Disaster Plan Disaster Plan / Grb Entertainment Has Flourished By Combining The Extremes Of The...

Most people run from disaster. Gary R. Benz, founder and president of GRB Entertainment, wants the footage: upclose coverage of volcanoes belching forth ash and flame, as well as images of men risking their lives in stunts, views of scientific undersea experiments, and peeks into the best-kept secrets of Hollywood's special-effects wizards.

Ask Benz why people watch GRB Entertainment programs such as "World of Wonder," "Earth's Fury" and "The World's Greatest Stunts," and he'll tell you it all comes down to a little psychology.

"Talk about must-see TV!" he says. "Look, it's basic human nature. You need to pay attention to important changes in your environment or you will not survive."

It's a lesson Benz has internalized, and it's also what's made GRB Entertainment a successful independent producer and distributor of reality-based programming. The company currently offers more than 250 hours of programming sold domestically and in 120 countries around the world, growing from a single network special in 1987 to this year's output of 75 hours, representing its largest production and development slate ever. For the last two years GRB has been the largest external supplier of programming to The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. GRB has flourished because it recognized early the importance of international markets and how to meet their needs -- unlike some of its indie competitors -- by being able to both produce and distribute its own product and not get tied down working in other genres.

GRB has flourished, in other words, by being very aware of its environment.

Benz spent the early part of his TV career as an independent producer, including a stint at Dar Robinson and Company with stuntman Dar Robinson. Together, the two produced several years of "That's Incredible" and worked as second units on various feature films, including "Stick" and "Sharkey's Machine." Benz later moved to an executive position at the syndication company Access Entertainment Group, where he learned more tricks of the trade and began to see the role that overseas markets would one day play.

"It was obvious that the international marketplace was the marketplace of the future," says Benz. "I went to France and discovered that there was going to be some commercial broadcasters, as opposed to just the public ones: private broadcasters, cable, pay cable -- all these new programming services were going to need programming."

Shortly after Access folded, Benz officially formed GRB, and while working out of his house, word came back that Dar Robinson had died in a tragic accident. In light of where GRB went from there, it seems almost poetical that Benz was able to springboard his home-based company into what would become a multimillion-dollar corporation with a tribute to his longtime friend. Triumph from tragedy, it's the kind of stuff Hollywood loves.

To assemble the tribute, Benz called on members of the stunt community and around Hollywood to contribute footage and their presence. He sold it to ABC as a primetime special, "Salute to Dar Robinson," aired in 1987, and ratings were excellent.



On With the Shows



Benz had found his calling, and GRB had taken its first steps. More importantly, Benz realized there was a market for the kind of programming the show represented, if it was handled right. Still working with the appeal of stunts, GRB produced "Tribute to Hollywood Stuntmen" in 1988. Benz inked a deal with Blair Entertainment to co-produce "Stuntmasters," a 22-episode series on stunts to ABC, with GRB and Alliance splitting international rights. Keeping with the firm's goals of working with a variety of partners, GRB then produced several staged-stunt specials to then-fledgling network Fox -- what would become "Live! The World's Greatest Stunts."

From the start, the programming found eager buyers overseas.

"It worked absolutely ideally for them, because it was all action and nothing translates better than action," says Benz. The shows had few to no talking heads, which made it easier to localize the products where necessary, and crisp, fresh and heretofore unseen footage. Early on, Benz closed sales to some of the most crucial overseas markets, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Canada, beginning a relationship with overseas customers that would continue to build over the years.

Benz next approached the Discovery Channel with "Live! The World's Greatest Stunts" after its initial syndication run. The relationship proved to be a turning point for both companies. For the Discovery Channel, it allowed them to break out of their perceived niches, both of content and style.

"GRB helped us expand with our audience the comprehension that we weren't just natural history and science and history programs on World War II," says Dan Salerno, director of programming for Discovery. "Gary does what a good producer does, and that is listen to his customers. He's really been willing to work with us as a partner. He's participated in research presentations to try and learn more about who our audience is and why they watch Discovery and at what times. He's shown a willingness to say, 'Hey, you guys are my partners, and how do you want me to make that happen?' And he does."

Working with GRB also moved Discovery in other directions.

"We helped Discovery broaden out from the strict documentary one-hour style," says Benz, "and we gave them the magazine format, variety approach, making it much faster-paced and thereby skewing to younger demographics."

For GRB, the relationship with Discovery gave them the entree to expand out of stunts, and provided a valuable platform for launching shows for an international market. And from the beginning of the partnership, Benz retained the international sales rights, even at a time when cable channels were more and more asking for worldwide rights to allow them to rebroadcast to their own expanding international outlets.

Benz's next proposal to Discovery broke from what had become his own signature genre, but which still hewed closely to Hollywood: a series on the behind the scenes of movie technical and special-effects wizardry. Discovery committed to 18 half hours of what became "Movie Magic" in 1993, a commitment that would turn into a five-season run. The show has become a popular staple on Discovery and around the world. With the domestic launch of Discovery Kids in 1996, the cabler was looking for extensions of existing programming, and turned to GRB to come up with "Mega Movie Magic" -- like "Movie Magic" but styled and written for younger audiences -- which is now in its second season and with a CableACE nomination to show for its efforts.

A year after Discovery began airing "Movie Magic," Benz pitched the science magazine series "World of Wonder," which has run for four seasons. In 1996, starting with an underwater science program called "Sea Tek," he started selling programming to The Learning Channel (TLC).

"I often hold Gary's company up as an example to other people," says Steve Cheskin, vp of programming at TLC. "When Gary comes to us with the idea for a project, you can count on the fact that it's going to get done."

These shows helped solidify GRB's signature approach -- strong visuals and a story-like structure built with a mix of archival footage and original material.

Ultimately, both Discovery and TLC bought over 100 hours of programming each from GRB. And success bred more ideas: GRB slipped easily into other reality/scientific formatting with incredible footage of out-of-control fires, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanoes with shows such as "Earth's Fury," "Storm Warning" and "What Went Wrong?" (which focuses more on technological, man-made disasters). Stunt-related programming, which was the bread-and-butter of the company for its first five years, is now one part of a diverse programming slate.

Acquiring the Warren Miller Extreme Sports Library might have seemed like a step into left field, but there was a plan in the works. With show titles such as "Endless Winter" and "Vertical Reality," the Warren Miller library is known for doing some of the best films on extreme skiing. GRB was a natural to distribute it, too.

"If you look at their shows, from 'World of Wonder' to 'Movie Magic,'" points out Warren Miller president Peter Speek, "and compare that to our ski and snowboard adventure films, the buyers are typically and quite often the same, yet the programming is not directly competitive."

In each of its subgenres, GRB has emerged not just as a financially successful producer and distributor but as a respected player in those fields, a chronicler that science and special-effects professionals look forward to working with (see sidebar below).



The Future



Given the company's success at key points in its history and the development of the international TV marketplace, Benz doesn't think he could have successfully started GRB at any time other than when he did.

"The timing wouldn't have been right. I don't think it could have worked -- I'd never have gotten noticed," he says. "You have to come in with a very hot concept that's going to travel well. And it's not that somebody can't get the attention of buyers out there, but it's a lot more difficult and a lot more costly, because you're competing against some pretty potent entities out there."

Benz' mandate for future growth means branching out into more ancillary businesses including syndication and home video and developing their in-house postproduction unit, Aardvark Post, into a profit center.

GRB is expanding its slate of home-video offerings through a deal with Image Entertainment, which earlier this month acquired exclusive worldwide licensing and distribution rights to GRB's catalog.

On the syndication front, GRB's popular "Movie Magic" series is coming off its initial license period on Discovery, and GRB will quickly roll up a slate built from its other programs to present to station groups.

And in a return of sorts to its roots, GRB has also recently been shopping "Action Awards" -- a sort of "anti-awards show awards show" focusing on the stunt community -- in conjunction with the William Morris Agency.

In an increasingly competitive TV market, Benz's determination to hold onto worldwide distribution rights and often lean domestic fees can result in deficit financing for his shows.

"I knew we could either chug along and do a few network specials or cable series a year," says Benz, "but if we really wanted to branch out a bit, we were going to have to have an investment."

Enter Allen & Co., the financial organization run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, which liked the potential they saw in GRB, but weren't sure about whether there was room to expand, at least at first.

"We looked at the product and the tapes and realized they were working in a genre," says Nancy Peretsman, managing director of investment firm Allen & Co. "Sometimes, in terms of cable, there is no quality. But this had a very good sensibility to it, as did the company, and they were able to make nonfiction entertaining." (Allen & Co. now hold one seat on GRB's board of directors.)

Benz and international executive Kim Relick are also moving the company toward more co-productions and co-financing arrangements to better serve their international clients.

"There are increasingly more program services that are going to take on [our] kind of programming," says Benz, "and I think as producers like ourselves get more accomplished at helping it evolve into exciting ways to tell stories, it will get bigger ratings and have all that much more advertising support."

Benz -- like one of the heroes of his disaster films -- has always been about seizing the moment, understanding his environment and reacting before he needs to, a strategy that serves him well living in Malibu.

"My house burned down in the fire four years ago, we have earthquakes right here," says Benz. "But I own a motorcycle because, to me, I have two small children and I need an escape vehicle. These are real things you need to pay attention to -- and, you know, there can be great informative, captivating programming that can be done about disasters like that."



SIDEBAR: Expert Opinions/GRB has stayed on top by knowing its subjects.



In order to make a living producing and selling documentaries on a specific industry, pleasing the audience isn't enough -- without the cooperation of your subjects, doing good work on a continuing basis is next to impossible. And it is the expertise with the stunt and special-effects communities that has allowed GRB Entertainment to continue to mine opportunties in such series as "Hollywood's Greatest Stunts," "Movie Magic" and "Mega Movie Magic."

"There's a certain art to being a motion picture stuntman," says longtime vetertan stuntman Terry Leonard, who now directs second-unit action sequences for films such as "The Fugitive," and has worked as a consultant to GRB on the "Hollywood's Greatest Stunts" specials. "Gary really well-represented stuntmen and stunt coordinators. I was real happy with how the product turned out."

"They're doing the show for a broad, nontechnical audience, and in that sense they've done a very good job of giving an overview of the work and paying homage to the best work that's being done," says Bob Hoffman, director of public relations and publicity at Digital Domain, of GRB's "Movie Magic" series. "I think the show is perceived by the studios as positive and supportive, and it's a safe bet that they're going to be responsible in the coverage they provide."

Early on in the production of "Movie Magic," GRB entered into an arrangement with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to donate footage from the show (aired and cut) to its archive.

"It's really an invaluable store of documentation on this aspect of Hollywood," says Michael Friend, director of the AMPAS archive. "We've sort of turned the corner on traditional cinema to digital and effects-driven cinema, and ["Movie Magic"] is an enormously significant documentation of that."

"They did a very nice piece on 'The Indian in the Cupboard,'" says Industrial Light & Magic visual-effects supervisor Eric Brevig. Though a lot of [effects] people saw the movie, it wasn't until they saw the ['Movie Magic'] piece that they said, 'Wow, you did a lot of complicated things.' Once they saw the show they wanted to see the movie again." Brevig also cites GRB's attention to detail in giving him access to rough cuts for review to ensure accuracy. "That's what's great about working with them," says Brevig. "They care about this stuff as much as those of us doing it."