TV Real MIPTV 2012

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Prime-Time Docs Wellness Shows Werner Herzog HBO’s Sheila Nevins Yann Arthus-Bertrand www.tvreal.ws

MIPDOC, MIPTV & HOT DOCS EDITION THE MAGAZINE OF FACTUAL PROGRAMMING

APRIL 2012

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A+E Networks www.aetninternational.com • Mankind The Story of All of Us • Dance Moms • Shipping Wars

With its catalogue comprised of original series and specials from A&E Network, HISTORY, BIO, Crime & Investigation Network, Lifetime and other brands, A+E Networks has more than 450 new hours to present. “We’re looking forward to introducing Mankind The Story of All of Us (working title), an epic 12-hour mega-doc that will explore the history of the human race,” says Sean Cohan, the senior VP of international for A+E Networks. “We will also reveal the new hit series Shipping Wars, which looks at the world of movers who transport the unshippable.”

Cohan adds that A+E Networks is also ramping up its global format production endeavors, with plans to roll out Pawn Stars, The Marriage Test (working title), Monster In-Laws and Dance Moms, among several other new titles. “Finally, we will be offering new history content commissioned for our U.S. pay-TV brand H2, which launched late last year,” Cohan adds. “We are also aiming to advance our channels’ causes by acquiring new content at the market.”

Dance Moms

“A+E Networks is off to a strong start in 2012 and we anticipate a great MIPTV.” —Sean Cohan

AFL Productions www.aflproductions.com Cities from Above & Beyond

• 2Rude4UTube • Naked & Funny • Cities from Above & Beyond

IN THIS ISSUE

Blue Chip and Beyond Multipart docs are sitting alongside wildlife specials in prime-time slots 28

Fit for TV Programs focused on health and wellness are in demand 36

Interviews Werner Herzog HBO’s Sheila Nevins Yann ArthusBertrand

42 44 46

The hidden-camera program Naked & Funny has sold to more than 50 countries and last year added the U.S. to its roster. “In 2012, we’re expecting even more sales to even more territories for this groundbreaking, sexy, hilarious program,” says Yuri Volodarsky, the head of development and distribution at AFL Productions. He also highlights the comedy series 2Rude4UTube, which features user-generated clips of people behaving badly. “Our new series and format 2Rude4UTube will grab buyers’ attention first with its title and second with its excellent content,”Volodarsky says. Also of note is Cities from Above & Beyond, a collection of clips featuring various indemand destinations.

“We create, develop, produce and distribute only those programs and formats that grab their target audience and never let go,”Volodarsky says. “We produce the best programs for each televised entertainment slot. Our programs do incredibly well both in their original markets and abroad.”

“We’re always ready for new buyers, big budgets and creative ideas for co-production.

”

—Yuri Volodarsky

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APT Worldwide www.aptww.org Through a Dog’s Eyes

• Manifest Destiny • Most Valuable Players • Through a Dog’s Eyes

Ricardo Seguin Guise

Publisher Anna Carugati

Editor Mansha Daswani

Executive Editor Kristin Brzoznowski

Managing Editor Marissa Graziadio

Editorial Assistant Simon Weaver

Online Director Meredith Miller Lauren Uda

Manifest Destiny takes a sweeping look at the 19th-century American belief in westward expansion, along with exploring the role the U.S. should play in the world today. Produced

by JAK Films, a division of Lucasfilm, the program is among the lead offerings from APT Worldwide.“We are also bringing Most Valuable Players from Canyonback Films, a funny, entertaining look at high-school drama clubs who are competing for a best-musical award in their region, and which was a pick for Oprah Winfrey’s Documentary Club,” says Judy Barlow, theVP of international sales at APT Worldwide.

“And, finally, we have a heartwarming film about service dogs who are trained to assist physically disabled individuals called Through a Dog’s Eyes, from TPT National Productions.”

Barlow says many of the company’s programs work across genres,“like Manifest Destiny, which can be licensed as a series or as individual programs for both history and currentaffairs slots.”

“ As new media matures, we’re looking for proven revenue streams and partnerships that will help keep entry costs down for these platforms.

”

—Judy Barlow

Production & Design Directors Phyllis Q. Busell

Art Director Cesar Suero

Sales & Marketing Director Terry Acunzo

Business Affairs Manager Vanessa Brand

Sales & Marketing Assistant

Ricardo Seguin Guise

President Anna Carugati

Executive VP & Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani

VP of Strategic Development TV Real © 2012 WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, #1207 New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website:

www.tvreal.ws

Argonon International www.argononinternational.com • Tourette’s All Stars • Missing • Robbed, Raided and Reunited

With a raft of new series for MIPTV, in addition to established formats, Argonon International hopes to broaden its reach into new territories. “Confidence has returned to the market and we anticipate a strong appetite for inspiring and heartwarming popular factual content,” says Katie Stephenson, the sales manager at Argonon International. She adds that Argonon is increasingly representing third-party content in order to offer a diverse range of popular programming.

The company’s offerings feature Tourette’s All Stars (working title), a series that takes three young people with Tourette’s syndrome on a journey to unearth their musical talent. In addition, season five of Missing, which continues to enjoy success on the BBC, is available to buyers.The show’s combination of real stories, viewer engagement and a public-service remit has attracted interest from buyers around the world, Stephenson says.The format Robbed, Raided and Reunited has universal appeal as well, Stephenson points out, as it focuses on burglary, the most common crime faced by ordinary citizens.

Tourette’s All Stars

“ We are taking a worldclass portfolio to market, with a combination of successfully road-tested series, innovative new series and a broad range of genres, ranging from factual to art.

”

—Katie Stephenson

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ARTE France www.artepro.com/sales Éric Cantona and the Football Rebels

• It’s a Bet! Sports and Gambling • 360° Geo Reports • Éric Cantona and the Football Rebels

As the distribution arm of a well-known European public broadcaster, ARTE Sales is backed by strong brand recognition to help drive sales. “[Our aim is to provide] creative programs to all media that can rely on ARTE’s strong brand with its high public profile and excellent image,” says Cédric Hazard, the head of international sales and acquisitions.“We will do our best to bring documentaries to prime-time slots on more and more TV channels worldwide, leaning on our ambitious editorial policy.”

ARTE Sales has a catalogue that offers more than 2,000 hours of documentary content co-produced by ARTE in association with production companies from around the world. New content for MIPTV includes the current-affairs program It’s a Bet! Sports and Gambling, an investigative story available in English, German and French, as well as the sports offering Éric Cantona and the Football Rebels. Also on offer is the series 360° Geo Reports, which explores nature, technology and remote civilizations across the globe through meticulously documented reports.

“ARTE Sales’ main goal this year for MIPDoc and MIPTV is to establish ourselves as the ultimate reference in documentary distribution.

”

—Cédric Hazard

CABLEready www.cableready.net Inside the Actors Studio

• Deals from the Dark Side • Saw Dogs • Inside the Actors Studio

This year marks CABLEready’s 20th anniversary, and the company plans to celebrate in Cannes. CABLEready will be bringing out Deals from the Dark Side, led by the eccentric relic collector Steve Santini, who’s on a quest to buy and authenticate dark and haunted items. Master carver Steve Blanchard leads the action in the series Saw Dogs, which delves into the world of chainsaw carving. “Many of our series are driven by strong characters,” says Gary Lico, CABLEready’s president and CEO. “Due to increased market demand we are also developing similar original shows that we believe will successfully fit this mold.”

There are also new episodes from one of its longest running shows, Inside the Actors Studios. “The series is extremely popular worldwide thanks to the combination of host James Lipton and the engaging interviews he conducts with some of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood,” Lico says. The new episodes feature such stars as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and the cast of Mad Men.

“The main strength of our slate is that it continues to provide buyers with highquality, entertaining programming for a global audience across several key programming genres.

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—Gary Lico

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Canamedia www.canamedia.com Ice Hotels

• The Luxury List • Silent Invaders • Ice Hotels

Viewers can follow along with noted restaurateur and travel aficionado Jody Ness as he crisscrosses the globe on a quest for the best the world has to offer in The Luxury List.The 13x30-minute series, produced in HD, leads off Canamedia’s highlights for buyers at MIPTV and MIPDoc. The wildlife series Silent Invaders is a first-ofits-kind conservation reality show that gets up close with invasive species, which are one of the greatest threats to the world’s natural resources. Exploring history, architecture and culture, the hour-long Ice Hotels uses innovative cinematography to look at a Quebec City hotspot.

The Ice Hotel, which contains 36 themed suites created and constructed entirely out of ice, is explored for the first time through a 3D lens.

“Along with our new finished programming, as Canamedia is now producing, this time around we are highlighting our new factual projects in development to commissioning editors worldwide,” says Andrea Stokes, the company’s international sales and acquisitions manager.

“Canamedia is coming to MIPTV 2012 with a diverse slate of stunning new 3D and HD specials and also a focus on luxury travel and new bluechip one-off documentaries.

”

—Andrea Stokes

Discovery Access www.discoveryaccess.com Desert footage on Discovery Access

As the footage-licensing division of Discovery Communications, Discovery Access has a library that is both deep and diverse. “The strength of Discovery Access is not only in the sheer diversity and quality of the footage, but in the fact that it’s quite new to the marketplace,” says Jocelyn Shearer, the VP of Discovery Access.

“You won’t find any shots in our collection that are tired and overused. Think of all the places Discovery has gone, all the shows we’ve produced with the industry’s best production companies, and the variety of the programming on our 28 networks, from Behind the Killer Tornadoes to Toddlers & Tiaras to An Idiot Abroad to My Strange Addiction to Gold Rush Alaska. All those locations, the action captured, the range of shooting styles—it’s pretty staggering when you think of it as one body of work.”

Shearer says that a main goal for MIPTV is to raise awareness about the company. “We want to let people know we’re here, we’ve got phenomenal content, a state-of-the-art e-commerce website, and we’re open for business!”

“ I’ve worked in this business for a long time, and Discovery Access is the holy grail of content, believe me.

”

—Jocelyn Shearer

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Media Networks Latin America www.mnlatam.com • Peru Is Flavour • Stone Cities, Adobe Cities • Colors of Faith

Finding distribution partners for Europe and Asia tops the MIPTV to-do list of Ricardo Guzmán, the distribution director at Media Networks Latin America.

The company is presenting a slate that offers unique aspects of Peruvian culture for international viewers, Guzmán says, from gastronomy to ancient architecture to traditional celebrations.

In Peru Is Flavour, chefs Ferrán Adrià and Gastón Acurio address social trends that started in Peruvian kitchens. They travel around Peru in search of stories that reflect the illusion, the effort and ambition of people linked to farming, harvesting and processing food crops. Stone Cities, Adobe Cities travels back in time to solve the mysteries of the construction of ancient buildings in Latin America, in cities made of stone and cities made of adobe. Guzmán also highlights Colors of Faith, which he says is the first documentary series that portrays the most important festivals in the Andean world from the perspective of their participants.

Colors of Faith

“ The richness and diversity of Peruvian culture, past and present, attracts and interests people all over the world.

”

—Ricardo Guzmán

National Film Board of Canada www.nfb.ca Surviving Progress

• Exile • Payback • Surviving Progress

This year’s Academy Award nominees for best short animated film included two titles from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Sunday and Wild Life.The NFB, Canada’s public producer and distributor, is dedicated to projects that provide the world with a unique Canadian perspective.“We have a very strong slate of hard-hitting, feature documentaries about global issues that appeal to our international clientele,” says Christina Rogers, the NFB’s head of sales.

For MIPTV, lead titles include Exile, a special that is an investigation of one of the most enduring questions of Western civilization: that of the Roman exile of the Jewish people.The 90-minute doc Payback, which was launched at the Sundance Film Festival, looks at debt as a mental construct, examining how it influences relationships, societies, governing structure and, to some extent, the fate of the planet. Also 90 minutes in length, Surviving Progress is inspired by Ronald Wright’s best-selling nonfiction book about societal collapse.

The film was executive produced by Martin Scorsese. It explores the idea of “progress traps” in the modern world.

“ We are expecting strong sales for the new documentary and animation films, particularly in Europe.

”

—Christina Rogers

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National Geographic Channels International www.natgeotvsales.com • Test Your Brain • Timbavati: An Epic Cat Story • The Border

Last fall, National Geographic Channels International (NGCI) acquired National Geographic Television International (NGTI)’s sales-and-distribution operations and content library, amounting to more than 1,000 hours. The arrangement should make for an exciting MIPTV for NGCI, as it marks the first major international event with its newly merged catalogue and global sales team. “With hundreds of new hours of programming, covering stories from pop culture to the world of science, natural history, current affairs and lost civilizations, we have a broad range of genres available that work well across all factual schedules,” says Germaine Deagan Sweet, the senior VP of global content sales for NGCI. Lead titles include Test Your Brain, a three-part special that showcases interactive experiments to see how easily the brain can be fooled. Timbavati: An Epic Cat Story is a blue-chip natural-history production, filmed over two years and following three big cats. The Border, returning to the market with new episodes, continues in its fourth season.

The Border

“ Our catalogue is an excellent example of NGC’s strength as a diverse and relevant supplier of programming.

”

—Germaine Deagan Sweet

NordicWorld www.nordicworld.tv Never Ever Do This at Home

• 22 July 2011 • The Exorcist in the 21st Century • Never Ever Do This at Home

There are as many as 15 new productions that NordicWorld will launch to the international market at MIPTV and MIPDoc. “MIPTV is a great place to catch up with old friends and clients and meet new ones,” says Espen Huseby, the CEO of NordicWorld. “For us, it is the most important market of the year, mainly because it incorporates MIPDoc, which means that the whole factual world will be in Cannes for those few days in late March and early April.”

On NordicWorld’s factual slate is a package of 22 July 2011 documentaries, which examine the horrific massacre that happened in Norway last summer.The trial of the terrorist who killed 77 people on a murderous rampage across Oslo and the island of Utøya starts in mid-April. NordicWorld is also showcasing the documentary The Exorcist in the 21st Century, taking viewers into the strange and sinister world of exorcism in the Catholic Church. Topping things off is the myth-busting show Never Ever Do This at Home, available as a finished series and a format.

“We like to think of ourselves as a real one-stop shop for the best product coming out of the Nordic region.

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—Espen Huseby

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Optimum Television www.optimumtelevision.com Earth Series

• On Hannibal’s Trail • Earth Series • Chocolate Covered

On Hannibal’s Trail is part of Optimum Television’s catalogue of history, lifestyle and factual-entertainment programs.The series follows three Australian brothers who are cycling the trail the military commander Hannibal took more than 2,000 years ago, when he made his historic charge on the Roman Empire.“Over 2 million viewers watched the series during its premiere on BBC Four,” says Upma Bhatnagar, the director of sales at Optimum. Also on the company’s slate are two films from the Earth Series: The Sacred Earth and Echoes of Creation.The series Chocolate Covered returns for a second season with the renowned pastry chef Claire Clark, as she travels across the globe in search of chocolate delicacies.

Bhatnagar says that “variety and quality” are the two leading strengths of the catalogue. “It offers a range of options and choices for broadcasters,” she adds. “Over the years, the company has built a wonderful rapport and association with some of the top broadcasters globally. During the forthcoming MIPTV, we hope to strengthen our relationship with our existing partners while forging new ties.”

“Our palette for MIPTV is studded with an exciting array of new shows spread across almost all genres of programming.

”

—Upma Bhatnagar

Panini Media www.thelicensingmachine.com • Inside F.D.N.Y. Training Center • Napoleon Without Concession • History Secrets

Providing a never-before-seen look at New York firefighters’ facilities on Randall’s Island, Inside F.D.N.Y. Training Center is on offer from Panini Media as an hourlong documentary, along with a 26-minute special newsfootage pack. The project, from DOC Story, provides unprecedented access, as this is the first time a production team has been authorized to enter the facility.

Panini Media is also offering buyers Napoleon Without Concession. Another DOC Story production, this historical series looks in-depth at the life of this man who changed Europe. Panini is also touting History Secrets, which spotlights a number of historical figures, including Marie Antoinette and Tutankhamen, revealing intimate and hidden secrets. “From the most influential and important historical figures to a dedicated first-ever produced series about Napoleon, we are bringing to the market unique new productions,” says Bruno Zarka, Panini Media’s TV, home video and digital sales and services manager.

“Panini Media is aiming to become a globally recognized provider of quality family entertainment.

”

—Bruno Zarka

Inside F.D.N.Y. Training Center

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Passion Distribution www.passiondistribution.com Push Girls

• Push Girls • Lifeguard!

• Kidnapped by the Kids

The mix of programming that Passion Distribution is presenting is peppered with “out of the ordinary stories and hugely inspiring characters,” says CEO Sally Miles. This includes Push Girls, from Sundance Channel, about a group of inspiring young women in wheelchairs. Lifeguard!, produced by LMNO Productions for The Weather Channel, features real-life rescues on the beaches and in the treacherous waters of California. “The stories and rescues have to be seen to be believed,” says Miles. Kidnapped by the Kids, produced by Love Productions for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, follows as children interrupt their parents’ busy workfilled lives to spend quality time together.

“We expect our buyers to be arriving with an appetite to acquire strong, compelling series and those well-known, long-running series and brands,” Miles says.“They won’t be looking to take too many big gambles and will be looking for programming with a track record. We represent some great U.S. broadcasters and their channel successes will be of huge comfort to our global channel buyers.”

“ Many of the series we represent are returning with new seasons, offering a successful bedrock for the schedules.

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—Sally Miles

Power www.powcorp.com The World’s Most Fashionable Prison

• Dragons 3D • Surfing Soweto • The World’s Most Fashionable Prison

Power recently struck a deal with Natural History Unit (NHU) Africa to represent a large volume of naturalhistory documentaries.The agreement marks Power’s latest efforts to diversify its portfolio, which already includes a slate of acquired lifestyle, biographical, crime and investigative factual content. Susan Waddell, Power’s CEO, says,“This MIPTV we look to drive home the message that Power now distributes factual as well as drama and already has a strong lineup featuring unique perspectives on a diverse range of issues and personalities. There are 160 hours of beautifully filmed HD natural-history programming, uncompromising investigations into chilling crimes and appalling atrocities and work by multi-award-winning producers and narrators.”

Power is showcasing its first 3D film, Dragons 3D, a crocodile documentary currently being produced by NHU Africa. Other highlights include the award-winning 90minute special Surfing Soweto, documenting the deadly sport of train surfing, and The World’s Most Fashionable Prison.

“Power is delighted to announce its entry into factual content with its newly acquired slate of documentaries.

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—Susan Waddell

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Solid Entertainment www.solidentertainment.com The Minutemen

• Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace • Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story • The Minutemen

The subject of illegal immigration is one of the most volatile issues of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Shining a light on this topic is The Minutemen, from Solid Entertainment. “The subjects of this documentary put a human face on a hotly contested public policy,” says Richard Propper, Solid’s director of international licensing. In Under the Boardwalk:The Monopoly Story, one of the world’s most beloved board games takes center stage.

“Monopoly’s story and history are fascinating,” says Propper. The true story of the men who brought forth one of the most important peace agreements to the Middle East is told in Back Door Channels:The Price of Peace.

“Finding good programming has always been a challenge,” Propper says. “We’ve had some excellent new titles arrive in time for this market. Many of our titles start off as feature docs with a targeted theatrical release.

By the time we arrive for MIP, the one-hour version is usually ready for the buyers. I’m very pleased with this market’s lineup.”

“ Two thousand eleven was a very good year for us. We are looking to sustain that momentum and continue our growth in 2012.

”

—Richard Propper

Studio3 TV www.documentarychannel.it • Guadalupe, a Living Image • Mayan Prophecies and Crop Circles • Mexico: Contact Point

Having been in the video production-field for more than a decade, Studio3 TV has worked across a number of areas, from commercials to institutional films, from TV programs to documentaries. The latter is the trump card of Studio3 TV’s business, according to Beatrice Favazza, a sales consultant for the company.

Productions include Guadalupe, A Living Image, an investigation of the secrets of a local miracle; The Mystery of the Holy House, looking into the heart of Christianity; and Mayan Prophecies and Crop Circles, examining the connection between ancient Sumerian symbols, UFO sightings, the Mayan calendar and crop circles.

Other productions include The Pyramid of Cheops, The Enigma of Flying Spheres, Mexico: Contact Point and UFO in South America. There are two installments of Explorer: Discovering Peru. The first part features a journey among the megaliths of Sacsayhuamán, while part two delves further into the truths and legends that are part of Peru’s history and culture.

Mexico: Contact Point

“All of our documentaries have been broadcast

by Italian, European, American and Asian TV channels, and many of them are award-winning programs.

”

—Beatrice Favazza

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Terranoa www.terranoa.com • Alps from Above • Twilight of Civilizations • DNA: The Brain Boosting Magazine

With a number of presales already under its belt, including in the U.S., Alps from Above is positioned as a lead title from Terranoa. The 10x52-minute series shows a birds-eye view of this impressive landmass, shot over several seasons. From the history arena comes Twilight of Civilizations, which revisits the collapses of ancient Egypt and the Khmer Empire. Two episodes will be ready in June and Terranoa is looking for gap-financing to support the mini-series, says Isabelle Graziadey, the company’s head of international sales and acquisitions.

Meanwhile, DNA: The Brain Boosting Magazine is a collection of short programs covering popular science from all angles. “A dedicated website, which we have been working on for more than six months now, will be launched in time for MIPTV,” Graziadey says.

“Buyers will be able to view this online and receive the content they choose via FTP. We hope this tool will prove handy and we are hoping to grow this magazine-dedicated sales platform over the years.”

Alps from Above

“ Our clients know they can trust our catalogue for new, innovative factual programs, whether series, prestigious prime-time one-offs, fillers or magazine formats.

”

—Isabelle Graziadey

TPI www.tpiltd.com Call of the White

• Call of the White • The Nip Tuck Trip • Sing Freedom

Viewers can join the British polar explorer Felicity Aston as she and a team of women from different countries ski to the South Pole in Call of the White.The HD doc, being showcased by TPI at MIPTV, watches as the women navigate one of the most dangerous terrains on earth, and set six world records in the process.TPI has a number of other new HD releases for the market as well, including The Nip Tuck Trip, a documentary that watches as three New Zealanders travel to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for a cosmetic surgery holiday. Sing Freedom features presenter Hassan Mohamed as he goes underground to talk with musicians who have risked their lives to help topple dictators.

“We look forward to introducing our newest releases to our existing customers and meeting new buyers as well,” says Ron Alexander, the president of TPI. “Also, as TPI is actively involved in co-productions, we are always looking for interesting project opportunities in all regions of the world. We’re always on the lookout for strong, character-driven stories.”

“We look for diversity and creativity in our programs, from shows about people overcoming the odds to the triumph of the human spirit.

”

—Ron Alexander

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Veria Living Worldwide www.verialiving.com/programsales Yoga for Any Body

• My Life Guru • Yoga for Any Body • Healthy Eats Road Trip

In keeping with its role as a premier provider of healthylifestyle-and-wellness programming,Veria Living Worldwide is unveiling several new programs at MIPTV that focus on improving people’s lives. The docu-series My Life Guru features former model turned yoga master Yogi Cameron as he sets clients on a path to wellness. Yoga expert Sadie Nardini leads the daily series Yoga for Any Body, while the renowned healthy-food chef Nathan Lyon takes viewers on culinary adventures in Healthy Eats Road Trip.

“One of our biggest strengths this market is in providing daypart-specific programming,” says Raymond Donahue, the senior VP of program sales at Veria Living Worldwide. “We’re hitting on a large segment of the population with this type of programming by filling a need in the marketplace across many dayparts, as well as in prime time. In addition, we are very strong with women 18 to 35, making our content and programming blocks attractive to broadcasters globally.”

“ With over 700 hours of new original programs in production, our new fitness and healthycooking programs are the perfect fit for any programmer looking to increase its viewership.

”

—Raymond Donahue

ZED www.zed.fr The Rise and Fall of Versailles

• The Rise and Fall of Versailles • The Nano Revolution • Looking for Nicolas Sarkozy

Historically a niche distributor, with genres such as nature and ethnology, ZED has over the past three years opened its catalogue to other major themes such as history, current affairs, science, wildlife, adventure and travel.The company recently closed programming deals with a number of renowned international producers, including Les Films d’Ici, Roche Productions, Bonne Pioche, 360 Degree Films, Essential Media and Entertainment and Telfrance.

ZED will be in Cannes with 28 new titles, including The Rise and Fall of Versailles, The Nano Revolution and Looking for Nicolas Sarkozy. New to the ZED catalogue, The Rise and Fall of Versailles is a prime-time docu-fiction trilogy produced for BBC and France Télévisions on the reign of France’s most famous monarchs. Another recent program from ZED’s catalogue, The Nano Revolution, is produced for NHK, CBC and ARTE. The doc Looking for Nicolas Sarkozy is a political portrait of the French president. ZED is also using MIPTV as an opportunity to secure financing for a range of projects, among them The Vaccine According to Bill Gates.

Looking for Nicolas Sarkozy

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BBC Worldwide’s Frozen Planet.

By Bill Dunlap

Blue Chip And Beyond

Multipart documentaries are sitting alongside expensive wildlife specials in channels’ prime-time schedules.

E

ndangered species have long been favorite subjects for the makers of blue-chip prime-time documentaries.

Filmmakers would stalk the few remaining snow leopards or black rhinos or giant pandas for a couple of years to produce beautiful hour-long or two-hour specials.

But lately, that kind of expensive, narrowly focused documentary is showing some signs of becoming an endangered species itself. They’re not going away, of course, but the big producers of blue-chips are leaning more toward broad subjects that lend themselves to mini-series of four, six, eight or more hours.

Multipart documentaries can be produced to high standards at lower per-hour cost when compared with one-offs, network executives say, and they offer greater promotion opportunities.

Examples of recent and upcoming documentary mini-series include, from ZDF in Germany, Last Secrets of the Third Reich (six hours), Holy War on militant Islam (four hours) and Planet Egypt (four hours). From the BBC in the U.K. there is the recently aired Frozen Planet (seven hours) and the upcoming History of the World (eight hours), both co-produced by Discovery Channel, Attenborough’s Life Stories (three hours) and Brazil with Michael Palin (four hours). HISTORY has Mankind The Story of All of Us (12 hours), The Men Who Built America 224

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(eight hours) and the recent Vietnam in HD (six hours), and from National Geographic Channel there is Untamed Americas (four hours).

APPOINTMENT VIEWING

HISTORY, which has had booming ratings with reality series like American Pickers and Pawn Stars, sees mini-series as a way to increase viewership of its documentary offerings.

“We were doing 52 two-hour specials a year,” says Dirk Hoogstra, the channel’s senior VP of development and programming.“From a ratings perspective, they weren’t keeping pace with our series numbers.We realized that if you’re doing 52 specials a year, they’re not going to feel all that special. If you do a big sixpart event and you do it in a way that feels like appointment viewing, that seems to be a better strategy for us.”

While HISTORY continues to develop reality series, such as its new Full Metal Jousting, Hoogstra says historical documentaries will always be a key part of the schedule.

“The Men Who Built America focuses on the industrial age and the big robber barons who built the financial and industrial superpower that is this country,” he says. “From the time that the Civil War ended until World War II, we went from what looked like a failed experiment to superpower in a short 4/12

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different budget than something in a set location.”

The channel, which has a longstanding relationship with the German public broadcaster ZDF, chiefly for World War II programs, has cut back on the number of co-production deals it enters.“We do very little co-production,” Hoogstra says. “We want to fully commission and wholly own. We still have a relationship with ZDF and we continue to do some strategic things like that. It helps with our international business, but it’s a small percentage.”

X MARKS THE SPOT

Back in time: The four-part Planet Egypt aired during ZDF’s primetime Terra X block.

time. This focuses on the key players, the J. P. Morgans and Vanderbilts and their stories, what their impact was.”

The 12-hour Mankind The Story of All of Us is a natural follow-up to the network’s earlier America The Story of Us, Hoogstra says.

“We decided, let’s make it even bigger and tell the whole course of human civilization. There are a million reasons, over the course of our time on this planet, where we could have been wiped out completely.We home in on those key moments. It’s really these amazing coincidences over time that allowed us to get to where we are now. It’s like we’re looking at man as the underdog, overcoming all these odds to be able to be this superhero.”

The channel calls Mankind an “ambitious” and “cinematic” production with CGI effects and dramatic reconstructions of the most critical events in human history.

REAL DRAMA

Blurring the line between documentary and drama is the scripted six-hour mini-series The Hatfields and McCoys: An American Vendetta, starring Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.

“That’s a core piece of American history,” Hoogstra says. “It coincides with the anniversary of the Civil War, which is where the feud was born. We make our historical dramas as historically accurate as possible. We’ve had historians poring over the scripts. At some point you have to make some dramatic leaps, but it’s really important to us and to our viewers that it has at its core a lot of historical basis.”

HISTORY doesn’t disclose budgets for its series, but Hoogstra acknowledges that blue-chip documentaries are relatively expensive.

“I want to pay for the show they tell me they’re going to deliver,” he says. “I don’t look at what the market says an hour of programming should cost. There’s a wide range, depending on the subject matter. If you’re out in the wilderness and there are a lot of unknowns, there’s going to be a 226

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At ZDF, too, the emphasis is on mini-series documentaries. ZDF has a Tuesday evening documentary slot, but its showcase documentary block is Terra X on Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m., which is increasingly devoted to series of two to six parts, says Kristina Hollstein, the director of co-productions and development for factual at ZDF Enterprises.

“Terra X really is a brand in Germany,” Hollstein says.“There may be one-offs, but usually we have series in the Terra X slot.

And that does very well in terms of marketing.”

While most of ZDF’s programming on the Nazi era has been pushed back to late-night slots, the broadcaster still does one series a year on World War II in prime time, Hollstein says.

Last Secrets of the Third Reich in the Terra X slot uncovers little-known stories about the most powerful Nazis, including the fact that Adolf Hitler pretended to be poor but amassed a huge private fortune.

“We would only have Last Secrets in prime time if there was new material that had been found and new archives or investigations, and that was the case,” Hollstein says. “We have looked at these individuals before, but now there are new archives and documents found that made it worthwhile to have another look.”

The four-hour Planet Egypt attempts to find out why the world’s first great civilization was also its longest-lasting.

“What was the glue that made this empire persist for more than 3,000 years?” Hollstein asks. “Egypt is a topic that still works quite well. You need to cover stories that people are already aware of in a certain way so they go to it and watch it, and then find new insights.”

Holy War, also four hours, traces the history of Islam from its foundation up to the present day. “The series uses big reenactments of historical events that are really being made movie-like with very high production values,” Hollstein says.

“It’s ancient history that looks at the origins of the Holy War. The last [episode] is about the World Trade Center attack and bin Laden, and how he was caught.”

ZDF also puts some lighter documentary fare in the Terra X slot. One strand is On the Road in World History, hosted by the German actor and comedian Hape Kerkeling.

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Origin story: The epic America The Story of Us was such a success for HISTORY that the channel is now working on a follow-up.

“He will dress up as Cleopatra or Queen Victoria,” Hollstein says. “It also has little documentary [segments] and then he appears again. It’s a more entertaining way of presenting history.”

It’s that kind of storytelling that stands out now to Hollstein.

“It’s not so much the topics, but the way the stories are being told, with a more modern look. One of the trends is that documentaries become more magazine-like.You have within the documentary a lot of little stories together under one umbrella.You tend to have more presenters and celebrities.”

The BBC broadcasts documentary series and one-offs, but Mark Reynolds, the commercial director for factual at BBC Worldwide’s Indie Unit, notes that the current economic climate has pushed most producers and distributors to focus more on series. “It’s probably more acute now, but I think that’s always been the distributors’ preference,” he says.

“From our point of view, the financial model is better for us if it’s a series, there’s no getting away from that, but we’ve had equally good success with some of our single films.”

Buyers see some advantages in each type, Reynolds points out. They like the flexibility one-offs provide as content for their own anthologies or strands, and they like the way a successful series can keep audiences coming back week after week. “When you look at the U.S. market, all those channels are looking more for series than singles,” he continues.“If it is a single, it has to be a big special in terms of 90 minutes or two hours that you can get good promotion around.”

History of the World, like HISTORY’s Mankind, is a broad subject that demands a series, in its case eight one-hours, covering 70,000 years of human history. The series, set for later this year, is a co-production with Discovery Channel.

“The way to bring a historical documentary into a primetime slot is by giving it all those key elements you see in drama series, in terms of the pacing, the visualization and really making sure the storytelling is as gripping as it can be,” Reynolds says. “It’s all rigorously researched. We’re not tampering with that, but we are making sure we can bring these subjects alive in a new way and bring them to a new audience.”

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At 85, Sir David Attenborough is considered a national treasure in Britain for his work in broadcasting, much of it with the BBC’s Natural History Unit. The upcoming three-hour Attenborough’s Life Stories marks his 60th year in broadcasting with a biographical look at his work. “It’s a look back, but it’s a brand-new series,” Reynolds says.

“I don’t think there is anyone more widely traveled for such a long period of time. He is unique in that he can give that historical perspective as to what’s happened to the environment.”

And Michael Palin, who has all but eclipsed his seminal role with the Monty Python crew by turning into a presenter and maker of travel documentaries, will be back this year with the four-hour Brazil with Michael Palin.

“Brazil is something Michael thought of and brought to the BBC,” Reynolds says. “It’s a massive country and, like much of South America, on the verge of an explosion in terms of its economy. We’ve got some big landmark sporting events coming up and whenever that happens there is a lot more interest in these countries. Brazil is beautifully shot and brings the history and culture through the stories people tell Michael.”

Brazil and the Attenborough series are wholly owned by the BBC, while the larger scope and costs of History of the World required a partner. “The point of co-production is to do things on a bigger scale,” Reynolds says. “In our naturalhistory series, the majority of those are in production from two to four years. Frozen Planet was four years in the making.

You can’t do those series on the BBC license fee alone.There is also an editorial benefit—having another pair of eyes looking at a series can really help.”

GLOBAL SCALE

Crews shooting the four-hour Untamed Americas for National Geographic Channel (NGC) were in the field for two years, at considerable expense and risk. However, the channels’ global reach and massive potential audience mean that they seldom need co-production partners.

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Sealing the deal: One of NGC’s upcoming event documentaries is Untamed Americas, for which cameraman spent two years filming in challenging conditions.

“We mostly commission originals here in the States that will then go around the world to the National Geographic Channels in all parts of the globe,” says David Lyle, CEO of NGC in the U.S. “Untamed Americas sits right in our sweetest of sweet spots. It draws on our reputation for fantastic natural-history stuff.

Nowadays it has to be fantastic.The commonplace will not do.”

Lyle says he sees a trend away from one-offs toward series, but he wants the channels’ single programs to be big events, too. “We want them to be spectacular. At the same time, we’re looking at a higher number of series. We’re looking at six-, eight-, ten-parters. We look for the sort of material that has authenticity and is really about something.”

Lyle stresses that he doesn’t want to do a series that is just six or eight versions of a one-off, the same story over and over.

“What is going to be the entertainment value to keep people longer than one hour?” he asks. “There are some things for which half an hour would do. It usually comes down to, are there characters involved in this that will go from week to week so that people will return to see characters they are interested in? The human element becomes important, plus the jeopardy or drama, wanting to know what happens next.”

Untamed Americas has its full share of such jeopardy and drama, Lyle says. “The poor, hard-working cameramen and producers spent two years in freezing, boiling, life-threatening, bruising conditions. They went from one tip of North America to the southernmost tip of South America and all points in between. In one case they had to clamber down cliffs in Peru, following these amazing penguins. These penguins are really in a desert environment up in the dry and they have to come 230

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down the cliffs where there are these huge sea lions that would love to eat them. The penguins have to jump over these things and our guys had to follow them there, which involved rappeling down these sharp rocks. Plus the entire place is covered with penguin, sea lion and bird [excrement].”

MILESTONE MOMENTS

One-offs are still in the mix, often keyed to milestones and anniversaries. Like HISTORY with The Hatfields and McCoys, NGC will be exploring dramatized history with a two-hour program on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln for early 2013. “Killing Lincoln looks at the last days of the life of Lincoln,” Lyle says. “We’re doing that with Ridley and Tony Scott. It’s a mix of scripted and documentary. It’s not a straight dramatization like [HBO’s] John Adams.There are segments of reenactments, some with dialogue, some without.”

And in April, for the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, National Geographic will present Save the Titanic with Bob Ballard. The same week will see the premiere of Titanic:The Final Word with James Cameron, a two-hour analysis of just what went wrong on April 14, 1912.

“We will never stray from our core material,” Lyle says. “We’ll do specials like Untamed Americas, but we’ll mix that up with series that have raucous characters in them, like Are You Tougher than a Boy Scout? [from Thom Beers’ Original Productions]. It’s in our world, the outdoors. One can fall into a trap of confusing content with production technique.We would always want our content to be something that is right for National Geographic, even if we use contemporary production techniques to tell the story.”

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Fit TV

Programs focused on health and wellness are being given a boost by the VOD and home-video markets, alongside strong merchandising opportunities.

By Kristin Brzoznowski

for

W

ith the hustle and bustle of the daily grind, we all need a little time to focus on improving ourselves, be it our nutrition, physical health or overall wellness. Many are turning to TV shows for practical tips on making positive changes for living a better lifestyle.

“People are really getting fed up with the traditional means of getting healthy,” says Raymond Donahue, the head of program sales for Veria Living, a 24-hour health-and-wellness channel.“It seems to me that there’s this whole global phenomenon for the holistic and natural approach to improving your lifestyle; there’s this trend for people to start feeling better.”

Donahue points out that people’s work habits have changed in recent years, putting an increased amount of stress on the brain and the body.“There’s no such thing as a 40-hour workweek,” he says. “People are in a constant rat race, but they want to feel better inside and out. Part of that is trying to find ways and means to do so without taking drugs and all that sort of stuff that puts side effects on your body.

By doing yoga, meditating, looking at herbs and doing natural things, people are feeling better.”

Petra Schneider, the director of distribution at Deutsche Welle (DW), echoes the sentiment that daily life has become more hectic in recent years. She, too, has noticed this growing interest in health-and-wellness shows.“It is becoming more difficult for people to find the right balance between their work and private lives,” Schneider says. “By examining issues like fitness, nutrition and health, these shows offer a way for viewers to access information easily and pick up tips that will help them find that balance.”

William Sondheim, the president of Gaiam, believes that fitness-related programming is enjoying unparalleled exposure as of late, through a number of different outlets.“People are more informed due to the multitude of ways that information is delivered, whether it be increased television programming, content

Gaiam’s The FIRM.

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Taking a stand: Feel Fine is a new offering from Deutsche Welle that showcases the latest developments in healthy living.

online or magazines.That, coupled with the desire to look and feel young well into and beyond your midlife” has contributed to the popularity of wellness programming, Sondheim notes.“Parents are older than the generations before them and they want to remain active to be able to participate in their children’s lives.”

But gone are the days of stodgy instructional-style shows, says Yvonne Body, the head of co-productions and acquisitions at Beyond Distribution.“In the past, health programming was generally preachy and boring. Producers and broadcasters have finally realized that it can be entertaining as well as informative.”

GO FOR THE BOLD

One of the ways producers have been upping the entertainment factor is by using compelling personalities. A number of these health gurus have become stars in their own right.“Fitness is now a celebrity business due to reality television, which has made stars of trainers like Jillian Michaels, Jackie Warner and Bob Harper,” says Gaiam’s Sondheim. Indeed, Gaiam’s best-selling fitness titles are ones led by strong personalities, including Jillian Michaels: Ripped in 30 and Leslie Sansone:Walk Away the Pounds.

Shine International, too, has found success with fitness shows incorporating bold personalities. Among them are Breakthrough with Tony Robbins, Losing It with Jillian and, most notably, The Biggest Loser.

“The Biggest Loser is a major prime-time feature of many international schedules,” says Noel Hedges, the senior VP of acquisitions at Shine International. “Health generally can be really useful for prime time and daytime.The key thing about this genre is it can appeal to all broadcasters for all time slots—it just depends how you develop the format and how you scale it up or down and which audience you are focusing on.” For example, in the U.K., the series was originally shown as a daily strip at 4 p.m., but is now in its third season on ITV1 in prime time.

While The Biggest Loser has scored prime-time slots on some of the larger broadcasters, many health-and-fitness programs tend to find their way onto more niche lifestyle channels. This can range from cooking networks, which feature shows focused on nutrition and healthy eating habits, to women’s entertainment channels, with series that delve into practical advice on living a more balanced life.

Veria Living, home to shows such as Guru forYou, Healthy Eats Road Trip and Yoga Studio, is devoted entirely to this type of programming.“We really are the only 24/7 health-and-wellness channel,” says Donahue. “There are a ton of lifestyle channels emerging overseas, though, and I see that lifestyle channels are 234

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becoming more and more popular.Their success has to do with the [current economy] and people’s attitudes about life in general.”

The proliferation of new international lifestyle channels bodes well for distributors of healthand-fitness-based programming, and there are a host of other opportunities as well. “You would think that these programs are particularly popular among alternative channels that highlight health and fitness, but we have had the most success with public broadcasters from around the world that focus on general-interest programming,” says DW’s Schneider, touting the success of titles such as Feel Fine and How Nature Heals.

“The majority of our sales are to cable and satellite channels,” says Body of Beyond’s slate of wellness programs, including What’s Good for You and Is It Safe to Eat? “The surprise is the range of countries that buy this genre.

We’ve made sales across Asia; Latin America; Western, Central and Eastern Europe; and the Middle East. Audiences from Brunei to Ukraine have learned what’s good for them.”

For Canamedia, which has a catalogue that includes Fresh Life, The Art of Building Bodies and Women’s Wellness, sales have primarily been to specialty health-and-wellness channels.

Andrea Stokes, Canamedia’s international sales and acquisitions manager, has also noticed interest from more established channels looking to “inform, educate and inspire” audiences.

Stokes adds that these shows are most popular for daytime slots, where they are “partnered with similar programming that lends a sense of well-being.”

Veria’s Donahue has also found that broadcasters tend to buy this genre of programming in bulk. “I basically sold our entire catalogue to Canada!” he says of a recent volume deal with ONE: the Body, Mind & Spirit channel.

Winning big: One of NBC’s biggest hits, The Biggest Loser, from Shine International, has made its way to networks worldwide.

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Going to the mat: Exclusively devoted to wellness content, Veria Living’s lineup includes Yoga for Every Body.

Donahue adds that the major broadcasters will buy shows to schedule as blocks. “On our network, we’re trying to build our day parts, too.We’re going to have a two-hour block of yoga and fitness and then a two-hour block of healthy lifestyle cooking.

Most of the channels around the world do blocks the same way we do here in the U.S., and that day part is where they put a lot of this style of programming.”

PLATFORM AGNOSTIC

As the marketplace continues to evolve, new opportunities are opening up for health-and-wellness programming on other platforms. “The traditional linear channel and program sales will always be there, but with the demographic that we are actually targeting, it seems that the over-the-top services and VOD markets are really what we’re looking at,” Donahue notes. “As each country’s technology progresses, broadcasters are actually acquiring those rights. I do feel that traditional distribution will always be around, but these are the key new markets that are definitely opening up. It’s an extremely exciting opportunity, but I think a lot of people still don’t know how to deal with it. There are a lot of caveats that go along with figuring out how to make sure that you maximize revenue with your different rights.”

“One of the most interesting partners that we have lined up in the last few years was by licensing VOD rights to an education platform in Asia,” comments DW’s Schneider.

Gaiam recently launched its own digital subscription service in the U.S. that focuses on healthy living and personal development. “We believe this concept will be very attractive to international IPTV developers,” Sondheim says.

“Now that so many digital retailers [offer ways to get programming to a TV screen], it opens up many more opportunities for health and fitness content,” Sondheim adds. “We are working closely with all of them to curate a compelling offering for the category. We are also working on a [directto-consumer] strategy with several [consumer-electronics] manufacturers and game platforms for a branded-channel experience. Other interesting opportunities include mobile applications, e-books, online video-clip monetization and cable operators’VOD platforms.”

Another revenue stream for this programming is home video, Sondheim says. “Fitness DVDs continue to show strong resilience despite being a mature format in many of the major 236

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markets, including the U.S., Canada, Australia and Germany.

The key is to understand the momentum drivers. In the U.S., it is reality TV and infomercials. In the U.K., it is celebrity trainers and morning-show TV, and in Germany it is magazines and publicity. Each market has different barometers.”

Canamedia’s Stokes agrees. “Long-running wellness series that include organic cooking, workout sessions, health tips and motivational and spiritual content with a loyal viewership can certainly do well in the right home-video markets,” she says.

Promotional tie-ins and sponsorships can serve as additional revenue generators. “There certainly are products and brands that want the association with a health-style brand as authentic as Gaiam’s,” Sondheim says. “When we find a potential partner with the right motivations we are certainly open to this kind of marketing. As an example, we did a promotional partnership recently with Kashi and Trudie Styler’s yoga series.We offered a yoga DVD sampler that gave value-added product to Kashi’s consumers and provided huge consumer exposure for our content and we made a modest profit.”

AT THE GYM

Gaiam is also a leader in fitness-equipment distribution, serving as another avenue for extending its brands. “We own several prominent brands that cover different demographics,” Sondheim explains. “Gaiam is for female yoga, while The Firm is for youthful aerobics and SPRI is our male-oriented gym brand. We also handle the Reebok brand for all fitness equipment in the U.S. and Canada.”

Fitness and health merchandising can mean big business, if handled properly and with the right brand at the core.

Such has been the case with Shine for The Biggest Loser, which over the years has become a stand-alone health and lifestyle brand with a vast array of product extensions.

Hedges explains that The Biggest Loser has generated in excess of $400 million in global retail sales, with more than 15 million products sold. Categories include branded DVDs, books, Wii games, workout music, meal supplements and more. There’s also The Biggest Loser Club, which has more than 660,000 active subscribers in the U.S. and more than 100,000 in Australia.

“Biggest Loser has proven that health is, by definition, an international topic,” says Hedges. “Anyone can be touched by the challenges involved in losing weight, eating healthy or overcoming addiction or physical problems.”

Not all themes within the health-and-fitness content arena travel as easily, according to Gaiam’s Sondheim. “We have found that it depends largely on the genre,” he says.“Yoga travels very easily. The instruction is often done as a voice-over so dubbing is easier. Aerobic fitness content seems to be more sensitive to cultural differences due to its trendier look and feel.”

“Depending on the topic and the treatment of the subject, this genre can universally be programmed by broadcasters worldwide, gaining new viewers which cross cultures,” adds Canamedia’s Stokes.

Beyond’s Body agrees.“Health is a subject that affects and interests everyone around the world,” she says, “irrespective of cultural differences.We all want to be fitter, healthier and live longer.”

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TV REAL: You were raised in a place with no electricity?

HERZOG: Yeah. No running water. We had to go to the well

with a bucket. I was born in September of 1942, which was the time when the first bombing raids hit Munich.The house next to where we lived received a full hit and where we lived was partially destroyed. I was only two weeks old. I was a newborn baby and my mother found me in my cradle with more than a foot of glass shards and bricks and debris on me but I was completely unhurt. But my mother was so scared that she fled to the mountains and that’s where we got stuck for the next 11 years. It was a wonderful childhood. It couldn’t have been better although we had no toys. We were hungry; we were starving for two and a half years. It was an unusual childhood because I didn’t know that cinema even existed until I was 11. I made my first phone call when I was 17.

Even today, by the way, I refuse to have a cell phone. I’m the only thinking person I know who doesn’t have a cell phone.

When I am in a film production, of course, people around me have cell phones—you need it for organization; it’s effective. I personally don’t like having one on me. I don’t want to be available all the time. I want to have a quiet moment for myself where people do not reach me. I want silence sometimes.

Werner Herzog

By Anna Carugati

The prolific filmmaker Werner Herzog made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced, written, and directed more than 60 feature and documentary films, including Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu (1978), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997), Wings of Hope (2000), Grizzly Man (2005), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011) and Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life (2011). He has also written books and directed operas.

An artist who seeks expression in many media, Herzog talks to TV Real about how he approaches his craft.

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TV REAL: Do you think that has to do with your experience from youth?

HERZOG: Probably. But even if I hadn’t grown up the way I did I probably wouldn’t want to have a cell phone—it offers a very shallow form of life and communication. If you look at old poetry from the Tang [Dynasty] period in China, the eighth or ninth century, you can find a poem about a man who visits a friend who is a monk in a monastery somewhere in the mountains. The man departs on the Yellow River and 11 years later he returns and has an encounter with his friend who has no knowledge of whether he’s still alive or not.They meet and the encounter has so much substance. But nowadays, when you travel by plane, you call on your cell phone: “Yes, I’m going to be on that airplane.” And then, “I’m in Immigration right now,” and you have made ten phone calls before you get home. The encounter with your wife doesn’t have the depth and significance and the human impact anymore as it could have and used to have. So I prefer to meet my wife without having this constant contact by cell phone.

TV REAL: Do you think that a young Herzog today would

have more difficulties doing what you did when you started in filmmaking?

HERZOG: The answer is not a simple one. In technical terms, it is easier to make films nowadays because the instruments for making movies are more accessible and much more inexpensive. I had to steal a 35mm camera because nobody would give one to me. So I stole a 35mm camera and I had to buy raw stock and had to pay for the laboratory to develop it. Editing was much clumsier and more time consuming and so on. Today you can make a feature film for less than $10,000. I run my own film school, the Rogue Film School, and I tell everyone that there are no excuses, don’t complain to me ever—I am not in this culture of complaint. Go out where there’s real life, earn money, and then you make your film. Work as a guard in a lunatic asylum. Work as a bouncer in a sex club. Making a film has become easier than ever before; there’s no excuse.You take a 4/12

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camera, go out and do it. However, distribution has become more complex and financing of films has become more difficult than before. It is easier to finance a $100-million project within the studio system than doing a $5-million project or a $2-million project, because audiences have shifted considerably away from what we used to see decades ago. Today, we have to find an audience, we have to find networks that are willing to buy our film or view it. I take that seriously and I think a filmmaker can only survive if he or she is aware of the marketability of his or her film.

TV REAL: Did you know that you would reach a huge audi-

ence with Grizzly Man when you started it?

HERZOG: Yes, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams an even wider

audience. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is about a French cave 32,000 years back in time and the art inside. It’s made by a Bavarian filmmaker who [narrates the film] in his accent and I knew there was something that would strike a chord with a wide audience because it has to do with the deepest recesses of our own existence. It has to do with the awakening of the modern human soul and it caught on. When we reached well over $5 million in domestic theatrical results, I knew it would work. And Grizzly Man, the moment I stumbled into the story—or the story, rather, stumbled into me— I knew it was big. And I had to do it.

next Harry Potter or whatever. There’s nothing wrong with franchise films because there’s a clear demand out there.

What is remarkable is that these franchise films are very much based on star quality or star value and digital effects, and what is somehow overlooked is the power of storytelling, and I’m good at that.And because of that, part of Hollywood is looking at what I’m doing because they see, yes, finally there’s someone out there who’s very good at storytelling. Storytelling will never disappear from theater, television or the Internet. It’s a gift that we’ve had since time immemorial. I’m sure that Cro-Magnon men in Paleolithic times 30,000 years ago were sitting around the campfire and they would tell stories to each other. It’s a phenomenal gift of humanness. And I’m right dead center in it. To people who think I’m marginal, I have to explain I’m not marginal; I’m dead center. All the rest is marginal and I’m not.

TV REAL: Did you know then that Grizzly Man would be a funny movie even though we all knew the end was going to be horrifying?

HERZOG: All my films have a funny side and some humor in them. Of course, quite often it’s a very dark, very subversive humor. It’s in my nature. It’s very strange because over many years there’s been a general feeling in the media that I’m a Teutonic, grim sort of filmmaker. Not so, you idiots—haven’t you ever seen the humor in all my films? All of a sudden the humor comes across to audiences. As grim as Grizzly Man might be, there are very, very funny, strange, subversive moments of humor in it.

TV REAL: You are incredibly prolific.

HERZOG: Yes, but I work fast. For example, Grizzly Man

was edited in nine days. A feature film like Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans with Nicolas Cage, I delivered the final cut of the film a fortnight after it was done shooting. Then I did another feature film back-to-back with it (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done). And I delivered it five days after I was done shooting.

TV REAL: Compare that to Fitzcarraldo.

HERZOG: That was something like two and a half months of

editing. But at that time it was celluloid and it’s much slower.

With digital editing I can edit almost as fast as I’m thinking.

TV REAL: If you look at the number of franchise movies that

are coming out, are you concerned that eventually all serious movies will start disappearing?

HERZOG: No, no, they will not disappear because I’m still around and quite a few others are still around. There’s a justification to these franchise films because audiences want them. There’s a very solid basis within audiences worldwide.

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Rock of ages: Cave of Forgotten Dreams marked Herzog’s foray into 3D filmmaking.

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HBO’s

Sheila Nevins

By Anna Carugati

The search for the truth is an apt description of Sheila Nevins’s approach to filmmaking. As president of HBO Documentary Films, she is responsible for developing, producing and acquiring the best in the genre for HBO, HBO2 and Cinemax. As executive producer or producer, she has received 24 Primetime Emmy Awards, 26 News and Documentary Emmys and 35 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s documentaries have won 22 Academy Awards. The topics she tackles often focus on the disenfranchised, or victims of injustice or prejudice, and the Paradise Lost documentaries went even further—they generated such interest in the case of three teens from Arkansas, known as the West Memphis Three, charged and imprisoned for murder two decades ago, that they were freed last summer.

boys did it.” It was quite obvious that the boys were not at the scene of the crime, that there was inadequate police investigation. So we asked Joe and Bruce to stay.They got close to these guys and it became obvious in the footage that this was not appropriate or fair justice.We didn’t know [they were innocent], per se, but we knew it was not fully investigated.These were just eccentric boys who hung out together and Damien always wore black and you didn’t know whether it was a story of prejudicial hate, a story of a murder, a story of innocence, but you knew that it wasn’t jibing.

So we followed the story in Paradise Lost 1 [The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills], and by the end of it we were pretty convinced that this was not adequate investigative justice. And if they were guilty, there was not enough evidence there to put one of them on death row and the other two away for life.

Slowly it began to be a national story. At the end of Paradise Lost 1 a lot of well-known people would say these kids aren’t guilty. They certainly deserved another trial. So the momentum for doing Paradise Lost 2 [Revelations] grew and it became even more clear that these kids needed another shot at a trial and that they were really not the perpetrators of this crime. A long time elapsed between 2 and 3, something like eight years.We had a discussion that we should really keep the story alive, that even though these guys may linger for the rest of their lives on death row and with life sentences, we had an obligation to throw more water on the fire.

So we did Paradise Lost 3 [Purgatory], knowing that we didn’t have anything explosive in terms of results, but we certainly had more evidence, and explosive in terms of thinking people looking at the whole trial. And lo and behold we heard of the Alford plea maybe 48 hours before the guys were freed. Joe and everybody rushed down there and the boys walked out.

It was like someone had thrown cold water in our face. And so we had to quickly amend 3, which was really about keeping the fire burning, to be, Holy mackerel, the kids are out!

That is the genesis of it, that’s how we followed the story.

The three of them, Jessie, Damien and Jason, became part of something, we felt obligated to keep the fire burning.

TV REAL: What is the most important contribution of this film? And how often do you have a happy ending in a film you produce?

NEVINS: How about a happy ending in life? How often do you get that? What was greater than the three of them walking into the sunlight? Nothing. It was a life experience; it wasn’t just a documentary.

TV REAL: What gripped you about the story of the West

TV REAL: I loved the film Gloria: In Her Own Words about

Memphis Three and why did you remain committed to it for almost two decades?

NEVINS: I saw an article in The New York Times almost 19 years ago and it was about three boys who had done a devil-worship murder of three little boys. It just caught my eye. It was a tiny little thing, it said they had been accused of the murder and arrested and I thought it was an interesting story. I had no idea of their innocence, but there was something in the story that was fascinating and didn’t seem to fit. I was a great fan of Brother’s Keeper, the film by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. I called Joe. I said, “You should go down to Arkansas. I think there is a story there,”And Joe and Bruce went down there and after about a week they called and said, “We don’t think these

Gloria Steinem. Do you think young girls and women today are aware of the battles that were fought for women’s rights years ago?

NEVINS: No, that’s why I think this show will help that. I was very shocked that a young woman who was very bright didn’t know who [Steinem] was. So then I went up and down the halls of HBO (we had a lot of summer interns when we started the project; they went to really good schools and not good schools), and I asked, Do you know who Gloria Steinem is? I’d say 30 percent knew who she was.

I don’t think they understand women as an oppressed group of people. When you do films about Afghanistan, or Iraq, or the film we did about Neda, from Iran, and you realize this is

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a worldwide issue, but we [in the U.S.] are leap years ahead of the rest of the world. Neda was a great woman. She marched in the protests against [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. She was told not to go, it was dangerous. She was not Joan of Arc. She was not Gloria Steinem, she was a girl who wanted to wear a bikini and lipstick and mascara and read any book she wanted. She went out, she got shot and she died.

She was not leading a cause. She wanted to be part of life.

She didn’t want to be exceptional. She just wanted to have an equal life to a man. She was killed and she is one of my heroes, and Gloria admires her as well.

was a heroine, we knew what she had done, she was a feminist, but we had to go A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H and then declare, Here is something special.We didn’t know that the West Memphis boys were innocent. We start with a gut reaction that something is interesting and not clear and then we go on from there. I can’t think of any documentary that we started with an opinion. If I did a documentary on Darwin, I would start with an opinion, because he’s done all the research already. I might let him go, but other than that, when we pick ordinary people and situations, we go for discovery and not for an ideology that we already have.

TV REAL: Viewers are exposed to more and more programming

TV REAL: There seems to be a lot more opinion than fact

in the media today. Is this seeping into documentaries as well?

NEVINS: Not ours, although I seem to be accused of loving the West Memphis Three too much, but I couldn’t help it, they were innocent.There is passion based on fact and then there is opinion based on upbringing. Do I think there is too much opinion?

Yes, of course, but we don’t do that.We are very fact driven.We don’t extol what doesn’t earn its point, we are very careful about that. We don’t make heroes or villains out of people unless we have a data bank. I really don’t have too many opinions until I have the whole story, and then I have a lot of opinions.

The great thing about a documentary is you go out not knowing and you form your opinion based on experience and knowing, so I guess you could say we are fact gatherers, otherwise where would we go next in telling the story from A to B to C to D to F? Then we have an opinion. Not always. If a woman gets her teeth knocked out by her husband because she talks back, it doesn’t take too long to have an opinion about that. But even with Gloria, we had to gather Gloria together to find her. She

and are quite savvy about good visual storytelling. How have you seen documentaries evolve to keep up with viewers’ tastes?

NEVINS: I don’t know how to answer that except to say that when I see a documentary we made years ago, it looks old. I don’t know that it isn’t an instinctive thing: you are part of a culture, you are part of the times, you are part of the rhythm of that time, so what holds your attention goes with that being part of everyone’s life or the life you are leading. I don’t know why things that are ten years old appear old. It’s not necessarily the dress or the music or the pacing, but I think you incorporate what works into what you do.You try not to pander to it, because you don’t have to do a 3D murder just to make a good documentary about a murder.You don’t necessarily pander to the technology, but it infuses your DNA so you present something that’s au courant rather than dated.

But if I look at something old, it rarely can stand up for me— it may be the rhythm or it may be the pacing. It may even be the look of it because we’ve gone from film to tape to really high digital technology, so it looks clearer.

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are subsistence farmers. They sell none of their crops. Their only ambition is to feed their family. They work with their hands—no animals, no tractor—and these people are going to be the first ones to suffer from climate change.

Everything I learned as a journalist I want to [pass on].

I did the photo exhibition Earth from Above in 160 cities around the world, free in the street for everybody. One day I brought the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, to Paris to be screened by the Assemblée Nationale. I was very impressed by the reaction people had watching the movie in a room.

To tell a story in a film is not like photography, it’s something else—it’s stronger. So I decided to do the movie 6 Billion Others, which features interviews [with people around the world]. There is not a big difference between photography and film. I’m doing documentaries, not fiction movies. I was a journalist working with a photographer and now I’m a journalist working with a camera. I love filming, I have to say, it’s more dynamic. I’m more interested now in doing filming than photography.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

By Anna Carugati

Photographer, film director, environmentalist and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Yann Arthus-Bertrand developed an interest in aerial photography when he was a hot-air-balloon pilot in Africa.

He passed on to the public his passion for our planet in Earth from Above, a book and series of photo exhibits on the links between man and nature. He then moved into documentary filmmaking, directing Home, which was narrated by Glenn Close. He recently set up Hope Production, which addresses worldwide environmental issues.

TV REAL: How was the transition from being a photogra-

pher to now doing movies?

ARTHUS-BERTRAND: Doing Earth from Above changed my

life completely. I worked on it for ten years, flying above the earth. I was mainly interested to show the beauty of the earth.

Even though I saw that the planet is a messed-up place, there’s nothing more beautiful than the planet. Even today I’m so impressed by its beauty, but also by the impact of man. When I was born, the earth’s population was a little more than two billion people. Now we are going to be seven billion. It’s amazing to think that in my lifetime the population has tripled, and how I live is not like my father lived; my impact on the planet is much greater. That made me think. All the scientists I met on my trip are worried about our planet, so I also became concerned, thinking about biodiversity, deforestation, water, petrol, pollution and overfishing.

I think we live in denial—we don’t want to believe what everybody knows. We know about overfishing, about climate change, but we don’t want to believe [the danger].There’s a big difference between knowing and believing.Also, I saw the incredible work of [non-governmental organizations] in the field: people who give, people who help.Their commitment makes them happy. I want to be happy so I want to be part of this family and the things I’ve discovered changed my life a lot.

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TV REAL: How did Earth from Above come about?

ARTHUS-BERTRAND: When I was working in Kenya I was

studying lions. I wanted to become a scientist. I went with my wife.We were doing a thesis on lion behavior. For three years I followed the same family of lions. To earn a living, I was a tourist guide flying a hot-air balloon, bringing tourists to see lions and elephants. I discovered how photography gives you a new perspective on the territory. When you work on lions, territory is very important and to see this from the air, I learned a lot of things. When I came back to France and I became a photographer, I was always flying. What you show from the air explains a lot of things: how people live, what they eat, how they drive, what their houses are like, if it’s a rich country or poor country.You understand a lot through aerial photography. And I love to fly. Happiness is important and I love to fly and I love my job.

TV REAL: There are so many great patterns in the images of Earth from Above. How do you identify them?

ARTHUS-BERTRAND: [It’s innate] to always try to aestheticize as much as possible to make good photographs. I hate to do bad photography. I will not take the shot if it does not look good on the screen. Beauty is important.

The director Terrence Malick says that with The Tree of Life—beauty can change the world. Beauty evokes emotions. But we are blind; we’re not looking around us. We don’t know what beauty is, but it’s always around us—we don’t see it. That is the real goal of the photographer—to show this beauty.

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