Worlds Apart Producer on Search for TV Families

Jennifer Vernon
for National Geographic News

June 10, 2003

Worlds Apart, the National Geographic Channel's new reality series, bridges cultural gaps—by making people neighbors. For nine days, an American family leaves suburbia behind to become part of another culture. Glenda Hersh, executive producer, speaks with National Geographic News about what it's really like to be that family.

How did you come up with the concept for Worlds Apart?

We were trying to think of ideas that would be culturally challenging, and our first thought was to have an American family and a foreign family switch houses. And then we realized that it would be much more interesting to have the foreign family become a neighbor by having the American family move in next to them. We really wanted the personal connection to be between the two families.

Do you feel that's what happened with the first family, the Palmers?

Absolutely. The bond that the Palmers and their host family, the Orgubas, formed is going to last their lifetimes. They learned so much from each other and really touched each other's lives in ways we didn't even expect.

So what you're hoping families experience is not culture shock, but culture exchange?

Exactly. The idea is not to scare the living daylights out of a family! The idea is for a family to be able to see how another family lives. To be able to step out of their own shoes, and walk a mile in another family's flip flops, so to speak.

What qualities does a family need for successful cultural exchange?

We're looking for families that are fundamentally curious. Families who have an interest in the world, who are open to learning, and open to sharing. They don't have to be mountain climbers or marathon runners or have traveled the planet. They just need to have a desire to learn what it's like to experience someone else's life and culture, and to share what they know with someone else.

How challenging is it for a family to be in the field?

There's no question that many of the environments we're going to are more physically challenging than a suburban environment in America. But, you know, we're very used to the challenges we find here. Like the freeway. That might be overwhelming for someone from a certain part of the world. And when we get on their turf, maybe we suddenly have to deal with camels, which is overwhelming for us, but to them it's something they've grown up with.

The challenges are going to be varied and in some ways unexpected. But we would never put any family in a position that would be dangerous or harmful, or put them into a position where they wouldn't be able to cope with that challenge.

Could you describe some of the safety precautions that are in place?

We make sure we supply all the water and that the health standards we need to stay healthy are followed. We're on the ground monitoring that all the time. And we have backup, and triple backup, medical evacuation plans in case anybody should get sick or hurt. So we have several levels of planning, always, to make sure that if anybody is hurt seriously, we can get them home quickly.

How do you prepare families for the reality of being filmed?

It's a funny thing. People are more comfortable with cameras than you think they would be. Actually, it's the producers who are often the most uncomfortable! Television is such a regular presence in almost everybody's lives that we forget sometimes that people actually are far more comfortable living on camera than we as producers feel filming them. That's been my experience. Also, we use small digital cameras, which are a little less obtrusive. It's not as scary as a giant beta camera with sound and light equipment.

Does the crew have much interaction with the family while in the field?

We do have a lot of contact with them. Monitoring what's going on, making sure that everybody's happy and okay. We do try to stay as far back as possible, in terms of not interfering with their relationship with the local family. Because the idea is for them to really bond with the local family and learn about their culture, not about the production crew. But we're always there.

What if a family were to decide they wanted to go home early?

We would sit down with them and try to understand why they wanted to go home, where the discomfort was, and if it could be fixed. And if they still felt it just wasn't working for them and they wanted to go home, then that's part of the show. We're not creating something here, we're filming the reality of it—reality used in the more traditional sense of the word. It is really what happens. So if the family decides they just don't like it, then that's part of the show.

Can a family choose to stay behind and travel after filming is completed?

Probably not, because as long as they're there, they're our responsibility and we want to make sure we can take care of them. If they really love it, they can always go back!

Do you think that resentment towards Americans is something that a family on the show would have to worry about encountering?

It's a reasonable question. I'm hoping not. We're trying to be careful in terms of where we pick locations to certainly minimize that opportunity. And we're very careful to choose locations and families who are excited about the opportunity for exchange and curious to learn about the American family. In so many parts of the world, Americans are very welcome. And families are always happy to meet other families.

If a family were to be thinking about applying, what would you say are the primary benefits?

You know, in America, we live lives that are very separate. Each individual family member leads a very independent life from the next person.

So something that's really special about the experience—and rare—is that the family actually gets to spend two weeks together, because there are no distractions and no activities of the traditional kind we have here. The Palmer family, for example, had to actually live and sleep and work and eat together. And they got to know each other in ways that they might never have otherwise as a family.

For the Palmer kids in particular, they'd been learning in school about Africa and about things they actually got to witness later, for themselves. This gave them a cultural perspective that they could never have gotten in the classroom. It really was as though they had stepped into the pages of National Geographic. And that's an educational opportunity that I think is unparalleled.

I also think it's a way to have the kind of family adventure that is hard to come by. Parents might go on trips when their kids get older. Or kids might travel while in college. But for a family to have a global adventure of this kind, right now, is very unique.