Seeking Compelling True-Life Stories

National Geographic Television (NGT) is tapping into the resources of the entire Nat Geo family, as well as external sources, to deliver compelling docs about the world around us. Maryanne Culpepper, the executive VP of editorial and new business development, tells TV Real Weekly about what’s on the upcoming slate.

The notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele made headlines a few months ago, 30 years after he died while in hiding in South America. The renewed interest was sparked by Argentina historian Jorge Camarasa, who, in a controversial new book, theorized that Mengele had been conducting experiments on the residents of the Brazilian town of Cândido Godói in the 1960s. The municipality on the border with Argentina has an unusually high incidence of twins, and Camarasa contends that this anomaly is the result of experiments conducted by Mengele beginning in 1963. That story is now being made into a special by NGT called Mengele’s Twins.

As the executive VP of editorial and new business development at NGT, Maryanne Culpepper is charged with seeking out stories like Camarasa’s to develop into compelling TV documentaries. The division of the National Geographic Society uses a myriad of sources to churn out some 125 hours per year for an assortment of broadcasters, including the National Geographic Channel, PBS, Channel 4, Five, Canal+, France 5, Rai and many others.

"We have a number of sources that we’re looking to, literally every day, multiple times a day, for great stories," Culpepper tells TV Real Weekly. "We’re fortunate enough to have explorers in residence, scientists on staff—we have about $4 million in grants that we give out every year to scientists, explorers, adventurers, researchers all over the world. So on a daily basis we have information coming in about new discoveries, science breakthroughs; we’re going through all of that looking for material."

When asked what she looks for when identifying stories that will make for good TV, Culpepper says she puts on "the viewer hat" and asks questions like: "Is there a good hook? Is there a good story? Is there drama here? Am I going to reveal something new? Is this a story that is better handled [by a local broadcaster] than by us? We try to find those great stories that will have that international appeal."

On the upcoming slate distributed by NGTI, Culpepper says, is a new film for National Geographic Channel called The Human Family Tree, based on National Geographic Society research that is tracing the lineage of the human journey out of Africa. It is slated for a September premiere. Crocs: The Lost World, meanwhile, sees NGT working with an explorer in residence who has been looking at the evolution of crocodiles throughout history. NGT is also expanding into the scripted drama arena with I, Darwin, which will air as part of PBS’s Nova strand. And on the heels of the well-received Inside Guantanamo, Culpepper says there is more "edgy, topical stuff" in the works, including Inside Death Row.

"One of the wonderful things about being at National Geographic is that you do have all these built-in platforms," Culpepper continues. "You have print—National Geographic magazine, the kids’ magazine, the adventure magazine and the travel magazine—and then you’ve got the online and the mobile platforms. What’s great is to get the two big anchors first—the television and the magazine. Once you’ve got those, then you know that you’re going to be able to push that story out to the broadest possible audience. With those two alone, we reach between 350 million and 400 million people around the globe every month."

Once those two anchors are in place, Culpepper sets out to extend the storytelling to a variety of other platforms, keeping in constant touch with her colleagues at Nat Geo’s online and gaming divisions. "A real focus of the last ten years or so has been to integrate more and more. From the moment a story starts, as soon as we decide we want to pursue it," Culpepper and her team are looking for ways in which to extend the TV experience.

"It’s like playing three-dimensional chess when you’re working on stories for television," she says. "You have to think on so many levels. You have your visual elements, you have your sound elements, and then you have your narration. All of these things have to interplay appropriately."