John Safran became a cult hit on Race Around the World. Now the ‘skinny, pale, whiny’ star is back
In June 1997, 24-year-old John Safran packed his bags, grabbed a handheld digital camera, and stepped onto a plane bound for Japan. Little did he know that a “skinny, pale, whiny” star would soon be born.
Over the next 100 days, Safran will create and star in 10 short films for the first season of ABC’s popular travel documentary competition. race around the world. he would take naked in jerusalemWhile in Ivory Coast, he curses his ex-girlfriend and enters Disneyland.
He would become an audience favorite, a cult hero, with his bold and eccentric videos. Director David Caesar hated him and was disqualified after a judge secretly recorded his confessional conversation with a priest in Brazil. However, she was named the winner of the people’s choice award and her career as Australia’s No.1 TV kid was assured.
Now, 29 years later, filmmaker, writer, radio star Safran is back on the scene race around the worldBut this time, he’s the one judging six new cast members sent overseas as part of ABC’s reboot of the popular series.
“I definitely have ideas,” he says. “I’m pretty invested in it because I think it’s important because they’re fighting robots now, like AI and other things, and storytelling is important.”
It’s a Friday morning and Safran will soon be leaving to film the third episode of the show hosted by Zan Rowe. Nearly four weeks have passed since the contestants set off to different countries such as Egypt, Moldova and the USA in early April.
“I already made one of them eat Simon Cowell,” he says. “Because I want their stories to be good… a few of them have a great, hustling energy, they put themselves at risk… and I just say, ‘Oh my god, they’re all great, but if you do this and that, your stories will be 10 times better.’”
So the big tip? “Don’t make movies Wikipedia Brief Description Movie“It’s really hard to make this interesting,” he says.
The new series follows approximately the same format as the original (10 countries, 10 movies in 100 days) but some of the rules have been changed to allow for the change in technology.
Safran and her fellow contestants knew where they were going when they set out and had time to roughly plan stories and make contact before leaving. This time, the six filmmakers have no idea where they’re being sent, so they can’t plan ahead. They also have to edit their films while on the run, whereas in Safran’s day the tapes were sent back to ABC with editing instructions.
Communication with contestants was also more haphazard in 1997, as they only had to call ABC every 10 days to reassure everyone they were still alive (remember this was the era before cell phones and social media). What about budget? About $100 a day. Difficult? I am sure.
“I found this really stressful, especially after I thought I messed up the first story [where he was locked in a subway in Osaka]Says Safran: “I sharpened up and became an edited version of myself. And even when I was squealing at the camera, it wasn’t me, I wasn’t someone squealing at the camera. I did it because I thought it was funny.”
Many of the new contestants – Elliot, Jayden, Kate, Lucinda, Mikaela and William – were born before the first series even aired, and they have all come of age in a world where online presence, digital storytelling and selfie culture are the norm. But if you think this will give them an advantage, Safran has other ideas.
“However, there is a countercurrent where young people are very nervous about putting things out there because they know the consequences of fumbling, in a way that I never did,” he says. “In some ways it can be the opposite: ‘Guys, you need to set yourselves free and don’t worry.’ like. But selfie culture is a good thing as long as the material is strong.”
Safran has never been afraid to put herself in front of the camera. And in fact, one of the key new features of the digital video cameras that the first racers had in 1997 was the ability to rotate the screen so they could record themselves, selfie-style. And unlike the other contestants, most of whom went on to serious careers in film and television, Safran loved being in front of the camera.
“Almost all of them wanted to be regular doco producers and had to be dragged kicking and screaming in front of the cameras,” says Safran.
He still calls his first story of being locked in the subway in Osaka a disaster (“I was really humiliated”), but it strengthened him, and “it all seemed to make sense at that point” when it came to putting a voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend.
“I worked on a sort of premise where the audience had a preconceived notion of what a documentary should be and I was a bit cocky about it,” he says. “Like, instead of being like a fly on the wall, ‘Oh my God, these magical people’ or whatever. I’m just being stupid about it. I didn’t think about it that much, but I think I was subconsciously subverting what I thought was the documentary and my issues with them.”
Safran was also inspired by Nick Giannopoulos and his comedy. Unemployed Wogs.
“It was a kind of comedy; if you come from a background, you lean into that or something like that,” he says. “And the people [were] just ‘Oh, is this a little gimmicky or something?’ By the way, I never thought it was a hack. Anyway, all I think about is [to myself] It was: ‘Listen, I’m not going to do what the Jews do. Unemployed Wogs. ‘I won’t do this.’
“And then I was being baptized in the Ivory Coast, I think it was in this church, and I thought, ‘Oh, there’s something risky about this,’ and it would be funnier if the title of this movie was ‘Mother, I’m not Jewish anymore.’ So I’ll just do it once, bring up the Jewish issue this time, and that’s it. But then it’s like the gift that keeps on giving, and I’m hurtling towards Jerusalem, towards St Kilda. The Football Club.”
Safran’s notoriety during the show grew so much that he was even recognized while filming at Disneyland (where he crawled through a hole in the fence), but he had also decided that filmmaking was something he wanted to do for a career.
“I really just wanted to keep working,” he says. “I didn’t want to have this personality career… When I came back, I was determined to capitalize on that and do other projects I wanted.”
This is for saffron race around the world Success soon translated into several pilots at ABC; one of which was his infamous encounter with Ray Martin, followed by a minor stint on Channel Seven. However, he truly stepped into SBS with his award-winning play. Music Jamboree In 2002, then John Saffron vs. God In 2004 (the curse had been lifted on the Socoos) and after Speaking in Tonguesin 2005, which he co-hosted with Catholic priest Father Bob Maguire (they would later have a radio show together on Triple J).
He returned to ABC in 2007 for three seasons. Race RelationsThe incident where he was infamously crucified in the Philippines. Are the scars still there?
“No,” he says. “I don’t know, some people really make a big deal about it, they crucified – I won’t say who, I won’t say which religious figure – so what happens is when the nail goes in, it goes all the way in but that’s the only thing that breaks, just like a pin breaks. [the skin]while the rest of the nail extends the skin. “But then as soon as you pull it out, the skin turns back into this little pinprick, so unfortunately there’s no scarring.”
He has since added non-fiction and true crime books to that list, and has returned to television occasionally, including in the new SBS documentary on freedom of expression. Shut Your Fat Big Mouth John Safran!and will soon appear on ABC’s new season Portrait Artist of the Year.
Does this mean we’re in the middle of a John Safran TV renaissance?
“Hopefully yes,” he says. “As long as it leads to another docuseries, I’d 100 percent want it to happen. Books are like that—I mean, they’re so rewarding—but damn, they’re hard.”
“I’m not complaining but it’s all your responsibility. Even doing this SBS doco, it just means being there with a cameraman, a sound artist and a producer and it’s not all up to you and you’re not worrying about every last thing, someone else is organizing the flights. It’s fun in a different way. So watch out Screen Australia. I’m pitching. I’ve got a pitch deck.”
race around the world It will premiere on Sunday, June 7 at 7.30pm on ABC and ABC iview.
