Season 43 of CBS’ show Survivor debuted a couple of weeks ago, and Sony is the technology of choice to capture the action, as it has been since the very beginning. Here is a look behind the curtains.

Sony’s technology has been on-location with the Survivor crew and used since the show’s start in 2000. For over two decades Sony has supported CBS’ Survivor production. Now, in two videos made available by Sony, John Heard, Co-Executive Producer and Post Producer explains which of Sony’s solutions the team has used and how they’ve evolved their standards, requirements and equipment over the years.

“The first season was a little more Run and Gun because they were figuring it out as they went along and we kind of settled in around 12 operators and we had backup cameras and such so they maybe have like around 20 cameras available to them just because we shoot in extreme conditions” says Heard looking back to the very beginning of production. “Because we were acquiring so many hours of footage – he adds –  film really wasn’t an option so we ended up using Betacam SP… it wasn’t even digital Betacam when we started.”

Around 2007 the show moved to HD and away from tape, as the team did want to explore the advantages of digital camcorders, and at that moment the show  became “larger and more cinematic”, according to John Heard. The first video interview deals with the history of the whole Survivors project from Sony’s perspective, talking about the history and evolution of the show’s technology.

The second video interview with John Heard has the Co-Executive Producer and Post Producer talking about why they selected Sony’s PXW-Z750 shoulder mount camera to support an HDR-ready production of Season 43, which debuted two weeks ago. The “dream camera”, according to Heard, allowed the team to shoot in S-LOG and take things “a notch up”, he adds.