How It's Made

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How It's Made
The website title for How It's Made.
Format	Documentary
Created by	Gabriel Hoss
Starring	Lynne Adams (2006–present) June Wallack (2005) Lynn Herzeg (2002–2004) Mark Tewksbury (2001)
Country of origin	Canada
No. of episodes	130 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	22 minutes approx.
Broadcast
Original channel	Ztélé (Quebec) Discovery Channel Canada The Science Channel (United States)
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) 480i (SDTV)
Original run	1999 (Canada & France) 2001 (United States) – Present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

How It's Made is a television program produced in Quebec, Canada by Productions MAJ Inc., and Productions MAJ 2 (3959015 Canada Inc.) in seasons made since 2005.

1 Format
2 Languages
3 Hosts
4 Episodes
5 External links

[edit] Format

The show is a documentary program showing how common, everyday items (including foodstuffs like bubblegum, industrial products such as motors, musical instruments including guitars, and sporting goods such as snowboards) are manufactured, and is filmed to simplify overdubbing in different languages, for example largely avoiding showing a narrator or host onscreen, and most often also not having employees of featured companies speak on camera. An offscreen narrator explains each process, making heavy use of puns. Each half hour show usually has three or four main segments, with each product getting a demonstration of about 5 minutes, with exceptions for more complex products.

[edit] Languages

It is broadcast in English on Discovery Channel Canada and Discovery Civilization Channel, and in French on Ztélé. The program is also broadcast abroad, for example, in the United States (on The Science Channel and the Discovery Channel), the UK (on Discovery Channel UK and Discovery Science), Italy on Discovery Science IT, Norway (translated into Norwegian on Discovery Channel and Discovery Science), and Poland (translated into Polish on Discovery Channel Polska and Discovery Science Channel Polska). The show is also broadcasted under various titles: in Portuguese under the title O Segredo das Coisas, in Spanish under the title Así se hace, in French under the title Comment c'est fait, in Polish under the title Jak to jest zrobione, in Hungarian under the title Hogyan készült, in Romanian under the title Cum se fabrică, in Italian under the title Come è fatto, in Russian under the title Как это работает, and in Norwegian under the title Hvordan den lages.

[edit] Hosts

Lynne Adams - Season 6 - present (2006 -)
June Wallack - Season 5 (2005)
Lynn Herzeg - Seasons 2 - 4 (2002 - 2004)
Mark Tewksbury - Season 1 (2001)

Additionally, a different voice-over track is recorded for U.S. audiences by Brooks T. Moore (Seasons 1-8, 2001-2007) or Zac Fine (Season 9 - 2007-present). The main difference in the versions is that the U.S. host gives units of measurement in United States customary units instead of metric units. At one point in the U.S. run, a subtitled conversion was shown on-screen over the original narration instead.

In April 2007, all episodes run in the United States (on the Discovery Channel and Science Channel) had the individual season openings replaced with a new opening used for every episode. Additionally, similar to most other Discovery Channel shows, the credits now run during the last segment, with only a blue screen and the request for feedback (and the website) at the end.

In September 2007, the 9th season began airing on Science Channel, along with new openings, graphics, shot in high definition, soundtracks and a voiceover track provided by Zac Fine replacing Moore.

In the UK, rest of Europe and S.E. Asia, the series is narrated by Tony Hirst. All episodes have been shown in the UK on the UK Discovery Channel.