Tag archives for Specials
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One of the greatest challenges of making this film was using dramatic recreations to illustrate the different scenarios that may have led to the loss of the Hunley and her crew. There are about a half-dozen theories that we chase down in the show, and each one had to be re-enacted, in part, inside an…
By: Writer/Director Devon Chivvis, Wild Life Productions Motion sickness. Diesel Fumes. Bunks with a 1 foot clearing to the ceiling. Aboard the KOK mothership, this is the easy part. Tomorrow I will be directing from inside a 7-foot diameter sphere at depths of over 3,000 feet. This is not your average expedition, nor your average…
This past Sunday, in the miniseries Drugs, Inc., Nat Geo exposed the worlds of Cocaine and Meth, telling the stories of growers and producers, traffickers, dealers, users, cops, and doctors who live in the world of drugs. Now, get a 360 degree view of the worlds of Heroin and Marijuana in their premieres this Monday…
by the Twin Town production crew It’s 2 PM. We’re waiting for our luggage to emerge out of a curtained-off area onto a carrousel at Calicut International Airport, and we’re not alone. My Producer Camilla Banks and I are in the middle of a crush of hundreds of people. It’s a scene reminiscent of the stock exchange…
Drugs affect millions of people in our world every day. Illegal ones — like cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin — are some of the most impactful. In the upcoming miniseries Drugs, Inc., Nat Geo goes inside the world of these four substances, telling the stories of growers and producers, traffickers, dealers, users, cops, and doctors who…
by Marcus Eriksen, Mississippi River Quest September 21, 22 Day 1 & 2 – 17 miles Lake Itasca, Minnesota (Mile 1347 UM) to Coffee Pot Landing (Mile 1330 UM) “I can jump over it,” Bill says to Stephen and me, standing in an ankle-deep stream that will soon become the Mighty Mississippi River. We’re standing…
Fire is one of Earth’s greatest gifts to humanity. Humans, uniquely among all the animals of the world, managed to master it and utilize it to drive every major stage in the development of our civilization. In “How the Earth Changed History: The Gift of Fire,” Professor Iain Stewart dives directly into the flames —…
by Paul Williams, Production Crew, December 2009 It’s 50 degrees C [122 degrees F] and has a humidity of 100%, less than a hundred people have been inside and it’s so deadly that even with respirators and suits of ice you can only survive for 20 minutes before your body starts to fail. It’s the…
The Hogan twins have struggled to survive since they were conceived in the womb. Statistically, they had a 20% chance of being born alive. If they beat that hurdle then there was a 75% chance they’d die within 48 hours. Today, they are three years old and they are very much alive. The Hogan twins…
by Yasemin Rashit, Assistant Producer Aldar HQ construction is an interesting place. Incredibly orderly and neat for a construction site, one wonders if they cleaned it up because they knew we were coming. Before entering the actual construction area we pass through the makeshift Porto-cabin offices and are greeted by the clinical smell of TCP. Having…
What would happen if a Martian-sized dust storm came down to Earth? Dust storms on Mars and Earth are identical, save for the fact that those on Mars are many times larger and more powerful. Now, as human exploration of Mars creeps closer, exhaustive testing is underway to ensure that astronauts are protected from the…
The two Kenyan guys are im the midst of an enlightening – and entertaining – journey through the U.S. Last week, the Maasai tribal warriors turned learned about ATMs, refrigerators, and hot dogs in New York City. This week, they’re traveling to Texas to check out the cowboy life. Just what will they encounter in their travels to the Lone…
by Jose Jehuda Garcia My name is Jose and I’m one of the producers on “Cut it in Half: Fire Truck.” Like with any NatGeo show, producing Cut it in Half was an interesting, educational experience. And as we captured the images and researched the topic that comprises this program, I learned a lot of…
In the new NGC special, Inside the Body of Henry VIII, a team of medical experts, biographers, and historians investigate what could have caused the great physical and mental changes that England’s most notorious monarch underwent during his reign. As he grew older, the king transformed from a charming and athletic prince into a paranoid, obese…
Faith, by definition, means belief without proof. But what if science could shed light on some of Christianity’s greatest mysteries? Using laboratory blood tests, fiber analysis, and carbon dating, NGC puts three controversial claims about Jesus to the test. Can true believers experience his suffering through spontaneous stigmata? Was the Shroud of Turin the actual…
For decades, most investigators looking for a scientific explanation for the successive plagues inflicted upon Egypt in Exodus focused upon the first plague, the river of blood. As we discussed previously, the red color of the Nile and massive fish deaths have been attributed variously to sediment, anthrax, and an outbreak of a Pfiesteria piscicida, a…
In addition to the Exodus narrative, there’s other written evidence that the ancient Egyptians suffered some sort of awful succession of calamities. The Ipuwer Papyrus, an Egyptian manuscript that dates back to at least the beginning of that span, has the nightmarish feel of the first draft of a George Romero screenplay. “Hearts are violent, pestilence…
For me, the most heart-rending scene in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille epic The Ten Commandments is the scene in which the Pharaoh, portrayed by Yul Brynner, pleads with a statue of Sokar, the falcon-headed Egyptian god of the underworld, to resurrect his firstborn son. The Pharaoh’s child, of course, has died in the last of the 10…
For people suffering from venous malformation and Klipptel-Trenaunay syndrome, every day is a struggle against dangerous levels of blood loss. A simple cut in the wrong place could be life-threatening. VENOUS MALFORMATION-This rare condition affects the human body’s vast network of blood vessels.-Doctors theorize that this condition causes the smooth muscle layer in the vein…
Imagine breaking a rib just by coughing or having an internal organ turning to bone. Delve inside the bodies of two extraordinary humans living with rare genetic conditions: Osteogenesis Imperfecta – brittle bone syndrome – and Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, a condition that causes muscles and tendons to turn into bone. Rare Anatomy: Bones premieres tonight…
When we discovered The Great Sperm Race game on the website of our friends at Channel 4, it was office mayhem. “I made it to the cervix!” “Why does my sperm keep running into the acid walls?” “Wow, I had no idea how hard it was to be a sperm” After awhile, someone finally cheered……
By John Cullum, Post-production Associate Producer So it was mid-September and the production side of Big Sur was winding down. All of the prepared field shoots in California were complete, and footage had just started being loaded into the editing system for the DC bound, but creative side of post-production. We knew we had really…
by Michael O’Neill, Field Producer A Traveler’s Guide to the Planets continues tonight at 9P et/pt. Until today, whenever I had cause to think of Hawaii, my mind would immediately drift to beautiful aquamarine water, palm trees, high rise resorts and lurid shirts. A 14,000-foot, snow-dusted volcanic peak with limited oxygen certainly wasn’t on my radar.…
A Traveler’s Guide to the Planets continues tonight at 9P et/pt. View Mars in 3-D with the interactive tour of the planets. By Richard SmithDeath Valley, Nevada: July 14, 2009 You could tell the temperature was withering even before stepping out of the air-conditioned truck at Stovepipe Wells. The sun had dropped on the drive…
When I was a ten, my Dad – a veterinarian – kicked-off my lifelong love for science when he brought home a second-hand telescope that he himself had scoped out in the local Pennysaver. That night was the first of many we would spend in the backyard looking up at the stars, marveling at it…
