You have to survive this environment, you have to be the winner,” Scott says. “You kind of salute the earth when you raise the torch as the sole survivor, and it creates the visual metaphor, I feel, for the whole show.”

Each season, Scott collaborates with the art and challenge departments to think through themes and beats. “Every, every detail is so important,” he insists. “And every, every piece tells a story.”

He also introduces new tech, which inspires camera operators who get to work with advanced tools. “We’re putting the drones in play more, the cable cam in play more, mini-cable cams, underwater cameras,” Scott says. “It’s really adding small little nuances that people get maybe a better connection when they’re watching it.”

Counting the images he and his team collect, he estimates that they capture between 500 to 600 moments per season. The goal with all of those shots is to chronicle a person’s internal or physical journey and interpret the season’s theme with props or colors. “Scott doesn’t shoot anything because it’s pretty,” Jeff Probst says. “He shoots everything because it has an emotional point of view.”

Over the course of his career, Scott has been nominated for 34 Emmy Awards and won 16 Emmys for Individual Achievement in Cinematography and Best Documentary. He cites Survivor as a continuing source of pride and inspiration.

“I think our show has influenced so many other shows, and now with the new world of Apple+, Amazon and Netflix, everybody across the board, not maybe the same genre as our show, but I feel like, ‘Wow, they’re going for it,’” Scott says. “And I think, ‘Let’s keep elevating our show as well to keep it up at the top shelf.’” g

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WINNERS AT WAR “As I saw the dark clouds of the storm coming on the horizon line and the high winds ripping up the flag on Edge of Extinction,” Scott says, “all these elements together give a story of days on Edge of Extinction for the contestants.”

GABON A solitary elephant tracking through an African preserve in Estuaire, Gabon, became a great subject for the first season shot entirely in HD. Also, “the wildlife within the landscapes of our locations have always been a very important factor to share with the audience,” Scott says, “and share to the world all the beauty there is with in these environments.”

CHINA The tribal council set, modeled upon great temples found within the Jiangxi Province, proved especially evocative at night. “The builds are always amazing creations,” Scott says. “I like to capture a hero angle to ensure the scale and magnitude always represent the heavy feeling it might be like going to a tribal council to possibly get voted off.”

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SECOND CHANCE Season 15 China’s Peih-Gee Law and Season 29 San Juan del Sur— Blood vs. Water’s Keith Nale returned for Season 31 Cambodia and showed that the fight never left them. “The contestants’ willingness to push themselves to compete to win is absolutely amazing,” Scott says. “Capturing these in-themoment portraits is my goal, to see inside the mind and body of a contestant’s determination but also to see them exuding confidence and showing no weakness to their opponents.”

DAVID VS. GOLIATH Houston truck driver Carl Boudreaux may be performing an essential function, but the intensity of this close-up makes it all the more eye-popping. “Contestants being resourceful and capturing these moments as I wander their tribe camps is always a great part of the image capturing for me,” Scott says. “I love how humans can overcome.”

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CAMBODIA “Landscapes connected with local culture have always been a very important visual factor,” Scott says. “The color and spacial relationship here show the dynamic contrast of the gentle yellow umbrella trying to overcome the massive old tree growing from the temple.”

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TORCH ICONOGRAPHY “Visually representing Sole Survivor with the one-torch-victorious image is a statement I love to keep producing over and over as the overall theme,” Scott says. After all, he adds, “fire means you are still in the game.”

ONE SURVIVOR (below left) The scale of a solo figure in relation to the sun “is a powerful metaphor for how hard it is to win Survivor,” Scott says. Prop maker and pyrotechnics master Ian Tucker is the subject, captured standing atop a shipwreck on a sandspit, a flag blowing strong next to him as a parallel solo figure. “Seeing the flame still burning from a single torch always can be seen to represent the strength to carry on another day to try to make it all 39 days,” he adds.

THE SHOW IN ONE SCENE This title sequence moment from Season 1 was shot at sunset in Borneo. “I really wanted to create an image to go with the ‘outwit, outplay, outlast’ brand, all captured in a very quick read to a viewer,” Scott says. “Combining the harsh but beautiful landscape during low tide, with the simple human figure standing confident with the winning torch burning alone was the goal, and you know the rest of the story.”

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COOK ISLANDS The shipwreck tribal council set for Cook Islands “was an undertaking like a fullscale feature film reproduction,” Scott says. “The huge masts of the ship, and the cracked split up the middle, all sitting on a field of rocks as it met the shoreline, was just stunning. The small Dream Teamers on the bow represent the scale of the massive design and again represents how tribal council, while amazing, isn’t a place you want to go as a contestant.”

GAME CHANGERS Returning this immunity idol to an ocean setting stirs the imagination and romanticizes the Fijian location. “Idols are a strong detail to the show and I love putting them in mini visual scenes,” Scott says. “Here, underwater with the One Survivor flare illuminated from above, gives it a sort of alive feeling for movement.”

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