Escape: Backstage gossip

21 September 2017

     •        It took producers three days to deliver the wreckage to each crash site. 

     •        The show hired a team of test engineers who were tasked with working on a second set of wreckage before the show started filming to be certain that a rescue vehicle could be built out of the all the mangled parts.

     •        The mangled vehicles left on location were chosen loosely based on real life crashes in the area.

     •        Producers arranged the wreckage like a 'giant puzzle' around the site in order to make the engineers work harder to find all the parts available for them to use to build their escape vehicle from.

     •        Before filming the engineers were kept away from each other and Ant so that the first time the met was at the crash site. They were only referred to as numbers, producers didn't use their real names, and were often blindfolded so they never managed to pick up any information that could help them before being transported to the crash site.

     •        In at least one location the team of engineers failed to make an escape vehicle and had to be evacuated from the crash site leaving them devastated for failing their challenge.  

     •        There was a 'day five break point' by which time every engineer had broken down and cried at least once.

     •        Ant Middleton was never given any information about the crash sites, what he would find there or the engineers. The first time he saw each site was at the same time as the engineers.

     •        In each location Ant and the engineers were given a supply of water and basic food rations to keep them alive during their battle to build an escape vehicle. Everything else, including shelter and sanitation, they had to deal with themselves. 

     •        At each site roving camera men and women would capture the action but were considered 'ghosts' by Ant and the engineers as they never spoke, and never offered help or guidance during filming.

     •        Once Ant and the engineers were dumped on the crash site they had no interaction with producers, who filmed the show like a wildlife documentary, working from a base camp hundreds of meters away from the site.

     •        One engineer had to be evacuated by air after becoming ill during filming.