Continuing our discussions on the 'best in the world', I'd like to take a look at Denise Cramsey, Executive Producer of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. As a recent panelist in NATPE's "State of the Industry" address at LATVFest in Hollywood, CA - Denise discussed her thoughts on uncovering stories that audiences love with Reality TV.
Denise - an incredibly classy and perceptive woman living in the tumultuous sea of Hollywood arrogance - is a firm believer that the single most important part of her job is to "get into the heads of the people in the story". Denise shared a clip from a recent episode on the Rogers family that had eyes welling up for even the most seasoned of network programming executives. In this episode, the emotional 'clincher' centered around a small hand-painted house sign that had been placed over the entryway of the Rogers' new family home.
Denise discovered the sign after observing the family matriarch while the movers were sorting family items - the mom saw one of the movers rifling through the junk in an old bureau and had asked if he could be sure to not throw the sign away. Something about her casual question made Denise pause, and she made sure to secretly grab the sign and give it to the designers for prominent placement as part of the new home's entry.
When the new home was revealed the mom was glued to her spot, overcome with emotion - not by the gorgeous new home, but by the sight of "The Rogers" sign over the door. Turns out the sign had been a gift from her father at her wedding to her late husband - and she had been so embarassed of their dilapidated home that she had left it buried in a drawer for years.
Denise's committment to truly knowing the people in her stories is one of the key characteristics that has made her one of the 'best in the world' - as evidenced by the success of Home Makeover and that other little show of hers that launched a network - Trading Spaces.
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