'Outlast' Executive Producer Grant Kahler Talks How His Survival Show Turned Into "Lord of Flies"

The 'Alone' veteran also speaks on how surprised he was by the use of mental warfare in the new Netflix reality show.

Today marks the premiere of Netflix's newest reality show, Outlast. The series from executive producer Jason Bateman strands sixteen "lone wolf" survivalists in the spacious wilds of Alaska. It's a familiar concept to fellow EP Grant Kahler, considering his work on other survival shows Alone and Alaska: The Last Frontier. But, as is requisite with reality TV, there's a twist.

"I've always wanted to bring the social dynamic angle into the survival experience," Kahler tells Parade.com in an interview. "What I've always thought about is, 'How do you start with a very real situation?' And I think that perfect movie to start with is Alive, the Andes Mountains crash. To me, that's something I always wanted to test. If your plane goes down, and that guy next to you is a great hunter, can you also deal with him as a person? Because he's all you've got. And that social dynamic is a very, very real part of survival. And so I just thought this was a very real way to test that."

The social dynamic in Outlast bears out by having the contestants divide themselves into four teams. The only rule: You have to be part of a team on the last day to get any money. So throughout the season, people quit, leaving their teams crucially short staffed. Others are looking to jump ship to better options. And the team dynamic allows for both alliances and rivalries to be created, along with a heaping serving of mental warfare.

Read on for our full interview with Grant Kahler. All episodes of Outlast are currently streaming on Netflix.

Related: Everything to Know About Netflix's Outlast

How did the idea for Outlast come to fruition?
I've wanted to do one like this for a long time. I've always wanted to bring the social dynamic angle into the survival experience. Because I just always thought about these these things. You can imagine how many thousands of these shows are pitched? And it's always like, "Oh, how do we complicate the rules? How do we change this?" What I've always thought about is, "How do you start with a very real situation?" And I think that perfect movie to start with is Alive, the Andes Mountains crash. And that movie's not just about eating someone's butt meat! (Laughs.) It's about how do they deal with each other as well.

To me, that's something I always wanted to test. If your plane goes down, and that guy next to you is a great hunter, can you also deal with him as a person? Because he's all you've got. And that social dynamic is a very, very real part of survival. And so I just thought this was a very real way to test that. To ask that question. I didn't have the answer going in. I don't think any of us really did. But it was going to be an interesting experiment to see how people reacted to it.

How long had you been working on this Outlast idea until Netflix ultimately picked it up?
I had a version of it for a few years. Four or five years, probably. When pitches come up, you slightly tweak things here and there. But this whole kind of group survival, the ability to beg, borrow, and steal out there, that whole thing, that's been around for a while. I can't speak for Netflix, but I think they were looking for something in this space. Shows like Alone were starting to do really well on on network, Netflix, as well as other streamers. And it was interesting timing,. They came to me and said, "What do we got?" And we talked through a bunch of options. And just with said, it was very important to Netflix as well as myself to really keep it very simple, answer a very basic question about survival and humanity.

Netflix reality has a different way of editing and storytelling than TV proper. Oftentimes they edit for the binge format, meaning they use cliffhangers much more. Did you lean towards that style for Outlast, or did you use something more traditional that you're used to on shows like Alone?
A little of both. You go in with a plan, even from pre-production, and then usually you throw the whole plan away. And that certainly happened on this one. But you shoot so much footage on shows like this. If we didn't cut out some stuff, there'd be 100 episodes. So of course you pick and choose the way you craft it and where you begin and end your episodes. With Mike, the guy who ran post for us, it was a matter of just figuring out what the arc was for each each episode. And that's it. It was all shot at one time. So we knew the beginning, middle and end. And it was just a matter of figuring out where to break it.

To that point, the structure of Outlast has the contestants working in different groups. How do you figure out how much time to delineate to each group in a particular episode?
It's story importance. This isn't a very heavily produced series. So we kind of set out the rules, and of course, the challenges. But people took over the stories. You'll certainly see if you get further into the series, their actions and the stuff that they wanted to do in order to advance themselves completely took over this series. It started as a somewhat innocent survival competition, and really turned into Lord of the Flies. But we followed that; we didn't shy away from it. We also didn't encourage it. There was the path that we had set out on, and the path that the contestants took us on, and we covered both.

When it came to casting, what was the angle you were taking? Because we see how much the cast is diversified in both backgrounds, as well as survival experience.
Definitely the survival skills was important. From a safety perspective just to make sure people were used to the outdoors enough that we could drop them in the middle of nowhere and say, "Good night." Most people don't realize how very real these shows are. And so you do need to have that confidence that a person can recognize when they're in danger, or if they're hurt. So that was number one. And then with this, where you're really talking about the social dynamics of a group, of course, we wanted to cast people with different backgrounds and different personalities. We're talking about lone wolves existing as a pack, right? So is this going to work? Of course, they can supplement each other's skills and stuff. But again, if you can't get through the night with a person because they drive you absolutely insane, you're going to quit. And that's what happens when you become hungry and tired. And not to mention, you have this jerk just over there just making you insane. It just adds this element of difficulty that other shows don't have. So now that said, we weren't looking for the craziest or most boisterous or loudest cast. We were looking for a range of people. Again, as if a a plane went down with 16 people and they had to figure it out.

Outlast notably has a narrator, but no host. Did you ever think about having a host on the show?
I mean, I'm sure we talked about it. You talked about all things possible. But no, we always wanted it to be a very real and raw experience. Hosts are very helpful for shows, obviously. But for this format, it didn't feel right.

The show films in Alaska, which is obviously a familiar place to you due to your experience on Alone. And danger is certainly present, between the rushing waters, the constant rain, the freezing cold, and the most bears per square mile in the world. What made you choose Alaska as your location?
I always thought it would be Alaska for season one. It's so spectacularly beautiful, first of all. And I do think that beauty is always something nice to see on screen. Even if people are screaming at each other, it's nice to have that background. But it also is really hard to find places in the world right now where you can really subsist and live off the land. You go to you travel a lot of the world, and it's just, it's just not possible anymore. And Alaska still has so much of that wilderness.

I really wanted to give the cast the opportunity. I wanted there to be deer to hunt, I wanted there to be salmon to catch or fish in the rivers, mussels in the sand, even just the seaweed. All of these basic things so that if you set it up properly, you don't have to supplement it. Then the people with the real skill will survive. And that was very important to me. And then, like you brought up, the elements are a huge thing. This place is freaking miserable. (Laughs.) Raining nonstop. And so you're just soaked to the bone. You're surrounded by bears. I can't really dream up a better location. Or worse, depending on how you look at it. (Laughs.)

Who among the cast stood out for you the most?
Jill was always a compelling character. She had a very different approach to the game. Because we gave them so little information. Some people went out there with a very simple understanding that, "I was going to outlast my fellow contestants, it was that easy. If I could get some salmon, eat seaweed, just be miserable for long enough, I was going to win." Then there was people like Jill, who really took it into their own hands and said, "There's a real strategy to this." You'll see as you watch the season, Jill gets a fair amount of airtime because of that, because she thought about the game of it all. And she turned it into that.

I always say about Alone season one, it's the contestants that built the style of that show. As we gathered that footage, it was like, "Oh my gosh, it's so interesting the way people are doing this." Same with these contestants. People like Jill and Justin, they, they took what started as a relatively simple concept and changed it. They didn't break any rules, but they they bent them as far as they possibly could. And because of the their actions, they propel themselves really far.

Were you surprised how much those mind games you mentioned ended up playing into the show?
Yes, no question. All of that was unplanned. It happened even when we weren't around. So much we had we were worried it was going to spiral too far out of control. And I don't think I ever thought anyone was in danger, just that the game would take over. We didn't know it was happening, but it's okay. We went with it. We covered it and and I told them I wasn't going to move the goalposts on them. "This is your decision, to make it, to be that last team standing. So how you get there, we'll cover it."

It is interesting to look at this mental warfare and see what it says about humanity at large. Initially the main idea is communal, "no person is an island" and all that. But then when you make a slight tweak and introduce a competitive element of being the last team standing, people will then go to great lengths to try to ensure a better chance of getting to that end goal.
Mental warfare is a really good way of putting it. People went down that route and didn't waver once they went. They were all in. And I think that's a result of just being so cold and tired and hungry too. It's being in these situations that I can't explain it. It strips you so raw, those true emotions kind of bubble out. Because you get to a point where you're so hungry and you're so cold that you'll do anything to make it for the next day. And if you don't have a deer staring at you with your bow pulled and cocked, then you need to try something in the mental warfare space. Because what else are your options? It's either that or quit.

If Outlast does get renewed for a season two, what lessons are taking from season one into producing future versions of this show?
I've thought a lot about this. I think the biggest thing, the biggest challenge we will face is not letting it get too out of control. Because  viewers will see that there aren't a lot of rules out there. And they can do whatever the hell they want. I think that'll be the biggest challenge is keeping keeping the skill at least a part of the show. You're still out in the woods for six weeks. That's never going to be an easy thing. But now, that said, I'd just be excited to see how a different group of people handles this. There is a very nurturing side to a lot of people. And there is a very real part of survival that says, "I want to keep this person close to me because I have a better chance of making it to the end with someone else." This kind of strength and numbers "kumbaya" scenario that we could have had. And with a group of people, maybe that will happen. So that that, to me, is what would be exciting. Or maybe everyone would lose their mind again and the thing could go down, which is also interesting. (Laughs.) It's a real test of human nature. 

Next, here's everything you need to know about new USA survival series Race to Survive Alaska.