What do Evel Knievel's launch across the Snake River, The Truman Show starring Jim Carey, and America's Got Talent have in common? They all have a part to play in The Great Loop Media Gambit.
Oh sure, it's been called "The Great Loop Movie", "The Great Loop Show" and "The Great Loop Docuseries", but ultimately it's so much bigger than any of those titles suggest. The very last part of this three-year epic tale will be a television show, so why are we leading with that?
America's Got Talent
The first year will be an adventure for viewers and participants alike. During this phase, we will be selecting 20 individuals who will use this time to learn to sail, get boned up on video production, and establish Youtube followings. In fact from the very first days, they will be establishing their Youtube followings because that is how they will be selected. The video submissions with the most views will be the ones who get selected for the voyage. It really has nothing to do with sailing ability but instead who can tell the best stories and navigate social media.
We will also share the construction of the boats at the Catalina plant in Florida and invite the viewers to play along as we put these sailors through intense maritime training including basic sailing instruction, STCW, navigation, and the full-court press to become USCG-licensed masters of sailing. They will also train with Youtubers like SV Delos who have succeeded as masters of the Sailing Youtube-iverse, and experts like Wally Moran and Bob Bitchen who have sailed and made TV for decades.
The Truman Show
That's the first year. The second year is when the camera's roll and boats get wet. In March we will set sail from Tampa Bay and begin the 6000-mile voyage around the Eastern U.S.The sailors will sail the boats and tell their stories on Youtube while we follow them in a chase boat and film their daily life in all its gorey details.
Part of the reason we have to make sure these sailors can tell stories with video is (A) that's how they will live and get stuff that is generously provided by their Youtube following. The better they do at engaging viewers, the easier their life will be as they make this voyage. And (B) that's how we will get a large portion of the footage we will need to make this show.
It's not like we can put a cameraman on board with these sailors. The boats are 42' long and sleep four people. The crews will know everything about each other from the sound of their snoring to their dietary challenges afloat. Privacy is a premium afloat on a sailboat and no one wants a burly sweaty cameraman filming them over breakfast each morning. That's not to say, we won't deliver a cameraman to the boat during awake hours every so often, but who's gonna film the late-night arguments between the crew members, the white knuckle helm moments on the midnight watch or the 10-foot swells awash with vomit. Each boat is going to be a camera platform in and of itself with some assistance from the sailors themselves with no room for a cameraman.
This past Thanksgiving I got to wander through Twin Falls, Idaho. It's a pretty amazing city sitting in the middle of nothing USA on the banks of the Sanke River. If you've never heard of the Snake River, it is a huge meandering vein of mountain runoff that wanders from the Rocky Mountains down to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1974, Robert "Evel" Knieval launched himself across it with the world watching. It didn't work out completely but it put Evel on the world stage and caused a huge hoopla when it was rumored he tanked it on purpose and was entirely a media stunt.
Back in the 1970's people didn't really like media stunts, particularly if they were staged. In truth, Americans still find them a bit onerous.
This won't be a media stunt that we fake in any way. In fact, it'll be the most real reality TV ever made. But it will be a media event in that we touch back to the first Great Looper, Kenneth Ransom who made quite a name for himself for 1898 when he did the first Great Loop.
I expect it will be kind of cool to have our fleet of boats pull into your town dock and give the viewers a chance to play with the boats and sailors. Especially since there is a massive population that lives mere feet from the Great Loop and has no clue. It's a chance to introduce Americans to their backyard and experience the sport of sailing in a new and more different way than has ever been done before. Perhaps it will even bolster a new National interest in sailing which has waned into obscurity in recent years.
So it's not about a TV show, or sailing, or even the Great Loop. It's all of it, a little bit of everything, balled up into a giant media event that is gonna take Google, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, and a pile of cash from the likes of Branson or Musk to make it happen. It's gonna cost money and will in all likelihood get a few million views on the first episode. It's the way TV is going and it's gonna break new ground in the way we tell stories with cameras. So get out of the way if you're expecting a quiet little show about sailboats. This is so much bigger than that. Stay tuned.
Do Good, Have Fun, Sail Far.
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