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Time Business News
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Business News
Building a Weird Empire: From Field Notes to Prime Time
The lights dim in our makeshift production office in Transylvania. It's 2 AM, and I'm reviewing footage from our overnight shoot at Bran Castle, surrounded by hard drives, camera equipment, and a production team that looks simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated. Ten years ago, I was documenting strange cultural sites alone with a basic camera and field notebook. Now I'm running a crew for Season 2 of Weird World Adventures . The transition from to an Amazon Prime series wasn't something I planned. It evolved organically through a series of deliberate choices, persistent networking, and an unwavering commitment to treating the world's strangest places with intellectual rigor rather than cheap sensationalism. Here's how a personal blog about weird anthropology transformed into a global media platform. The Accidental Entrepreneur I never set out to build a brand. As a cultural journalist and Explorers Club member, my original goal was simple: document unusual cultural sites that revealed deeper truths about human societies. began as a practical solution to organizing my extensive field notes and photography from excavations in Cambodia, conservation work in South Africa, and folklore research across Europe. 'Your approach to these weird places is unique,' my doctoral advisor told me after reading my early field journals. 'You're treating folklore and strange cultural sites with the same methodological rigor you'd apply to conventional archaeological research.' That comment sparked a realization: there was a significant gap in both academic literature and popular media. Most scholarly work ignored 'weird' sites as frivolous, while popular content sensationalized them without cultural context. I positioned precisely in that gap—offering substantive anthropological analysis of unusual places in an accessible format. The blog's transition from personal research journal to public platform happened gradually. I standardized my documentation methodology, creating consistent categories that would make the content navigable for readers beyond my academic colleagues. Each location received: Historical context and scholarly literature review Cultural significance analysis First-person documentation of physical features Interviews with local experts and community members Comparative analysis with similar phenomena in other cultures This systematic approach distinguished from typical travel blogs, attracting a dedicated audience of what I called 'intellectual adventurers'—readers who weren't satisfied with either superficial tourism or impenetrable academic texts. From Text to Visual Storytelling The pivot to video content wasn't planned. It began as a practical response to the limitations of text and still photography. While documenting the oracle bone sites in Greece, I realized that static images couldn't capture how the fracture patterns in these ancient divination tools appeared under changing light conditions—a crucial element in understanding how priests 'read' divine messages. 'We need to film this,' I told my research partner. 'The way these patterns reveal themselves and disappear as the light changes is essential to understanding the divination process.' That first experimental video, shot on basic equipment and edited in my hotel room, received more engagement than any blog post I'd published. The comments revealed why: viewers felt more immersed in the experience, more connected to the cultural practices I was documenting. This insight led to a deliberate content strategy: using text for detailed analysis and scholarly context while developing video content to capture experiential elements that words couldn't adequately convey. I invested in better equipment, taught myself basic videography and editing, and began producing 5-10 minute documentary segments for the website. The transition wasn't smooth. My early videos were technically rough, with audio problems and lighting issues that make me cringe when I occasionally revisit them. But they connected with viewers in ways my written content never had. 'Your video about the bone churches in Portugal helped me understand something I've been struggling to convey in my own research,' wrote a folklore professor from Edinburgh. 'You managed to capture not just the physical space but the emotional resonance these sites have for local communities.' From Independent Creator to Production Partner The leap from creating web videos to developing a television series happened through a combination of networking, timing, and preparation. At a conservation conference where I was presenting research on endangered cultural sites, I met a documentary producer who had seen my video series on mythological geography. 'Your content has something most travel and paranormal shows lack,' she told me over coffee. 'You respect both the cultural significance of these places and the intelligence of your audience. Have you ever considered developing this for television?' That conversation led to a year-long process of concept development, pilot production, and eventually pitching to streaming platforms. What distinguished our proposal from similar content was our commitment to anthropological integrity—treating weird places as culturally significant rather than mere curiosities. The learning curve was steep. I had to translate my academic training and solo content creation process to a team environment with producers, camera operators, researchers, and editors. The production process for Season 1 of Weird World Adventures taught me more about collaboration, communication, and compromise than a decade of field research had. 'Television is fundamentally different from blogging,' our executive producer explained during pre-production. 'You're no longer just responsible for your own research and documentation—you're leading a team and making decisions that impact everyone's work.' This transition required developing new skills quickly. I had to learn to articulate my vision clearly to crew members, make decisions under the pressure of production schedules and budgets, and navigate the complex ecosystem of television development. Most challenging was maintaining the intellectual integrity of my approach while creating content accessible to a broader audience. Building a Sustainable Weird Empire With Season 1 successfully launched on Amazon Prime and Season 2 in production, has evolved into something more complex than either a blog or a TV show. It's become an integrated media platform where each piece of content exists in a carefully designed ecosystem: The television series provides immersive experiential content, showing viewers what it feels like to explore these strange places The website delivers deeper analysis, historical context, and scholarly resources for those wanting to understand more Social media channels create community engagement and real-time interaction with viewers/readers Speaking engagements at universities and conferences connect the content with academic research My forthcoming books explore theoretical frameworks that unite these weird phenomena across cultures This integrated approach has created something unusual in the media landscape—content that simultaneously satisfies academic rigor, attracts mainstream audiences, and preserves cultural heritage. 'What you've built isn't just a show or a website,' remarked a media studies professor who uses our content in her courses. 'It's a new model for how scholarly expertise can be shared beyond academic circles without sacrificing intellectual integrity.' The business aspects of this evolution have been as challenging as the creative ones. Building a financially sustainable platform has required difficult decisions about monetization, sponsorships, and partnerships. I've declined lucrative opportunities that would have compromised our anthropological approach, while accepting others that aligned with our mission. We've developed strict guidelines for potential partners: No exploitation of sacred or sensitive cultural sites No sensationalizing or misrepresenting local beliefs No staging or fabricating 'weird' phenomena Financial transparency with local communities where we film These principles have sometimes limited our commercial opportunities, but they've protected what makes and Weird World Adventures distinctive—our credibility with both academic audiences and the communities whose cultural sites we document. The Future of Weird As we prepare to launch Season 2 and begin development on Season 3, I'm focused on expanding our documentation of endangered weird sites—places of unusual cultural significance threatened by climate change, development, or cultural erasure. The platform we've built now serves multiple purposes: Preserving detailed documentation of sites that may not survive the next decade Providing a framework for understanding the anthropological significance of 'weirdness' across cultures Creating economic opportunities for local communities through responsible cultural tourism Building bridges between academic researchers and the broader public What began as a personal blog documenting strange places has evolved into something I never anticipated—a platform that's changing how people understand cultural heritage, folklore, and the unusual places that reveal deeper truths about human experience. 'The weird matters because it shows us where the boundaries of culture are tested, reinforced, or transformed,' I explained in a recent university lecture. 'By documenting these places with both scholarly rigor and experiential immersion, we're creating a new way to understand what makes us human.' From field notes to Prime Time, the journey of building has been its own kind of weird adventure—unexpected, challenging, and ultimately more rewarding than I could have imagined. As we continue expanding from digital content to television to publishing, our mission remains unchanged: to demonstrate that the world's strangest places often reveal its most profound cultural truths. The production assistant taps me on the shoulder, pulling me from my reflection. 'We've got that footage from the castle corridor ready for review,' she says. 'You won't believe what the thermal cameras picked up.' I smile and follow her to the editing station. Another weird day at the office, documenting the strange places that make our world so fascinating. Malorie Mackey is the founder of and creator/host of Weird World Adventures on Amazon Prime. Her forthcoming book, 'The Anthropology of the Unusual,' examines how cultures across time and space have used strange places to process collective experiences of wonder, fear, and transformation. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Boston Globe
10-03-2025
- Boston Globe
Helen Schreider, intrepid world traveler, dies at 98
Advertisement It wasn't until 2015 — 59 years after her husband was inducted — that Helen Schreider was belatedly inducted into the Explorers Club herself, once it had dropped its gender barrier. Faanya Rose, the club's first woman president, told her: 'You went exploring knowing there was no accolade for women. It was just the pure passion and the pure curiosity.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Schreider, a former art student who always traveled with drawing pad and colored pencils to record her wide-ranging explorations, died Feb. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. She was 98. A niece, Camille Armstrong, said the cause was a stroke. The Schreiders — along with raft-maker Thor Heyerdahl, deep-sea mariner Jacques Piccard, and others — were part of a semi-golden era of exploration, when bold transits could still be plotted across a globe not entirely subdued by technology. On the often harrowing trip that the Schreiders made from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from 1954 to 1956, they navigated angry stretches of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean to skirt roadless mountains in their amphibious jeep, which they christened La Tortuga (The Turtle) and which had a propeller and a rudder. The journey was recounted in a book, '20,000 Miles South' (1957), with text by Frank Schreider and drawings by Helen Schreider, that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. While on a US tour with footage they had shot of their trip, the Schreiders met the president of the National Geographic Society, Melville Bell Grosvenor, who hired them as a writer-photographer team. They completed six long assignments for National Geographic magazine from 1957 to 1969, beginning with a second trip by amphibious jeep along the Ganges River in India. Advertisement They followed up with a 13-month journey through the Indonesian archipelago, which they recounted in their book "The Drums of Tonkin" (1963). Trips by Land Rover followed: first in the Great Rift Valley of Africa and then along a 24,000-mile route from Greece to India in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Their last expedition, in 1969, was to map the Amazon River from its headwaters in the Peruvian Andes, which they navigated in a small boat they built themselves. Their National Geographic book 'Exploring the Amazon' (1970) made the disputed claim that the Amazon, not the Nile, is the world's longest river. (The Schreiders added the Para River in the Amazon's mouth to its overall length, although others considered the Para part of another system; most cartographers today agree that the Nile is longer.) That same year, 1970, the couple parted ways with the magazine. They divorced a few years later and pursued individual careers. Frank Schreider became a freelance writer and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in his 40-foot sailboat, Sassafras. He was on a lengthy cruise of the Greek islands in 1994 when he died of a heart attack at the age of 79 aboard his sloop. Helen Schreider joined the National Park Service as a museum designer. She created exhibitions within the Statue of Liberty for the US bicentennial in 1976 and at Yellowstone National Park. Advertisement Throughout her life, she painted portraits and landscapes in oil, inspired by her travels, which were shown in several solo exhibitions. She was included in the book "Women Photographers at National Geographic" (2000). 'She was voracious to discover the world and the beauty,' Armstrong said in an interview, adding that she always had her drawing supplies close at hand. 'She could literally with 10 swipes of the pencil get the whole drawing. She could capture the moments right as they were moving through villages.' Helen Jane Armstrong was born May 3, 1926, in Coalinga, Calif., in the Central Valley, to Breckenridge Armstrong, who managed water districts, and Ina Bell (Brubaker) Armstrong, a farmer and artist. She earned a bachelor of fine arts from UCLA, where she met Schreider, an engineering student. They married in 1947 while they were still undergraduates. She is survived by a brother, Donald B. Armstrong, and her partner of 25 years, John Ryan, a retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg. A second marriage, to Russ Hendrickson, ended in divorce in 1983. The Schreiders' plans for a delayed honeymoon road trip grew more and more ambitious, until Frank Schreider suggested driving all the way from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America. Helen Schreider agreed, and the couple departed from Circle, Alaska, in the treeless tundra, on June 21, 1954. Along for the journey was their German shepherd, Dinah. Because the Pan-American Highway had not yet been completed over some mountain ranges in Central America, the Schreiders rebuilt an amphibious Ford jeep that had been manufactured during World War II, which Frank Schreider described as a 'bathtub with wheels,' to take to the sea. Advertisement The ungainly La Tortuga first entered the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica in 10-foot surf, a terrifying experience for the couple that nearly ended their journey. 'La Tortuga reared like a horse, Helen grabbed for the dash, Dinah was thrown to the back, and I held grimly to the wheel,' Frank Schreider wrote in '20,000 Miles South.' The jeep later passed through locks of the Panama Canal to the Caribbean, where the Schreiders steered south, provisioned with a month's supply of Army C-rations. They island-hopped for 250 miles, coming ashore onto pristine beaches where children covered La Tortuga in flowers. After 30 seagoing days, they landed in Turbo, Colombia, where a customs official asked, "Is it a boat or a car?" 'It's both,' Ms. Schreider replied. At the southernmost tip of the continent, there was a final amphibious crossing in a 10-knot current of the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego, where they completed their journey Jan. 23, 1956. Back home in the United States, Helen Schreider told a newspaper reporter that she had been 'game for anything.' This article originally appeared in
New York Times
07-03-2025
- New York Times
Helen Schreider, Intrepid World Traveler, Is Dead at 98
At its founding in 1904, the international Explorers Club stated clearly that membership was 'limited absolutely to men,' a fraternity of the hearty who blazed new routes through 'the open and the wild places of the earth.' Inductees include Roald Amundsen, leader of the first team to reach the South Pole; Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay of Mount Everest fame; and, in 1956, Frank Schreider, who with his wife drove from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America in an amphibious jeep. They were the first people to travel the length of the Americas in an amphibious vehicle. Frank and Helen Schreider went on to indulge their wanderlust in India, Africa, the Middle East and the Amazon Basin, making documentary films and writing of their lengthy journeys in books and in articles for National Geographic magazine. It wasn't until 2015 — 59 years after her husband — that Ms. Schreider was belatedly inducted into the Explorers Club herself, once it had dropped its gender barrier. Faanya Rose, the club's first woman president, told her: 'You went exploring knowing there was no accolade for women. It was just the pure passion and the pure curiosity.' Ms. Schreider, a former art student who always traveled with drawing pad and colored pencils to record her wide-ranging explorations, died on Feb. 6 in Santa Rosa, Calif. She was 98. A niece, Camille Armstrong, said the cause was a stroke. The Schreiders were part of a semi-golden era of exploration, when bold transits could still be plotted across a globe not entirely subdued by technology, along with the raft-maker Thor Heyerdahl, the deep-sea mariner Jacques Piccard and others. On the often harrowing trip that the Schreiders made from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from 1954 to 1956, they navigated angry stretches of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean to skirt roadless mountains in their amphibious jeep, which they christened La Tortuga ('the turtle') and which had a propeller and a rudder. The journey was recounted in a book, '20,000 Miles South' (1957), with text by Mr. Schreider and drawings by Ms. Schreider, that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. While on a U.S. tour with footage they had shot of their trip, the Schreiders met the president of the National Geographic Society, Melville Bell Grosvenor, who hired them as a writer-photographer team. They completed six long assignments for National Geographic magazine from 1957 to 1969, beginning with a second trip by amphibious jeep along the Ganges River in India. They followed up with a 13-month journey through the Indonesian archipelago, which they recounted in a book, 'The Drums of Tonkin' (1963). Trips by Land Rover followed, first in the Great Rift Valley of Africa and then along a 24,000-mile route from Greece to India in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. Their last expedition, in 1969, was to map the Amazon River from its headwaters in the Peruvian Andes, which they navigated in a small boat they built themselves. Their National Geographic book 'Exploring the Amazon' (1970) made the disputed claim that the Amazon, not the Nile, is the world's longest river. (The Schreiders added the Para River in the Amazon's mouth to its overall length, though others considered the Para part of another system; most cartographers today agree that the Nile is longer.) That same year, 1970, the couple parted ways with the magazine. They divorced a few years later and pursued individual careers. Mr. Schreider became a freelance writer and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in his 40-foot sailboat, Sassafras. He was on a lengthy cruise of the Greek islands in 1994 when he died of a heart attack at the age of 79 aboard his sloop. Ms. Schreider joined the National Park Service as a museum designer. She created exhibitions within the Statue of Liberty for the United States bicentennial in 1976 and at Yellowstone National Park. Throughout her life, she painted portraits and landscapes in oil, inspired by her travels, which were shown in several solo exhibitions. She was included in the book 'Women Photographers at National Geographic' (2000). 'She was voracious to discover the world and the beauty,' Ms. Armstrong, her niece, said in an interview, adding that she always had her drawing supplies close at hand. 'She could literally with 10 swipes of the pencil get the whole drawing. She could capture the moments right as they were moving through villages.' Helen Jane Armstrong was born on May 3, 1926, in Coalinga, Calif., in the Central Valley, to Breckenridge Armstrong, who managed water districts, and Ina Bell (Brubaker) Armstrong, a farmer and artist. She earned a B.A. in fine art from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she met Mr. Schreider, an engineering student. They married in 1947 while they were still undergraduates. She is survived by a brother, Donald B. Armstrong, and her partner of 25 years, John Ryan, a retired professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg. A second marriage, to Russ Hendrickson, ended in divorce in 1983. The Schreiders' plans for a delayed honeymoon road trip grew more and more ambitious, until Mr. Schreider suggested driving all the way from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America. Ms. Schreider agreed, and the couple departed from Circle, Alaska, in the treeless tundra, on June 21, 1954. Along for the journey was their German shepherd, Dinah. Because the Pan-American Highway had not yet been completed over some mountain ranges in Central America, the Schreiders rebuilt an amphibious Ford jeep that had been manufactured during World War II, which Mr. Schreider described as a 'bathtub with wheels,' to take to the sea. The ungainly La Tortuga first entered the Pacific Ocean in Costa Rica in 10-foot surf, a terrifying experience for the couple that nearly ended their journey. 'La Tortuga reared like a horse, Helen grabbed for the dash, Dinah was thrown to the back, and I held grimly to the wheel,' Mr. Schreider wrote in '20,000 Miles South.' The jeep later passed through locks of the Panama Canal to the Caribbean, where the Schreiders steered south, provisioned with a month's supply of Army C-rations. They island-hopped for 250 miles, coming ashore onto pristine beaches where children covered La Tortuga in flowers. After 30 seagoing days, they landed in Turbo, Colombia, where a customs official asked, 'Is it a boat or a car?' 'It's both,' Mr. Schreider replied. At the southernmost tip of the continent, there was a final amphibious crossing in a 10-knot current of the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego, where they completed their journey on Jan. 23, 1956. Back home in the United States, Ms. Schreider told a newspaper reporter that she had been 'game for anything.'
