One Year of Reality and How It Nearly Killed Me: My Life Behind the Scenes (18 page)

After that, I tried to find a way to let this person go. She was clearly paying more attention to the drivers and the guys on the trip than she was to her job. I later found out that she was doing more than just hanging out with one of them… But it turned out that I didn’t have to fire her. One of our crew members got very sick, and we sent the coordinator to be with this crew member while she was having surgery and recovery. At least it got her out of my hair.

And then I had the contestants’ luggage to handle. When a contestant was eliminated at the end of the show, they would be sent to an undisclosed location where they’d stay until the end of shooting. That way no one outside of the crew would know who the mole was if that person came home early from shooting. So when a contestant was eliminated, I would go back to my room, grab his or her bag and hand it off to the attorney, who would debrief the contestant before he or she got on a plane for the undisclosed location. There were quite a few contestants, so I had a lot of luggage in my room. And some of it was really heavy. I didn’t go through the bags, but I was certain that there had to be an anvil
in at least one of them. There were some pieces that hardly had anything in them. I should’ve figured that the one bag that was empty must’ve belonged to the mole, as the mole would never be the one to leave.

The greatest challenge was the moving of the production from one location to another. We had to pack up everything— the office, the video equipment, and the people—and set up at another base. I was responsible for designing the move and figuring out who would be assigned to drive, what would go in each vehicle, and how the equipment would be unloaded.

There are two types of people on a shoot: Those who get overtime and those who don’t. Those who get overtime will get a day off to make sure that they don’t go into major overtime because they haven’t had any breaks. Those who don’t get overtime (like me) are expected to work until the job is done because overtime is not an issue. However, the non-overtime people need a break as well, so there were days that we designated as holidays for everyone. Usually the crew would be given the next day off after we moved to a new location. Then they would have to start fresh the day after that. This was a little dilemma, in that the office had to be up and running
when everybody returned. So that meant that someone had to set everything up on the day off.

That someone was me.

I would arrange to have a vehicle close to an entrance so that I could unload the production truck and work with the hotel to get all the tables, chairs, and whatnot set up in our office. Unloading was difficult because some of the equipment was heavy and there wasn’t always a dolly around. If someone saw that I was unloading everything myself, I would get some help, but I was basically the one setting things up. When we were in Lucca, Italy, though, the Italian crew (I love them) saw me unloading, and they all pitched in to help. I was very grateful. And, of course, after I had set everything up the way I thought best, everyone changed everything, so it was like re-setting the office up all over again, but at least the truck was unloaded. All of the computers had to be rewired to link to the printers and the camera equipment was organized by the crew and had to be set up so that the crews could easily look through their gear. And Kristen made sure there were enough phone lines, electricity and security, so that we would not have anything stolen. So there was a lot to setting up a production office. Imagine your office being torn down and set up in a few hours. A daunting thought.

The segment producers had their hands full. Before leaving for location, they had devised the many games that would be played on
The Mole
, prepped the types of questions that would be asked of the contestants, and figured out where they wanted to shoot. But there were inevitably complications. As each game was being set up, a props list was put together so that someone could go out and get the items needed for that segment. One of the games involved little gnome figures, several of which were needed. Well, there aren’t very many gnomes in Italy, and they were hard to find. Everyone was working on finding enough of them—from making calls to stores to just driving around to see if anyone had a gnome decorating their yard. I remember Emanuele, the Italian Facilitator telling me repeatedly, “Deborah, they will not find gnomes here. We don’t do gnomes.” I would still flip through the phone book in between his protestations that we’d never find anything. So a lot of the details that were needed to make a show work didn’t always happen, and they were usually figured out last minute. This event had to be reworked without the use of gnomes.

One day in Lucca, the shoot needed bicycles right away, so I ran out with the line producer and we rented two bikes. Lucca is an enclosed city, and I had trouble reading any of the maps we had. I was
constantly getting turned around and lost. The crew was shooting around the outer edge of the city, so the line producer and I rode the bikes around until we found the crew. We dropped them off, and then walked back to the office. We also had an incident in Lucca in which the host, Anderson Cooper, was recognized by tourists as the host of
The Mole
. This was not a good thing, as the production company didn’t want anyone to know where we were traveling and didn’t want to give out anything that would give anyone an idea of what was going on. Everything had to be hush hush so it would all be revealed when the show was on television. In the end, that never became an issue.

I really liked my boss, the line producer, and had a great deal of respect for him. We actually had common interests, and I remember thinking that he was the male version of me. We both played cello, grew up in the Midwest, and had a dry sense of humor. So it was nice to have someone to relate to. Our first night in Lucca, he was kind enough to take me out to dinner, and we had the chance to really talk about what it’s like to work in reality television. I got the sense that it was his first reality show and of course it was my second, but I had a good first one in
Amazing Race
. The waitress was kind enough to give us some free Limoncello. It was nice that she wanted to do
that, but it’s an awful drink. Still, we drank it and thanked her. The Italian people we met along the way were uniformly very nice and generous, just like the waitress. I was often greeted by a “Hey” or a “Good Morning.”

Lucca was toward the end of our shoot. We only had one more production office to set up after that. I decided to buy a proper printer to finish the shoot, one that matched all the European requirements for power and paper.

I have to say that I was kind of sick of the food at this point. That’s not to say that the restaurants in Italy weren’t fabulous. In fact, one of the drivers introduced us to a wonderful restaurant where they had the best steaks in the world (or at least the best I’ve tasted so far). Of course, I hadn’t thought about mad cow disease; I was just hungry for something American. And every day we had a delicious continental breakfast, but what I was really craving was an Egg McMuffin, Big Mac, fries… Anything McDonalds. So when I saw that Lucca was getting a McDonalds, I counted the days until it opened. We ordered lunch from there on the very first day. And it was just like home. It’s really sad when you’re in such a beautiful country and you’re craving a Big Mac. I could get amazing steaks and beautiful vegetables,
the best wine imaginable, and all I could think of was having a Big Mac. When I was home, my go-to quickie breakfast or lunch was McDonald’s, so it really gave me a piece of home to have a Big Mac. I was clearly feeling homesick, wanting to do some “nesting” in my new apartment and tell my friends about all the fun stuff I’d been doing.

And by the time we hit Lucca, I was in my element, and had gotten beyond my nervousness about setting up the show. And I had a chance to look around and pay attention to my surroundings. One thing I noticed was that the crew partied a lot. Not outrageous parties, but when I was working late I’d always see the staff outside, dressed up, going out, and having fun. This was not an unusual situation when I was on location. But that could be a personality defect as well. I always gravitate toward working more hours rather than cutting loose and having fun. I noticed that there was coupling up between some of the drivers and some of the female crew. I always tried not to have intimate relationships with crew because of the problems they could pose.

Finally we arrived at our last production office in L’Aquila, Italy, where I thought I would have a happy ending and go home.

We stayed at a hotel owned by Canadians, lovely people who were very helpful and accommodating. This was in July and the line producer organized a 4
^th
of July party with our Italian facilitator. Our German facilitator was there too, since we still had some of his crew and vans with us, and he barbecued. There was food and dancing, and it was a really good time. Of course, I was the party pooper. We had buses take us to the party, and since we were staying at various hotels, everyone had to be dropped off at the right place at the end of the night. Well, people were just getting off anywhere they wanted, and I was trying to get them to sit down and get off in the right places. The crew didn’t seem to like me or respect me very much that night, not that I had done anything to deserve that attitude. I was just trying to make sure we didn’t lose anyone. After a while I gave up and let it go.

During the entire shoot I hadn’t taken a day off. And while I could’ve slept in or started late, I felt as though I needed to be in the production office early in the morning to make sure everyone knew what was going on and to keep myself in the loop. Shoots would go late into the night, and we would only be able to finish the call sheets and the drivers’ schedules once shooting was finished. The drivers needed some turnaround time, and they needed sleep, plus
they were not supposed to work outrageous hours according to Italian labor laws. So even after shooting was done, we had to distribute the paperwork on set and at the hotels where the crew was staying to make sure everyone knew what was going on.

Anyway, the line producer told me to take a day off. It sounded mandatory, but I was looking forward to it. Well, the day I would be taking off was after an elimination night, which meant that the shooting went even longer than on a regular day. In the end, I went to bed at 5 a.m. and woke up about noon. I got on a train without knowing where it was headed, and ended up in Florence. I had connected with one of the crew members in the production office (I wasn’t sure he wanted me to tag along, but he didn’t have a choice—I was following him), and we went to the Duomo. Now, the Duomo was built for very short people, and I am very tall. There are a lot of stairs to climb before getting to the top, and I hit my head a few times on the ceiling and got out of breath from climbing all the stairs. I asked the crew member how many more steps were there, and he said there were only six, so I finished going to the top of the Duomo. It was worth it for the beautiful view of Florence. We also went to see the statue of David, but the line was so long that we didn’t end up waiting. We went back to the hotel by train. When we got there, it was
raining, but we were picked up by one of my favorite Italian drivers, who brought us to the office so that we could see what was happening.

One day off made up for the one day I didn’t sleep.

Another night, we wrapped at 3:30 a.m. I went to my room, put on a night shirt, and quickly fell asleep. I got a call half an hour later.

Deborah this is Marco. (Marco was an Italian PA)

Hey Marco.

Deborah, can we borrow your key to the office?

Sure, why?

There’s a fire.

HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!

No sooner had he said that than I dropped my phone and hopped out of bed. In a few seconds I was out of my room, heading downstairs to the room we had set up as an office. I realized after the fact that I was wearing a short night shirt with no underwear and the Italian crew members, who had also heard from Marco about the fire, were following me. I tried to pull my shirt down in the front and the back as I ran down
the stairs. Once I got to the doorway, I could see they were trying to break down the door. Marco saw me and took my key, using it to open the door. I believe he was the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher. We entered and turned the corner to see the office area. A huge fire was raging in a small part of the ballroom. It wasn’t wide, but the flames were over six feet high and burning right next to all the cameras and equipment. Marco sprayed the office with the fire extinguisher until the fire went out. Not all the cameras were protected with lens covers, and the blue foam had been sprayed all over the office. I was concerned that the cameras might be broken for good. The fire had started from a battery belt that was now completely disintegrated and another battery belt that was next to it was partially melted. I thanked the guys and most of them went back to sleep. I ran upstairs to change.

I called the head technician and told him that there had been a fire and that it looked pretty bad. He said that he’d wake up his crew and check out the gear. Then I called the line producer to let him know that we’d had a little fire and the crews were checking the equipment. Of course we woke up the hotel owners, who seemed surprisingly untroubled that part of their ceiling, floor, and curtain had burned up. Finally with a pair of pants on, I got a couple of mops and a bucket, and I started cleaning
up with some other staffers. While the techies were working on the camera equipment, I was cleaning up the blue foam from all over the production equipment and floor. I moved around tables, dusted, and cleaned any computers that had the stuff on them. As people started coming into the office, they would help out with the clean-up too.

When the line producer came in, he was astonished at what the office looked like. He told me that from our conversation, he’d thought it was a minor fire, and that everything was under control. Well, it was a much bigger fire, but everything was under control.

I was told that the fire had been caused by a faulty camera battery, and I had to notify the vendor that the battery was faulty. Several years later, though, I found out that the techs hadn’t had the right power aligned for it. There was a switch that would tell the battery whether it was on European or American power. It had been on the wrong mode, which had overloaded the battery, starting the fire. What angers me is that the technician wouldn’t admit that a mistake had been made, and all the camera guys probably knew about it.