Emmett Whitaker Delivers the Third Season This Summer

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Palisadian Emmett Whitaker is the mastermind behind “Survivor Palisades,” a parody of the CBS reality competition television series “Survivor,” where contestants compete at an exotic location for a cash prize.

“It is a game of ‘Survivor,’ but for kids in Pacific Palisades to partake in,” Palisadian-Post Junior Reporter Vanessa Masterson explained. “‘Survivor Palisades’ reveals how tough kids can be. The mental and physical challenges are difficult.”

Whitaker, who is starting ninth grade at Palisades Charter High School next month, has been working on the show since 2017. The first episode aired on YouTube in 2019.

Masterson explained the kids form alliances with the “tribes” and compete in physical challenges, which have included swimming and obstacle courses.

“The kids are resilient and strong,” Masterson shared. “They have to be clever, tricky and sneaky with their friends when forming fake alliances, and they have to work together and learn to trust each other.”

She added that they have to be “very brave when making important choices and facing difficult decisions”—all of which will lead to them becoming the show’s sole survivor.

“It is so suspenseful to see who will get voted out next and who will go forward,” Masterson concluded. “I watched the first episode and was hooked. It was inspiring to see kids in a show that was made by kids, it made me think I could create my own show one day.”

Whitaker, a big fan of “Survivor,” was 11 years old when he decided to make a backyard version of the show featuring members of the community.

“I started doing that with my friends and family, and we filmed it,” Whitaker said to the Post.

Whitaker said that producing the show is no easy feat. One season can take between six to seven months of preparation, from raising funds, obtaining props, casting, location scouting and more.

And he pulls the ropes to make sure the show comes together: From planning, casting and editing—he does it all.

“I do it all myself,” he said about the process, “but I’m going to try to hopefully get some people to work with me the next time we do it.”

Whitaker said that he raises the funds for the show by babysitting, hosting neighborhood lemonade stands and doing extra chores. He uses the money for props.

Whitaker’s mother, Christine, said the show can also be a family affair. Both his parents have assisted moving props, setting up some of the game challenges and helping with filming on the day of shooting.

Emmett’s older sister, Becca, a rising senior at Pali High, has also been an on-camera participant, as well as a camera person for the show.

When it comes to casting the show, Whitaker said his goal is to make sure that the contestants don’t all know each other.

“So I usually recruit some people who I think would be good,” Whitaker said about casting. “Or people will ask me to be in [the show] and by the end of it, I try to have the best fit that works for the team.”

Days of filming can go on for 11 hours and editing takes almost a whole year.

Episodes of the third season, filmed before the coronavirus pandemic prompted Safer at Home orders, are being rolled out this summer. The season features a total of 12 contestants—six fan-favorites and the rest are brand new faces who are faced with “a twist … that could forever change how the game is played.”

The fourth season would have been filmed during this time, but plans have been indefinitely postponed. Filming was scheduled to begin the second week of March—the same week the city shut down.

“It’s been a lot of work and I’ve had to do a lot of preparation for it,” Whitaker said, “but it’s really fun when you get to do it and see that people are watching it.”

Anyone interested in tuning in to this season or catching up on past episodes can do so on YouTube at youtube.com/channel/UCGWmcsg3FpivGlZNRJr8MTA.

Junior Reporter Vanessa Masterson interviews Chloe Smigla, a season three contestant of “Survivor Palisades.”

Vanessa: What was the most exciting thing you did?

Chloe: Starting out was exciting, I wanted to try my best and win. Also meeting the other contestants was really fun and exciting.

Vanessa: How did you get on the show?

Chloe: They reached out to me, but now people apply to the show.

Vanessa: Were any parts scary or hard?

Chloe: Some of the challenges were hard because some of the other kids were more athletically fit than I was. So it was physically challenging, and also mentally challenging as well.

Vanessa: What was the hardest challenge for you?

Chloe: There was one challenge where we had to do planks on brick blocks and I could not last very long.

Vanessa: What was mentally challenging?

Chloe: It was very challenging to figure out alliances and who you could trust. It was a challenge because I had never met the other survivors before. It was definitely challenging trying to figure out who I could make alliances with—who I could trust and who would keep our discussions private. I really had to challenge myself to rely on my social skills to form alliances and keep them strong throughout the game.

Vanessa: Did you trick anyone?

Chloe: You’ll have to wait and find out … let’s just say, I employed a lot of strategies to help advance my game!

Vanessa: Have you watched “Survivor” and if you have, is “Survivor Palisades” like the real show?

Chloe: I watched “Survivor” after I was on “Survivor Palisades” and I got very addicted to it! And it is so similar, everything down to the words that Emmett says while he is describing the challenges, the Tribal Council—everything is so similar to the real “Survivor,” it’s actually incredible.

Vanessa: What was your favorite part about being on “Survivor Palisades”?

Chloe: My favorite part about being on “Survivor” was getting to test my social skills and to see if I could make strong alliances. And, if I could, could I keep them throughout the game long enough to help me survive and be the sole survivor.

Vanessa: Is it very professional? Is there a big crew with a lot of cameras and everything, or is it just Emmett with his phone?

Chloe: No no, there are a bunch of people in the crew who are filming, around 10 people with cameras and helping orchestrate everything. Which is a lot for a show pretty much run by a kid. And Emmett was directing everyone, telling us when to go and what was going to come next, directing the other camera people and telling them what angles to shoot.

Every aspect of the show is run by Emmett. And last year for season two, they had a premiere and Emmett was completely running everything. It was amazing. Emmett was really on top of it and running everything, which was awesome.

Vanessa: So was the whole crew kids?

Chloe: Mostly yes, there were maybe one or two adults there, but mostly it was kids.

Vanessa: Wow!

Chloe: Yes, it was really awesome!

Vanessa: Thank you Chloe for taking the time for this interview!

Holly Wertman Pilots Recently Launched Downtown Women’s Center Program as a Problem Solving Specialist

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

Growing up in Pacific Palisades, Holly Wertman learned at a young age the value of giving back and serving her community—her dad ran Chrysalis and her mom raised millions writing grants for different nonprofits around Los Angeles.

“I think because of my parents being who they are and doing the work that they do, from such a young age, I had a very intense sense of social responsibility and just a knowledge that whatever work I do in some way needs to be serving communities,” Wertman explained to the Palisadian-Post. “Then I’ve tried to gravitate toward communities that I have things in common with, like female-centric programs or LGBT communities.”

After attending Berkeley and spending a couple of years around the world doing international humanitarian aid work, Wertman is back home in LA, working as a problem solving specialist for the Downtown Women’s Center—which, due to the pandemic, means she is working remotely out of her childhood bedroom in the Alphabet Streets.

Problem solving is a new program that, since the start of this year, Wertman has been helping pilot for the center.

“Basically what problem solving does is it’s trying to reach the people who are kind of always teetering on the edge of homelessness, which is a huge population in LA,” Wertman explained. “I think it’s around 600,000 people in Los Angeles are spending more than 90% of their income on housing, meaning that if they run into any kind of problem—even if it’s a leak that they need to fix in their house or a hospital bill, anything—you can start falling into a situation that’s really hard to get yourself out of.”

Through problem solving, the center is able to assist recipients with a single cost that will fix their homelessness or keep them from falling into it—whether it be purchasing a plane ticket to get a woman out of a domestic violence situation, which is something Wertman has helped coordinate, to covering a security deposit.

The program was launched in mid-2019 and reached the end of its budget within four months, so now it has been sustained on individual donor funds from those who have heard about the program and thought it was worthwhile.

One woman committed to $2,500 per month for one year, hoping that her contribution would help alleviate case manager burnout.

“It was the sweetest thing in the world,” Wertman said. “She came in and really connected to the problem solving program … and was even talking to me about the idea that problem solving was great because it gave the case mangers the ability to say yes and to have funds that helped people.”

Wertman shared a story about a woman she was able to help that she said shocked her grandmother: This person had been living in her car in Santa Monica for two years. Even though she was able to get and sustain a new job, the only thing that was keeping her out of a home was a $1,200 security deposit.

“To think that there’s someone in Santa Monica who’s going to work every single day, who’s making money, who is contributing back to her community and everything but just hasn’t been able to put together the money for a security deposit because of all of the setbacks and all the costs associated with homelessness,” Wertman said. “It was really just as simple as providing the money, providing the $1,200 that covered her security deposit, and she’s one of those clients where I’m very confident that she’s going to remain in housing for good.”

Wertman explained that from a policy perspective, providing this funding could save the city thousands of dollars in service costs each year.

“Hearing stories like this, seeing people like that—it’s a good reminder that people who are unhoused are not necessarily what the media has always portrayed them to be,” Wertman shared. “I feel like we’ve been conditioned from a young age to dehumanize people who don’t have homes and especially during this pandemic, during the homelessness rise after the eviction moratorium is lifted, I think programs like this are going to be extra necessary in order to catch all of the people.”

Since the pandemic began, Downtown Women’s Center has had to shift some of its programming, serving 800 meals per day.

“Even though a lot of our services were taken offline and offsite, we’ve served more meals in 2020 already than we did in all of 2019 and we’re only halfway through the year,” Wertman said.

Wertman acknowledged that being interviewed during a period of time where Black Lives Matter is a focus of conversation, she wanted to note how racialized homelessness is.

“I think that the work being done to alleviate homelessness and to increase resources for people who are unhoused is inherently racial justice work and in a way that people can get connected to it,” she shared. “I think it’s an easy entry point for people to look at the different places that are doing homelessness work and kind of try to plug in there as they’re learning about the city’s history and the United States’ systematic racism —I know a lot of people are doing a lot of learning right and I think that’s really beautiful.”

And, she said that when people are ready to serve the community, the Downtown Women’s Center is a great place to start.

“DWC accepts donations and that money can go straight toward problem solving if this is something that people are interested in donating to and it’s, right now, the most flexible stream of funding that we have that can go toward any cost that’s keeping people from stabilizing their housing,” Wertman said. “I think it’s a worthwhile thing to donate to.”

For more information or to donate funds, visit downtownwomenscenter.org.

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

Pacific Palisades native Madi Rindge, a singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, dropped her latest single, “Lucky,” on Thursday, July 30.

In the song, Rindge highlights the struggles of social distancing while trying to ignite a new romance.

“‘Lucky’ is one of the first songs I wrote during the pandemic,” Rindge explained. “I’m especially excited about this song because it feels like a time stamp in my history. Although while I was writing it, I wasn’t thinking about anything other than trying to understand what was happening in this budding ‘quarantine’ relationship and how to go about not physically being with this person.”

Rindge explained that she has been watching to see how social distance measures have shifted the way that people interact with each other, relying heavily on the internet to connect.

“Still, I think we can all agree that hugs are so underrated,” she shared.

When the Palisadian-Post last checked in with Rindge, it was April 2019 and she was debuting her self-produced single titled “7.13,” mastered by Capitol Records.

“Since April 2019, I’ve been doing a lot of live performing, about four to five nights per week, around LA—up until the pandemic shut everything down, of course,” Rindge shared. “Most of my time was filled with preparing for and traveling to and from gigs, which is something I miss a lot, especially now.”

In addition to performing, Rindge explained that she has been writing and producing new material, as well as finishing up songs that are going to be released on an EP this fall called “Island.”

“With the pandemic completely wiping out all live performance opportunities it has definitely been a strange and tough adjustment, but I have shifted how I spend my time creating,” she shared. “At first I was a little lost in how to allocate my time but as soon as I found a rhythm for myself, I started creating more than I had been in a long time.”

She explained that it felt like she had “all the time in the world” to write, play music, produce, read, meditate, catch up with friends via FaceTime and to be in nature.

“The pandemic has allowed me to enjoy my time differently and I’m very grateful for that,” she said.

Rindge was born into the world of music: Her father, Charlie Bisharat, a Grammy Award-winning violinist, introduced her to the whirlwind world of tours, studio recording sessions and awards ceremonies. She was classically trained in piano since the age of 3, writing and performing original songs by the time she was in middle school.

Rindge graduated from Palisades Charter High School in 2011 and enrolled at New York University where she studied music business, simultaneously refining her personal song writing.

For more information, visit madirindgemusic.com.