By Elina Shatkin, August 3, 2006
Having traversed nearly every country on the planet, Globe Trekker can be called the world's most global travel show. Each episode is hosted by a lone traveler who tries to fulfill the show's mandate of bringing exotic destinations to life by "living as the locals do." This may include sampling native delicacies, bunking in traditional lodgings, visiting landmark attractions and seeking adventures that are off the beaten path.
In the United States, Globe Trekker is widely distributed to local public television stations thanks to a partnership between WETA (Washington, D.C.'s public television station) and APT (American Public Television).
Globe Trekker was created by Ian Cross and is produced by his London-based company, Pilot Productions, which releases 30 episodes per season. "It takes 15 to 18 months to produce a season's worth of shows, and we've been in nearly continuous production since 1994," says Cross. "We have crews out almost all the time."
A typical crew consists of five people: the presenter/host, producer, director, camera operator and sound recordist. In addition, producers will hire a local liaison at the destination as well as drivers, translators and "fixers," as needed.
From start to finish, it takes approximately six months to complete a show. First comes a research period in which Globe Trekker researchers decide what should be featured about a particular country and determine the best time to go. The staff then works to secure permission and support from tourist authorities and airlines. The series producer comes on about six weeks before the "recce" (the reconnaissance visit) and works with the researcher to prep the destination. A pre-site visit script is produced, and the director comes on board just before the recce.
"During the recce, we basically set up the shoot, source contributors and make site visits," explains Cross. "This is so the shoot runs smoothly and we don't waste time shooting stuff that isn't going to work or doesn't look as good as it sounds."
After the recce, a pre-shoot script is produced
. "The scripts tend to change through the course of the show, but about 75 percent of what needs to be said in a show is written before we shoot, as long as what we've set up is reflective of the type of experience you'd have in the country," says Cross.
The host is flown in just prior to the three-week shoot so he or she can get acclimated to the locale. "These are taxing, difficult shoots," says Cross. "To work on [Globe Trekker], you've got to love traveling. The shoots are longer than a lot of conventional hour-long shows, so you have to be in love with the lifestyle and the place.
"Most of our teams are freelance. What tends to happen is you get a producer or director who works for three to four shows, and after that they've had enough. The crews and the hosts tend to be more returnable."
Globe Trekker is shot primarily with Digital Betacam cameras (Cross couldn't verify specific models), and a Sony HVR-Z1U HDV camcorder serves as backup. In addition, each episode contains about five minutes of Super 8 footage. "We shoot on Super 8 because it gives our show a particular look," says Cross. The idea behind carrying a Super 8 camera is that it allows the crew to capture on-the-fly moments without having to power up a video camera. Once the Super 8 footage is shot and processed, it is sent to be color graded and transferred to DigiBeta for editing.
The offline editing phase, which lasts for months, is done in-house at Pilot Productions on two Avid Media Composers. The company has an additional Media Composer in its Singapore office. "We've got our own cameras and we offline in-house, but we finish out-of-house," says Cross. "We've been tempted over time, as budgets get squeezed, to do it all in-house. We do perform our own dubbing because we have to do it for use in different countries, so it's cheaper to do that." The Voice and Music Company performs the audio work-sound editing, music, voiceover, layback, sweetening and final mixing-while Ascent Media in London completes the online.
.
|