BU student’s ‘Survivor’ series is a time capsule of the Palisades

Just three days after he evacuated his Los Angeles home in January because of deadly wildfires, Emmett Whitaker returned to the Pacific Palisades through footage of his fan-made “Survivor” series.

“Every single day, I look at footage of what it used to be. It’s hard when you see it 24/7 just to realize that it’s not what it is anymore,” Whitaker said. 

“Survivor” features a group of contestants who are stranded in a remote location, divided into tribes, and forced to compete against each other in a series of games to win a $1 million prize. The franchise is a classic, and will hit its 50th season next year. 

Whitaker, a Boston University sophomore, has self-funded, cast, produced, and edited five seasons of “Survivor Palisades,” his tribute to the original show, since 2018, with four seasons filming when he was ages 11 to 15 years old. Each season was filmed in the lush, picturesque Palisades.

What started in his childhood as a “fun little project” evolved into a longstanding series and become a symbol of hope for the Palisades’ future. 

The fire killed 12 people across the Palisades and Malibu neighborhoods, forced thousands to evacuate, and scorched homes and properties, devastating the community and landscape.

Whitaker’s “Survivor Palisades” is currently on its “All-Stars” season, which premiered Sept. 25 and releases new episodes each Thursday on YouTube.

“I was really surprised that almost everyone who had played before wanted to play again,” Whitaker said. “I was able to eventually get down to a cast of 12 All-Stars who had all made it really far in the game to come back one more time to play.”

He utilized a $1,500 budget — allotted from his tip money working as a busboy — to produce each season, which expanded as he got older from his family friends to people applying across the LA area. 

“Instead of 12 cameras, it was 22. Instead of a 20 person crew, it was about a 60 person crew across pre-production through post production,” he said.  

With the “All Stars” season filmed in June 2024 before he flew across the country for college, Whitaker spent his freshman year at BU balancing classes and clubs, and worked on editing the show toward the end of his first year, a seven month “tumultuous, meticulous, long process,” he said. 

Whitaker, who is studying international relations and film at BU, said “Survivor” is a thrilling, “unintentionally hilarious” game of social politics, which is why he was drawn to it.

“Telling a story with ‘Survivor’ is really, really unique, because you set everything up for that day and you put all the cards in place, but you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Whitaker said. 

Whitaker hosted a season premiere in August for contestants and the community, an event that evoked a mixture of happiness and nostalgia from attendees, many of whom were displaced or lost their homes from the fires. 

“To ​​be able to transport back into that world, as surreal as it is, it’s really special to just hold that as a memory,” he said. “You’re watching and enjoying the show and you’re engaged, and then remember that everything is just gone, there’s nothing there right now.”

With the season almost halfway through, Whitaker is anticipating being on a “break” from curating the show — it will mark the first time he hasn’t had content to sift through and edit since he was 11. 

“I don’t even know a world where I don’t do anything for this,” he said. 

Through every edit and watchparty hosted with his friends, Whitaker is brought back to the Palisades and the community he cherishes. 

“At the end of the day, it’s just people being people in an area that no longer exists,” Whitaker said. “And so hopefully in five or 10 years, with some good rebuilding efforts and some fundraising, that area can flourish and people can just be people there again.”