Take a Look Behind the Scenes of ‘Floor Is Lava’
If you haven’t spent the summer watching people bounce off volcanic rocks and disappear into boiling pits of lava, you are missing out on one of the few pleasures in life these days. Floor Is Lava is a high-budget version of the game that every kid inexplicably comes up with in their living room, jumping from the foot bench to the sofa and end of the table to escape the floor filled with imaginary lava. And now we will find out some of its secrets.
The first season of the game show was released on Netflix in June and quickly became an obsession with children (and adults) all over the world. Contestants on the show continually fall face down (they seem beautiful!), Slide and slide over lava-filled surfaces, and often – but not always – disappear into a bubbling lava pit. As Christina Marfis writes for Scary Mommy :
One big question we had while watching was whether the obstacles were really designed to be soft – we were concerned about how people in the show jump from great distances only to bump into objects with their faces. … They were not soft, but everything was designed with safety in mind, and there were always safety and first aid teams on site. By all accounts , no one was seriously hurt during the filming of the first season of The Floor Is Lava .
From our behind-the-scenes review of Floor Is Lava, we learn many other interesting points about the show, including:
- The Floor Is Lava “production village” is located in a former Ikea store.
- The stunt team is testing the props in the outdoor pool and consists of people with different physical abilities, so the course will be accessible to most people.
- The development team was inspired by video game design to create multiple ways to take each course.
- Almost 2,000 towels were used for cleaning every day.
- Lava was created the same chemical laboratory that made the poison dripping from his mouth ksenomorfov in the “Alien” and ectoplasm of ghosts in “Ghostbusters.”
Not a spoiler for you: they don’t tell you where the 80,000 gallons of lava participants actually go – some things are better left unknown. But don’t worry: my 9-year-old son says he’s “pretty sure they don’t actually die.”