LA Media recently reunited with Cisco Systems Inc, a multinational technology conglomerate that develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware. We were asked to film a piece about the integration and installation of a Cisco system into one of France's national broadcaster, Canal Plus.

Canal Plus Group SA is a French film and television studio and distributor. Canal Plus or Canal+ translates as  "Channel Plus/More," which is a very apt name for them. It is owned and controlled by Vivendi and has a film library in excess of 5,000 films.

The video we were tasked with making had to show the results of the integration process through the eyes of those at Canal Plus. Watch out for the final version on our website, which will be up at later date. We thought we'd share some of the snaps captured on Justin's phone during the day!

Studio Gallery at Canal Plus

Image by LA Media 'Studio Gallery at Canal Plus'

The Road to Paris

Although LA Media has much of its own equipment in-house, sometimes we link up with our Partner Procam for our technical needs. This time was no exception! Darryl Hewat, at Procam Glasgow, went above and beyond for us at short notice in delivering what we needed for this shoot.

LA Media Team at Airport with Equipment

Image by LA Media 'The Production Team Arriving at Edinburgh Airport' 

 

The phrase travel light moves fast doesn't really apply when you go abroad with equipment. We want to be clear, we aren't sponsored by EasyJet, but we wish we were!

Flying with EasyJet made traveling with copious amounts of camera equipment easy peasy! No headaches and no surprise airport baggage fees.

The outsized baggage handlers were really helpful and polite. Everything was fast and efficient. The self-check-in kiosk was simple enough that even our Director Justin was able to use it all by himself.

Green Screen at Canal Plus Studio

Image by LA Media ' Green Screen at Canal Plus'

Our impressions of  Canal Plus

We were absolutely astounded at how Canal Plus is run. They have three studios and all were busy the entire day. Their turn around was like lighting and they efficiently moved from project to project with ease. Truly a well-oiled machine making good use of studio space.

New CISCO system at Canal Plus

Image by LA Media  'Cisco Systems Installed in the Technical Area'

 

One studio produced a live game-show and a live music show on the same day without a hitch. Another produced a political comedy using spitting-image style puppets and the last studio generated a live children's show. For anyone that doesn't understand the effort that involves it was herculean!

 

Canal Plus studio gallery

Image by LA Media 'Studio Gallery at Canal Plus'

 

We came back feeling really inspired by Canal Plus's work ethic and will definitely be using some of their methods and tricks in the future.

Filming in the Canal Plus studio

Image by LA Media 'Cameraman Andrew Murray hard at work in Canal Plus studio'

 

This is one studio group that really knows how to get some real bang for their buck. Four different formats were produced by three different studios each one an hour in length.

French bagpipers at canal plus studio

Image by LA Media 'French-Scottish Bagpipers not what we were expecting!'

 

This was a really awesome project to work on and we were thrilled to have a chance to have an inside look at Canal Plus's studio space. It was great to team up again with the wonderful people at Cisco. We'd like to send a big thank you out to Procam for being such pros and to EasyJet for making the journey so simple!

 

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