Behind the Scenes at San Diego Tontine Auditions

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When the new national reality TV show, Tontine, came talent-scouting in San Diego, the primetime pros knew there was only one logical locale for auditions. San Diego Convention Center? Nope. San Diego Sports Arena? Definitely not. On Saturday, August 11th, 2007, producers held Tontine San Diego auditions at the Otay Ranch Town Center in Chula Vista.

Swing a left at the empty dirt lot and look for the Classic Car Show signs. When you hear a classic rock cover-band blaring through broken speakers and notice a devious child playing with dead birds, you've made it. Appropriate? Maybe not. Accurate? Definitely.

This past Saturday, I escorted my reality TV-junkie of a boyfriend out to Otay Ranch to audition for the new reality show Tontine. As we traveled south-east in search of glorious Tontine hummers overflowing with cash and Bravo TV stars singing the sweet tune of 10 million--and found dead birds and aggressive engines ablaze instead; we realized first and foremost that Tontine was not going to be easy, or predictable.

Tontine is a theory of annuity in which a certain number of members initially share a common monetary fund, with the granted benefit of survival. As time proceeds and individuals cease to survive, each member's share increases until the entire sum is rewarded to the last survivor. The Tontine reality TV show twist, however, is: the initial monetary fund is derived from the life savings of each contestant, including assets and property. On Tontine, you have to give to get.

And like the best reality shows, there's another Tontine twist hiding in the small print. Your life savings is your life savings; whether it's $100 or $500,000. On Tontine, there is no minimum and no access to the numbers. In blindfolds of bold faith, the rich battle the poor across all seven continents for the ultimate prize of 10 million dollars.

After a few persistent laps around Otay Ranch, Tim and I discovered Tontine headquarters. Four hours late, we still managed to claim the fifth spot in line. Hmm.

Before us stood a big and bubbly thirty-something reality show fanatic ready for name-that-season trivia at any moment, a misplaced show-car owner in his mid-fifties talking shop, a tall and lanky young male tourist sporting a wide brimmed sun hat complete with a neck fan, and the oblivious aging mother of the young and restless bird-girl. As two to three more passerby characters hopped in line for their shot at 10mil, the odds remained favorable, to say the least.

Check back to see how Tim did with the Tontine production cast and crew in a behind the scenes look at Tontine, San Diego auditions.

Think you deserve to be on Tontine? Fill out the qualifying questionnaire and post your own answers on DiscoverSD.com.

And see how you would hold up in an exclusive interview with Tontine host: Survivor's own Boston Rob.