Survivor executive producer Matt Van Waganen, casting director Jesse Tannenbaum, editor Brian Barefoot and returning cast member Tiffany Nicole Ervin dished on the CBS reality series’ “incredible” Season 50 and looked ahead at the upcoming Season 51 during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio.

“Well, I think for us, Season 50, when Jeff [Probst] first talked about it, it was about being a celebration. And every time we talked about this, we thought, how can this be a celebration? And for us, celebration meant throwing everything at the players that we could, which I think we did,” said Van Wagenen. “And as we threw things at them, they really took it all in and attacked it, so they bought in with everything that we were doing, which made it for me an amazing season to watch and be a part of for sure.”

As Van Wagenen looks ahead to Season 51, he revealed “50 was really the leaping-off point for what we are calling the open era, and that really is — the phrase we use out there is ‘permanent uncertainty.’ As much as we had a lot of question marks and a lot of curveballs in 50, we’ve amped it up for 51.”

Watch the panel conversation below and scroll down for photos from the event.

Speaking about casting the castaways, Tannenbaum said “it is hard to predict because sometimes you’re dealing with people, talking to them, and they’re completely different on the show than they were through the casting process. He adds, “we really work hard to find compelling people to play one of the most incredible reality shows that’s ever been created. You throw them out there, and it’s up to them what they do with this opportunity, and that’s in their gameplay, and that’s in the personality they bring to the show. So it is a little complicated.”

Ervin, who first appeared on Survivor 46, shared her excitement at returning for Season 50, and admitted Van Wagenen “is not lying when he says they threw everything they had at us.”

“I’ve been watching this show my whole life as a person, played it, and then to be able to come back on such a monumental season, it was palpable how excited and how grateful everybody was to just be a part of such an experience,” she said. “And then to take it a step further and say, not only am I on a landmark season, but I’m doing things that have literally never been done before, so even though something as chaotic and crazy as the blood moon coming at me, I’ve never seen it before. But I’m like, let me at it!”

Barefoot, who has served as an editor on Survivor since its Season 1 launch, spoke of mining an enormous amount of footage to capture just the right moments. “We’re looking for those, not just the story points, but the little moments, the little things that you may miss. We, the editors, we’re the first audience to see how it plays on a screen, and we’re fans. When I see an eye roll from Tiffany, it’s like, I’m putting a mark on that, and I will use that shot somewhere.”

All had praise for Probst, who has hosted the series since its launch, and serves as executive producer and showrunner. Probst’s enthusiasm “is infectious,” said Tannenbaum. “When you think about surviving, you think about Jeff, that’s natural. The amount of care and passion he has, not just for the show, but for every single person that works on the show, for the cast that has been on the show, the future cast, even the applicants that go through the casting process and might have met him and didn’t go further, he’s like, how are they doing? How do they take the news? Are they okay? He just truly is caring, and that’s nothing but inspiring to make us want to work that much harder.”

The long-running reality series received five Emmy nominations for Season 50 including Outstanding Reality Competition Program, Outstanding Host for a Reality Program (Probst), Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program, and Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program.

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