A Real 3D Adventure!

As 2011 is the year of the overseas territories, EMF has decided to honour their extraordinary diversity of forests. After French Guiana (Amazon rainforest), it is planned to go to New Caledonia (dry forest/wet forest), Réunion/Mayotte (Mangrove), Guadeloupe/Martinique (Caribbean Mangrove), Polynesia (underwater coral forests) and Saint Pierre and Miquelon (boreal forest).

The series will be shown simultaneously on France Ô (this will be the first 3D service from France Télévisions) and on Orange’s 3D channel. It will also be shown later on Ushuaia TV and TV5 Monde.

The team of explorers left last month for French Guiana, to spend 3 weeks providing the technical equipment and human resources needed for the production in 3D of the first documentary in the series. The team took with them 2 dedicated 3D cameras (double lens, double zoom but with just one camera body: the Panasonic AG3DA1) and separate P2 AVC Intra 100 recorders. Meanwhile, Hélicoptère de France provided us with 2 helicopters.

Of course, the filming conditions were not the normal ones! It was necessary to adapt, improvise, deal with problems, breakages, surprises and difficult living conditions! It was also necessary to negotiate with the Grand Ma (head of the village) to ensure 2 hours of power (in exchange for rum, petrol and rolls of fabric!)

Despite starting out in the dry season, it often rained! But that allowed meetings with the world’s biggest rodent (the capybara), canoes and schoolchildren going back to school in an American Indian village. Above all, it was possible to access a village which requires special authorisation (from the civil and military authorities) because in some areas the local populations enjoy high levels of protection (to the north of Papaïchton, an area which is not shown on maps!).

Finally, Euro Media Group supported the project right to the end – the post-production (over 30 hours of rushes) was provided by Euro Media France for the offline 3D editing, and by the Belgian subsidiary Videohouse for the online editing and Nucoda system corrections. For the conversion of some 2D shots into 3D, EMG chose the Teranex VC 100 system.