{"id":21851,"date":"2024-08-14T08:50:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T12:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2024-08-15T09:47:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T13:47:03","slug":"oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/","title":{"rendered":"OceanXplorers\u2019 Eric Stackpole"},"content":{"rendered":"

From National Geographic, Nat Geo Explorer at Large James Cameron (Avatar<\/em>), the BBC Studios Natural History Unit (Blue Planet II<\/em>) and OceanX, the brand-new natural history series\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>\u00a0delves deep into the world\u2019s waters aboard a state-of-the-art research vessel. The title, armed with advanced technology and a group of top-tier explorers and scientists, is set to premiere on August 18 on National Geographic, with all episodes to stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. Ocean technology innovator Eric Stackpole speaks with\u00a0TV Real Weekly<\/em>\u00a0about his experience on the team, what it was like working with the legendary Cameron and other industry giants and the innovation that\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>\u00a0is bringing to the factual space.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you get involved in\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>?
\nSTACKPOLE:<\/strong>\u00a0The beginning of my career started with space exploration. I was working at NASA\u2019s Ames Research Center, and I realized that it takes a rocket to get to space, but underwater, all you need is a shoreline and some curiosity. It is teeming with life we\u2019ve never seen. It\u2019s an amazing place to explore, yet hardly anyone seems to be looking. So, I started a company to build low-cost robotic submarines, and that got the attention of Maria Wilhelm and James Cameron. As you know, James Cameron is really interested in ocean exploration. As we got to know each other and\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>\u00a0started to evolve, they suggested that I try out for [the cast]. When I got cast, it was an immediate yes. This is what I want to do with my life. We are living on a planet that is so unknown; there\u2019s so little that we know about it. If we can get more eyes looking at the rest of the world, that will be one of the greatest things we can do to impact our ability to change it for the better. It\u2019s a great opportunity to see the world and to share what we see with others.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0You mentioned James Cameron. Tell me more about what it was like to work with him and Nat Geo.
\nSTACKPOLE:<\/strong>\u00a0This is the combination of the all-stars. We have James Cameron, who is an incredible storyteller and is deeply passionate about ocean exploration. Combine that with National Geographic, which is the best in the world at telling these stories to an audience. Also involved is BBC Studios, which made\u00a0Blue Planet<\/em>, the very best film in natural history. This is the dream team, and we were all working with OceanX, which has the OceanXplorer, a state-of-the-art research vessel. For me, being able to be with the very best people, who are skilled and passionate, was an extremely awesome experience. It definitely made me feel like I needed to step my game up to keep pace. What we experienced was second to none. I still think back on it; it feels like a dream. It\u2019s crazy now that the trailer is out and people can see what it\u2019s all about. I keep saying, Wow, that really happened\u2026and they caught it on camera!<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> On top of the expertise from all the \u201cdream team\u201d players involved, what makes OceanXplorers<\/em>\u00a0appealing to audiences? Why do shows like this matter?
\nSTACKPOLE:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s incredible about\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>, compared to just about anything I\u2019ve ever seen or been a part of before, is that we\u2019re not just going to a place where we know a phenomenon happens to film it. This actually follows real scientists and explorers. The scientists we\u2019re working with are publishing papers based on the discoveries that we\u2019re making. There certainly were some great successes that we had, which you\u2019ll see, but there were also some failures. It doesn\u2019t always work as planned. This is a show that brings the audience through the actual process, from going there to solving the problems that inevitably come up when you\u2019re doing fieldwork. I hope that people will not just get a better understanding of nature, but they\u2019ll get a better understanding of how it is that we try to understand nature in the world that we live in.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0Tell me more about your career and how you merged your Sofar Ocean Technologies journey with television.
\nSTACKPOLE:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ve always been interested in democratizing exploration and making it so that the technology that allows us to understand our planet is more accessible. After working at NASA, I started out designing these really low-cost remotely operated vehicle (ROV) submarines to help democratize exploration. For $1,000, you could put this thing in the water and go deeper than a scuba diver and see things no one\u2019s seen before. Later on, we merged to become Sofar Ocean Technologies, where I work now. We\u2019re creating buoys that are spread out throughout the world\u2019s oceans, making a nervous system for the planet by having these low-cost sensors in many places. We\u2019re able to do science that\u2019s different than if you just had a few pristine sensors in very few places. Throughout this career of building these low-cost devices, I\u2019ve learned what\u2019s really required to understand our planet. We need to look in more places and get more data.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to the complete other side of the spectrum. For the\u00a0OceanXplorers<\/em>\u00a0television show, I was able to be aboard one of the finest research ships on the planet, using some of the best technology and working with the very best people in the world to do this sort of research. I\u2019ve been able to see what is possible when you put resources and effort, in a focused way, into trying to understand these things. It\u2019s been an incredible journey to go from making things that are low-cost with off-the-shelf parts, all the way through to using the finest equipment available on planet Earth.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong>\u00a0With that in mind, the possibilities for this series are as endless as science, right? What do you think is next for the program and your research?
\nSTACKPOLE:<\/strong>\u00a0If there is ever another opportunity to do this again, I would jump on it because it has completely changed my life. It\u2019s so easy to be here on terra firma and take for granted the entire planet\u2019s worth of life that exists currently. We live on a minority of our planet; 80 percent of the world\u2019s oceans have never been explored. I\u2019m going to keep moving forward in that charge.<\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m working on my own separate project to build an autonomous, solar-powered underwater vehicle that can run for a long time. I\u2019m developing other types of technologies at Sofar. I\u2019m working on a buoy that can be thrown out of an airplane in front of a hurricane and tracks where the hurricane goes and how much storm surge it will create. There are so many things out there that we can understand, and if we can create the right technology, it\u2019ll allow us to gain these new perspectives. That\u2019s what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. It\u2019s an incredibly addicting thing to see the world and realize that we\u2019ve only scratched the surface. I hope we\u2019ll get more chances to explore this amazing planet we live on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ocean technology innovator Eric Stackpole on his experience on the team behind OceanXplorers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3087,"featured_media":21852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,69],"tags":[9875,1009,9874],"class_list":["post-21851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-eric-stackpole","tag-national-geographic","tag-oceanxplorers","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nOceanXplorers\u2019 Eric Stackpole - TVREAL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"OceanXplorers\u2019 Eric Stackpole - TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ocean technology innovator Eric Stackpole on his experience on the team behind OceanXplorers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-14T12:50:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-15T13:47:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2024\/08\/2024-08-15-NatGeo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"394\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alexa Alfano\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alexa Alfano\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/\",\"name\":\"OceanXplorers\u2019 Eric Stackpole - TVREAL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-14T12:50:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-08-15T13:47:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/2653b97e27eaf76a4713c75f0e821dad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/oceanxplorers-eric-stackpole\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"OceanXplorers\u2019 Eric Stackpole\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\",\"name\":\"TVREAL\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/2653b97e27eaf76a4713c75f0e821dad\",\"name\":\"Alexa Alfano\",\"description\":\"Alexa Alfano is associate editor at World Screen. 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