Producing Reality
By Felicia Russell (MA '07)

Steve Van Dis puts in a cold night behind the camera for “Survivor.” (Photo courtesy of Steve Van Dis)

Steve Van Dis ('02) works six days a week, 14 to 16 hours a day and has to take the occasional "home-cation" to recover. But he's not a young lawyer or med student. Van Dis is a producer for reality-TV shows.

"I've been to amazing places, staying in honeymoon suites for months," he said of working with "Survivor" in Palau. Then again, he said he's also worked 27-hour shifts in 115-degree heat in Guatemala, where he couldn't walk through standing water for fear of being nabbed by a crocodile.

"It has its perks, and sometimes it's like, 'Holy shit!'" Van Dis said. "It's full-on roughing it. And while you're roughing it, you're running around worrying about your camera." But that was when he was a cameraman; he said he's got a lot more to juggle now that he's a producer.

Van Dis' journey from broadcast student to TV producer has been one of luck and persistence. While skydiving in Interlochen, Switzerland, during college, he said he met another student who shared his interests in broadcasting and film. That student soon found himself seated on a plane next to a TV producer who needed a cameraman, so he mentioned Van Dis' name. Soon Van Dis was on location with "Survivor," shooting underwater scenes and telling everyone that he wanted to produce and asking them to think of him whenever they needed a field producer.

Van Dis said he recently worked as a field producer for ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Even though the dancing aired live, the show also included a number of prerecorded segments that Van Dis and other field producers shot on location.

Van Dis at his camera on the island of Dominica in the eastern Caribbean. (Photo courtesy of Steve Van Dis)

Shooting on location made him feel like he was back in J-school producing packages because he had to do it all, Van Dis said. He calls himself a "preditor," or producer/editor. He said that knowing how to use a camera and how to get the right shot is key, especially as the Internet takes advertising dollars away from television networks.

Van Dis said he has worked with Mark Burnett, the creator of "Survivor," and Microsoft to do buffer ads and entertainment spots for MSN. He added that he is also working with a cable company in the Bay Area to help it develop TV shows for a national audience.

"It's hard to say if it's reaching the end [for reality-TV]," Van Dis said. But with his characteristic luck and persistence, he's bound to find the next big thing.