October 27, 2008

5Qs with Mark Farkas, C-SPAN Exec Producer of History Programming

With C-SPAN gearing up to debut 90-min feature documentary "The White House: Inside America's Most Famous Home" on Dec 14, we caught up with Farkas to chat about what the net promises will be the most comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the White House yet.

With all the acclaim C-SPAN's "The Capitol" received last year, are you nervous about how this documentary will compare?
There's a lot to measure up to, but on the other hand, I'm not that nervous because the White House is a beautiful museum and we get to show you not only that, but the home—the upstairs that the public never sees.

C-SPAN doesn't have an HD channel, but I know this was shot in HD and will be available to operators for HD VOD. Why did you think it was important to film in high-def?
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get into probably the most famous home in America, if not the world. We wanted to get in and shoot it in the best quality video that we could, knowing that it would go on HD VOD and that someday when C-SPAN is cablecasting in high definition, we'd have the product. It's something that I think we're going to want to show again and again.

These types of productions aren't what C-SPAN is known for. Why pursue them?
We want to grow our audience. Besides History, there's not a lot of quality history programming on. We think there's a real audience. When you take a look at the Capitol and the White House, these are places that if you just hold up a mirror to them, it's really a reflection of our country's history. It's really an evolution of our mission—to give you access.

What are you doing on the multiplatform front for it?
Each night that week at 9pm, we're taking you inside the White House in another way [on TV]. On the Website, you'll get not only what you see on TV, but... we have collected stories from the workers in the White House, interviewed the most pre-eminent historians, been in the rooms that are public and private. You're going to get to see a lot more with Web exclusives. On C-SPAN Radio, every Sun in Dec at 3pm, we will present a series on the White House that is distinct from both the television and Website.

Is there anything in the doc that has never been on film before?
The White House is the most documented building in our nation's history, but I can absolutely say in terms of film and television... cameras have never been allowed inside this solarium up on the 3rd floor, and we were given access to that.