07/16/2014
AMP VISUAL TV goes inside "Fort Boyard" for a 25th season
AMP VISUAL TV has been filming the programme "Fort Boyard" since 1990. To record its 25th season, 25 of our technicians set up camp in the Fort for almost two months. Go behind the scenes of the programme, in the middle of the open sea, between the Île-d'Aix and the Île-d'Oléron!
From 14th May to 15th July, in collaboration with Adventure Line Productions our team recorded ten episodes for the 2014 season of the cult show "Fort Boyard". These are not just for broadcast in France but in seven other countries as well: Sweden, Canada (specifically Quebec), the UK, Morocco, Russia, the Netherlands and Azerbaijan, totalling 71 episodes to be shown over almost two months.
Due to the originality of the programme's concept, our technicians have had to adapt to distinct filming conditions: relying heavily on the weather, our teams must brave the dangers of the tides to transport their technical apparatus from the mainland to the open sea at La Rochelle. They also need a specific and impressive range of filming equipment: as well as eight SONY HDC 1500 cameras, two SONY HSC 300 cameras, one PMW 100 camera and one Triax camera, filming also relies on 18 hand-held cameras and four underwater crates. All this is relayed to our fixed control room (MVS 3000 mixer), under the direction of Bernard Flament for the French version.
Though high definition and 480 points of optical fibre were installed in the Fort for the previous season, this year the main technical innovation lies in the programme's recording, which is now done on six XDCAM video recorders and NAS disks (five streams).
Even after 25 years, the Fort remains a unique meeting place full of sharing and friendship for our teams, as well as for the families who gather to watch the show every Saturday evening at 8.45 pm on France 2!
