do we have to have our tumblrs associated with the event? i try to generally keep mine separate from the rest of my online identity

sort of. to apply? yes. i want the backup contact for if email does not work, and for contestants later, i want to be able to have one more data point towards "what kind of player do i think you'll be". that said, you do not have to have it publicly associated with the event. i want it for our records (it can be a sideblog it doesn't have to be your main i just have to be able to contact it), but when we put together the credits, you can be credited with whatever you want publicly.

(Also an addendum to that last ask: I'd love to be able to volunteer for captions but would like to try applying as a player first. Would you ever consider a second round of staff/production applications for post-production tasks like captions?)

also answering this separately to say: so i did this in this order on purpose. not just because we need staff before we can go live to players, not just because i want to get even post-production stuff live as we go if possible to save time, but because this is liable to be a slightly grueling project. FUN! but grueling. i don't want people who want to be players and on-camera more than they want to help with production to sign up for production if that's not like... their first choice, if that makes sense? i don't want production, the thing that will likely be the most difficult part of this, to be people's backup. so unless things are desperate, probably not!

For the survivor SMP, how would you feel about artists potentially offering their services for thumbnails and stuff from players? I'm not confident enough about my composition skills yet to offer it as paid work, but it looks really interesting and I'd love to be able to volunteer my time and skills otherwise if I'm not chosen as a player/applicant!

if you have that to offer alongside another position, i wouldn't mind it! i already have the artists onboard i suspect i'll actually need for the art assets, though, which is why it isn't a role i'm actively seeking. additional skills aren't bad though!

what are the concerns present with contestants under 18?

so my BIGGEST concern is that we’re doing a reality tv, which is to say, each contestant will get an Edit. they will not have full say how they’re portrayed in the end! to be clear we’re being up-front about this, we’re going to re-emphasize it in every single session zero, we’re also not going to intentionally take anyone out of context (because like that’s not fun and frankly I don’t think we’ll need to), but also… we are going to be directly responsible for how the contestants are portrayed on the show. and I think my line in the sand is “I don’t want to be doing that with minors”. if you’re over eighteen, fine, you’ve agreed multiple times to this by the time you get cast, we all know what we’re getting into here. and I’m not saying minors don’t, it’s just… you know. it’s the easiest Line I can draw there.

also, this will be stressful to play! it should be fun but it’ll be stressful! people may end up Legit Angry at each other, and that’s a normal part of the game… but I don’t want to put a minor in a situation where an adult is yelling at them, yeah? I mean I don’t want anyone to yell (in a non-improv sense) at anyone, and we WILL have contestant safety measures in place—camerapeople always in contact with staff, direct lines where contestants can tell us if they have issues, etc—but once again, if something DOES happen, at least then it is happening Between Adults.

I just… do not think this is a thing we can safely throw minors into even BEFORE I get into “also I don’t know what the legal ramifications of using a minor’s likeness is, even if I’m not making money” or “what if youtube sticks ads on this against my will” or “if everyone is adults the moderation of what people can talk about doesn’t need to be nearly as strict, even given the safety measures”.

so yeah. no one under 18 as contestants, I will not budge on this. sorry!

do we need to be in any way prominent in the mcytblr scene cause i have deleted myself off this site completely in that regard...

also how prone are you to nepotism (/j)

you will need to have an account that you use at least a little on mcytblr, but prominence isn’t a factor! it just needs to Exist. we’re going to try, where we can, to get a Variety of degrees of prominence; we’ll see!

as for nepositm: well the production staff are, by nature, barred from applying to be contestants, so,

hi, a survivor series sounds really cool! when do you think you'll start accepting applications for contestants?

great question! so, i have a big upcoming IRL thing in about a week. then soon after that i will likely make the blog, sit down with the people i already have to make a timeline, and open applications to production crew. sometime after that, when the timeline is publicized, i will open applications for contestants; i expect it to at least be a few weeks before i open up those applications, so if you need time to prepare, you'll have it! don't worry, i will have a public timeline by the time i open them up.

(and if you're like "well this is early to start the hype train", my goal here was less "start the hype train" and more "check if there is enough interest to justify the level of return on time investment", haha. there is, so true finalization planning can begin!)

Hi there! Since you plan on having a YouTube channel for the Survivor series, do you have anything planned for captions? Is that something people could potentially volunteer for?

notes on the post made us realize that yes, captions absolutely, and yes, “transcriber” is probably one of the roles we will try to get on the team!

I know this idea it still in its infancy - but for each recording session, do you have an estimated idea of have many hours a person might need to block out per session (including before and after recording) if they were a contestant? And would it be safe to assume that camerapeople and staff will need to block out additional time on top of that?

my current assumption is 3-5 hours, with episodes possibly taking more than one recording session if we land on the "3" side. this will be affected by scheduling! (also, tbh, by our dry run--it depends ultimately on how much time we think the contestants will need where they aren't doing challenges.) production will need a bit more time before and after for debrief, but also can work asynchronously at that point. additionally, an hour SOMETIME in the week after a given schedule will be scheduled between a contestant and a few production for confessionals from that episode, although THAT doesn't rely on everyone being online and can be done whenever.

Hi I saw your post about the MCYTblr survivor series and wanted to double check what build team means?

so, we’re going to need some in-game builds! certain challenges will require builds (such as, for example, a small two-team bed wars arena as one of the more ambitious build ideas), I would love if we end up having time to make a ponderosa set, and there will need to be secrets hidden around the “island”. “build team” here means people who can come sit in creative mode with us to help us make those things!

Do you think it'll take a year to organise? Or do you think there'll be a season 2?

(I'm a year away from being 18 but would LOVE to participate :( for now I will just watch :D)

I don’t think it’ll take a full year to pull together, no; my tentative timeline is six months for the total production cycle. (this may be pure hubris, however.) that said, season two is—so this depends on how much we end up loving doing this or it ends up sucking. I suspect we’ll end up somewhere between the poles of “we loved this and want to start again immediately!” and “that was a great time let’s never ever do that again”. season two fully depends on WHERE between those poles the team falls, lol.

will you be the host?

honest answer: i want to, and that might end up being my one vanity of being the one to set up this project. however the truth of the matter is that i don't know if i'd be able to get an audio setup good enough to be the guy narrating all the challenges, or if i would be able to pull off a good jeff probst. so... we will see!

As someone who's currently in a different fandoms survivor game, this sounds really cool and I'd love to watch it

fun fact: this is literally what inspired me to make this haha. i am in a survivor game for another fandom, having a good time, and went "oh but it'd be SO FUN to be on the production side of this" and now here i am.

do you know how many applicants you’ll accept? will it be similar to real survivor, based on the number of applications?

it is going to depend on the number of applications, but i am planning on similar to real survivor, yes: somewhere between 16-20 is the most likely number, MAYBE going up to 22 while acknowledging that increases the runtime and production time by a lot.

i am aware this is a very small number compared to the interest check and i apologize but we would be playing literally forever if we went higher than that, and also my production staff would murder me in my sleep for the thousands of hours of footage we'd have to deal with. the good news is: IF THIS GOES WELL AND WE DON'T DECIDE WE HATE OURSELVES FOR PUTTING OURSELVES THROUGH IT, this is the kind of thing we could do more than one season of. but we've gotta get through season one, first...

production staff is more variable and more directly based on interest, at least in part because tbh there are a FEW tasks that are very manhour intensive that extra warm bodies would help with. so that is a much more unknown number than the 16-20 i'd already decided on for contestants!

will the survivor thingy be on bedrock or java? I assume java but the post didn’t specify so I thought I’d check (or it might have specified and I missed it, that’s also a possibility)

it would be java edition! sorry we already know multiple plugins/minor modifications we'd need to do and i have no fucking clue how to do that on bedrock but can figure it out on java, so this'll be java.

what method would be used for audio and conversation? discord, some kind of proximity voice mod, what?

we will be using proximity mod! it really is the best for natural sounding rp audio. additionally, we are planning on trying to get multiple audio tracks whenever possible, but we ARE expecting contestants to be able to record and send us their own audio specifically in part so we can guarantee we have redundant audio, which has a level track from each contestant. the contestant can record their own audio however they would prefer.

Will you make a post when applications for production and/or talent go live?

yes, i will post about them and have them open for some time!