Update: TV Producer Herb Ankrom
Your Industry Insider originally profiled TV producer Herb Ankrom in mid-2009. He had recently left “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to work with one of the other producers, Denise Cramsey, as she launched a production company. They had just gotten a second season pickup for their first project, “True Beauty.” We wanted to check back in to see what Herb was now up to.
Current Position: I am Executive Vice President and Production/Senior Producer at DC/TV.
Current Projects: We have four or five series in development being pitched to networks and larger cable channels in the coming weeks and are finishing a feature documentary on breast cancer called “Expedition Inspiration,” which will be making the film festival rounds next year for distribution. We’re also venturing into scripted television, docu-reality (scripted reality), and also feature films. With regard to the last one, we’re finalizing financing on a feature project about a straight man who finds himself married to his gay best friend a week prior to his wedding to a conservative judge’s daughter.
The second season of “True Beauty” will air on ABC this summer. (Editor’s note: It’s a television series in which contestants are competing to see who is truly the most beautiful. They think they are only being tested on outer beauty, though.) This season, Beth Ostrosky Stern and Carson Kressley were part of our judging panel. We’re very excited about how it turned out.
We have also just had an order from NBC for a two-hour pilot for a project called “School Pride” which will be shot in April. The show, which is like “Extreme Home Makeover” for schools, is being produced by Denise Cramsey, Cheryl Hines, and myself, and features us facilitating a community rallying around a school to make it over in whatever ways it needs most, whether it be a new roof and carpeting, a science lab, a library, outfitting the music program, etc. It was inspired by a principal in South Central Los Angeles who got a tennis court donated to her school, among other things. Six months later, when the students were tested, the scholastic scores were up 50 to 60%. It seems that when attention is paid and the school is respected as a valuable commodity in the community, the students pay more attention to their studies. So we’re going to go back to the school we help several months after our makeovers and test the students and see what other changes have resulted.
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Tags: DC/TV, Herb Ankrom, Producer, School Pride, True Beauty
