By Stephen David, President and Executive Producer, Stephen David Entertainment
As a child, I was obsessed with World War II. American’s greatest victory provided a classic story of good versus evil, with iconic heroes and monstrous villains fighting for the future of humanity. The version of the story I learned then was clear-cut, patriot and above all else, reverent. Also, it wasn’t exactly true.
Twenty years ago, this mythical World War II narrative would have made a great television series. But today, audiences are far too savvy. Whether they know the history of World War II or not, people can sense when they’re being sold a lie. In real life, we cannot classify entire nations or separate individuals as strictly “good” or “evil.” We live our lives in shades of grey. Viewers crave this authenticity of character – and when they see it portrayed on screen, whether the character is real or fictional, they do more than respond… they believe.
After our company’s success with the EMMY-winning The Men Who Built America, we continued our partnership with History Channel on another epic historical mini-series: The World Wars. Any one of the two World Wars would have been a daunting undertaking for a documentary, but our thesis was that the two Wars were in fact united as one ongoing conflict… so, we really had our work cut out for us.
Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, FDR, Patton –how could a viewer ever hope to connect to these towering, iconic figures? When we started breaking down who these men were, we tried to think outside their historical achievements or their crimes against humanity. What we found most fascinating was that these men, like so many of us, had complex motivations and relationships. What sets them apart is how completely those motivations and relationships altered the course of world history. We stopped thinking about them as historical characters frozen in time. They were people, who did great things and awful things, and sometimes both.
By looking at who these characters were as young men during World War I, we were able to relate to them as people. Adolf Hitler was a monster, but to simply accept that without thinking about why he was a monster isn’t particularly interesting for a television series. His experiences on the battlefield in World War I shaped his entire worldview. Winston Churchill saved Europe during World War II, but as a young man he was an egotistical, headstrong politician. He bit off more than he could chew during World War I, and his brashness resulted in thousands of deaths. To gloss over Churchill’s guilt or Hitler’s nerve on the battlefield is to fundamentally misunderstand them as people.
There’s a reason why we are currently seeing a resurgence of the historical mini-series. It’s not that audiences have suddenly taken a renewed interest in history. We focus on giving viewers what they have always wanted: complex characters. History is full of unbelievable personalities who are as engaging as any of the great characters fictional television has to offer. Many of these historical figures have been buried by years of reverence, and now that we’re exploring their true ambiguities, audiences are experiencing them, in a sense, for the first time.
In our four years as a company, Stephen David Entertainment has covered the map in terms of TV genre (docudrama, documentary, true crime) and currently, we are working on our first fully scripted series. But regardless of genre, our approach to storytelling has remained the same. From development through post-production, we are constantly asking ourselves who our characters are, and why they behave the way they do. By the end of the process, I don’t distinguish these characters as being either historical or fictional. At that point, I’ve spent so much time with them, it no longer makes a difference; they’re real to me. And that is exactly sort of thing an audience picks up on.
The World Wars, a three night/episode event, premieres on the History Channel on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26 at 9pm. President Obama will introduce the first episode on Monday evening.
In the span of four years, Stephen David’s production and post-production company has emerged as a leader in high-end television specializing in docudrama, documentary, non-fiction, as well as selected scripted series. Since airing in Fall 2012, The Men Who Built America has garnered wide critical acclaim and numerous awards including five Emmy nominations and two Primetime Emmys. The World Wars is the first collaborative project across all of A+E Network’s international channels, France Television and Germany’s N24, Follow along with the show on Facebook and Twitter at #WorldWars.
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