Thursday, March 17, 2011

Game Theory and Winner of Survivor -- An O.R. Surprise on Broadway




The date for the filming in NYC finally arrived -- March 15, 2011 but we were told that the part of Broadway where my interview was to take place was closed because of a setup for a major motion picture. No problem -- in scouting out the area, luckily, 42nd Street until 45th was available.

Above are photos taken of the interview, which is part of an educational program series that will air next Fall. Yul, the winner of Survivor (Cook Islands in 2006) was my interviewer. He has degrees from Stanford and Yale Law so our conversation flowed (sometimes too much, so we had to do some retakes). He attributed his win on Survivor to his knowledge of and use of game theory -- now, how cool is that?! He has also worked for the Obama Administration as the deputy chief of the consumer and governmental affairs bureau for the FCC.

We were filmed walking on Broadway in the area that has been closed to traffic since May 2009 and transformed into a pedestrian plaza. The sound and video crew were fantastic and allowed us to warm up in a Starbucks since it was cold. The entire "production" took about three hours.

Now I can tell my students that they should really study because one never knows where your expertise will take you!

The day after, the producer told me that the need to move the original site for our filming was because the Ashton Kutscher movie "New Year's Eve," was being shot on Times Square that evening.