Laurenti Dyogi, ABS-CBN Business Unit head, admits that he wouldn’t be able to do any stunt that involves being suspended in mid-air.
“I’m afraid of heights,” the producer tells Inquirer Entertainment at the launch of the new Kapamilya reality series “Pinoy Fear Factor” which was shot in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“We had a stunt that was set 20 meters up in the air, on a moving structure,” he recounts.
The Argentinean crew was awed with the Pinoys, he explains. “They broke existing ‘Fear Factor’ records. For example, for one stunt, the best time was two minutes, but the Pinoys did it for only 30 seconds.”
For that very reason, he is impressed by the show’s 12 “participantes,” as the five female and seven male contestants are called.
“They’re a good mix of characters. They have different strengths and weaknesses,” he explains. “It’s great to know that Pinoys can also do the same stunts that we see regularly in the US edition of ‘Fear Factor.’”
Among the daring dozen, only three are celebrities, model Phoemela Barranda, sexy star Janna Dominguez and actress LJ Moreno, he relates. The rest are fresh faces. (Celebrity or not, all the participantes were insured and underwent medical and psychological exams prior to the South American trip.)
Dyogi recalls that the girls were full of fight. “The celebrities were fearless,” Dyogi says.
Host Ryan Agoncillo looks back: “Even if they were limping and injured, the participantes still pushed themselves. In the end, they were competing not just for the P2-million cash prize and house-and-lot (from Avida), they were also doing it for the prestige factor, for the bragging rights of being the first El Ultimo Participante.”
Agoncillo also performed his owns stunts, Dyogi points out.
“He had to deliver some of his spiels while hanging from a crane and a helicopter,” Dyogi notes. “For one shot, he was buried six feet under.”
Agoncillo recalls: “I never thought I was claustrophobic until I did that episode.”
Recorded with a night-vision camera, Agoncillo spent 10 minutes underground.
“I was surrounded by total darkness and I could feel the ground closing in on me,” he describes the experience.
It helped that Agoncillo felt totally at ease with the 60 Argentinean crew and 8 Filipino staffers.
“It’s a lean crew, but they’re on top of their game,” Agoncillo says. “Our director Pablo Zubizarreta made a documentary on the plane crash that inspired the film ‘Alive.’ They’re a topnotch team.”
Dyogi agrees: “I felt secure because they were experts.”
Dyogi says that 30 “Fear Factor” versions have been shot in Argentina—the latest being Finland and the Philippines. All in all, the Endemol franchise has been produced in 120 countries and counting.
“There was no fear even though we had to step out of our comfort zones,” Agoncillo says.
The show premieres Nov. 10 and will run for 15 weeks until February 2009.
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