Cameramen

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I was watching a T.V. show called The Mantracker and I started thinking about how ridiculous the premise for this show is. For those of you who have not seen the show, it is about a person who tracks other people and catches them in varying wilderness locations. This is a 'life challenge' sort of show and it always involves the main character - a 50something bearded coyboyish sort of man on a horse and he always has a helper, who is also on horseback, who knows the area that they are going to chase their 'prey' in. The prey are two different people who work together and try to reach a specific location in an allotted amount of time before the mantracker and his assistant catch them.

It is an interesting show as far as watching what people do to try and elude the Mantracker but what makes the whole thing kind of silly is the fact that there is always at least one cameraman running along with the prey. So no matter what they do, there is always another person along to leave extra tracks make noise or generally give away their location. Yet people still watch the show and strangely believe that they are watching just 2 people trying to beat the mantracker.

 

I believe it was Samuel Johnson who coined the term "willing suspension of disbelief" -- I mean, how does Dog the Bounty Hunter manage to be discrete with 2 or more crews following him?

But most TV is mere escape anyhow, right?

 

I watch that show on occasion, and the same question occured to me. I googled it, and one of the things that came up was that there are a few set routes that the "prey" can take, and cameramen are set up on those routes. If Mantracker comes along, they play innocent. This presumably would require some communication with the cameramen as to Mantracker's location at any point in time. I have no evidence that any of this is true; it makes sense; however, I find it odd that none of this is disclosed in order to end speculation such as this. Maybe there are certain "trade secrets" that need to be kept from the "prey", but still...

 

Having a few set routes for the prey must make the mantracker's job a bit easier....

 

The only show that remains true to itself in this aspect would be Survivor Man. In that show the main character of the show goes to different locations to practice his survival techniques. He does the filming of his survival journey by himself. You have to give him credit for that because not only is he surviving the elements on his own but he's also lugging around several different cameras and equipment which would be an additional drain on his energy. He also has to set up his cameras in particular locations and do a lot of backtracking to retrieve them.

 

I prefer Man vs. Wild because Bear Grylls is so badass... and we know it is fake because they tell us at the beginning that he is put in these situations intentionally to show people how to get out of them.