Magellan's Extraordinary Odyssey is a 4x52' documentary series in a hybrid format, combining documentary and fiction, personal accounts and animation, which tells the story of Ferdinand Magellan and the first circumnavigation of the globe by sea. The series was presented to the Spanish public and professionals at the second edition of Francia está en pantalla in Madrid in early June.
François Bertrand, producer of the documentary, co-founder and president of CLPB Media Group, and Véronique Commelin, head of sales at CLPB Rights, tell us how the project, co-produced with Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, came to fruition despite the difficult context of the pandemic, and galvanized an international audience.
Unifrance: How did you decide to tell Magellan's fascinating story?
François Bertrand : The project came from writer-director François De Riberolles, with whom we had already produced Lune: La Face cachée de la Terre, an ambitious film co-produced with China and sold worldwide. Telling the story of Fernand de Magellan and the first circumnavigation in history, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the expedition, was an irresistible gamble.
This was in 2018, and François and I began by talking a lot about the form this fascinating story could take. The main difficulty in telling Magellan's story was the complexity of the means required to tell it, the battles, the storms, the round-the-world voyage. On the "Lune : La Face cachée de la Terre" project, we had worked with Ugo Bienvenu to animate the dreamlike sequences on the moon, and we wanted to go back to this visual principle, but animation was too expensive, and we wanted to combine it with real shots of the key places on the expedition (going around the world wasn't a concern in 2018!). So Ugo and I decided to create beautiful drawings and animate them in motion design, using simple animation principles. Ugo put together a team of five designers for the project.
What new angle does this documentary series on the history of Magellan offer? How did you approach the choice of format and the writing process?
FB: The question was how to tell a story that takes place over three years. We talked it over very quickly with Hélène Coldefy, former head of the discovery and knowledge unit at ARTE France, who quickly bought into the project. We opted for a serialized storytelling format, using dramatic arches typical of fiction, and signed a development agreement with Arte for an initial number of three episodes.
When it came to the narrative, questions quickly arose: where does the story end? Do we go all the way around the world, knowing that Magellan dies in the Philippines before the end of the voyage? In reality, it was Juan Sébastien Elcano, Magellan's second-in-command, who brought back the only ship to complete the circumnavigation, three years later. Telling the whole story didn't fit into three episodes, and in the end Hélène Coldefy gave us the go-ahead for four episodes, so that we could tell the whole story of history's first official "circumnavigation."
When the project was being developed, there were many competing international Magellan projects, but few came to fruition. Financing something as ambitious as this is difficult, and the pandemic brought many productions of this scale to a halt.
The decision to divide this "docu-epic" into four episodes has enabled you to tackle the many facets of this story...
FB: Yes, that's right. Because the geopolitical context in the early 16th century was quite unique. The world was divided between the Portuguese and the Spanish, who dominated the seas. Charles V, an ambitious young monarch, wanted to ascend the throne of Europe, and his motives were also economic. He wanted to find a new route to the Moluccan islands, home to cloves, which at the time were thought to have many virtues. But nobody knew whether these islands were Spanish or Portuguese territory. Magellan, the Portuguese explorer, took advantage of this situation to "sell" his project to the enemy kingdom of his home country.
The good fortune of this expedition and for history remains the presence on board, until the return to Spain, of Antonio Pigafetta, Italian sailor and chronicler, in charge of keeping the logbook, who was one of the survivors and was therefore able to recount the entire tour.
Co-produced with Spain, Belgium, and Portugal, this ambitious documentary offers multiple viewpoints on this great story. How did you unite your partners around the project?
FB: By signing with Arte, we were able to develop 1,000 drawings instead of the 750 originally planned, and start with an initial budget of €2 million (€500k per episode). Soon enough, international partners were interested in the project, which was presented on the market in 2019, but the Covid crisis was a major blow. The two years that followed were difficult for the film, with particular difficulties in organizing interviews and shooting abroad.
The documentary adopts a universal point of view, with contributors from Argentina and the Philippines. We couldn't limit ourselves to a strictly European point of view. The Battle of Mactan, in which Magellan perished, is a good example, since it is celebrated on certain islands, notably in the Philippines, as a symbol of resistance to the invader. There is also controversy as to who was the first to complete the circumnavigation of the globe: was it Elcano, or Magellan's slave Henrique from Malcca in Malaysia?
We were joined by specialists to organize the dialogue around several characters from different backgrounds: renowned historians, of course, but also people from the world of the sea, such as Robin Knox-Johnston (the first sailor to complete a non-stop single-handed round-the-world voyage), or chef Olivier Roerllinger to talk about the value of spice, for example.
Thanks to our distribution subsidiary CLPB Rights, a four-person team now headed by Véronique Commelin, to pre-sales and co-production partnerships, we were able to finance this major project.
In addition to Arte France for France and Germany, Planète+ is committed to second window France. We were able to count on the CNC, PROCIREP, a grant from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region for animation, the SOFICA, Cinémage, and seven countries in pre-buys, among them Sweden, Canada, and Poland.
But the most decisive factor was the support of the three co-producing countries, which provided substantial funding: Belgium (Belgica Films), Spain (Minimal Films), and Portugal (Serena Film).
The synergies between CLPB Media's various divisions have been an undeniable asset...
FB: There were many twists and turns, but it was thanks to CLPB Rights, working hand in hand with a distributor, and a shared tenacity that the project came to fruition.
Around the film, we also decided to develop an immersive exhibition, piloted by Lucid Realities, in co-production with the Musée de la Marine in Paris. This project is still underway, and the exhibition will open in Paris in 2024, after which it will tour the world.
A graphic novel is also planned, in co-production with Denoël. We have long considered the possibility of a video game, in co-production with Ink Stories in the USA, but this project is yet to come to fruition, mainly because of the pandemic.
What special qualities does the program have to appeal to international audiences?
Véronique Commelin: First and foremost, the series offers strong, universal narrative stakes: the tale of a mad gamble, a round-the-world expedition, a historical epic embodied by an ambitious, charismatic, and ambivalent character.
On the other hand, the series benefits from exceptional production values in terms of form (animations and 4K live action shots of the key stages of the journey), access to international experts, and a renowned technical and artistic team.
In addition, for the few broadcasters interested but limited in terms of programming, we also developed a 55-minute stand-alone film dedicated to the passage of the Strait, the turning point of the expedition.
FB: François de Riberolles was accompanied by an extremely talented team: Sabine Emiliani, c chief editor (Oscar winner for The Emperor's Journey), Vincent Mathias,who set up the interviews (Oscar winner for See You Up There), Nicolas Becker overseeing music and sound (Oscar winner for Sound of Metal), and Quentin Sirjacq, who co-composed the music. .
Nicolas Becker and Quentin Sijacq designed an original musical mechanism in synesthesia with the story, and created a veritable sound library prior to editing. We then made the acoustic recordings after editing, which was a very efficacious method.
How has Magellan's Extraordinary Odyssey been received in France and abroad?
VC: The four episodes were broadcast on Arte in November 2022, achieving the channel's documentary audience record for the year: three million views in less than a week, both linear and non-linear. The series tallied almost one million viewers per episode during the first broadcast, testifying to strong audience engagement for all four episodes.
The program's success has also been confirmed by first-time broadcasters such as TV5 Québec Canada , RTBF, RTS and RTP. RTP even decided to present the series at the Emmy Awards. In Italy, Rai which had been uncertain about the animation in relation to their audience, finally confirmed its commitment thanks to the ratings on Arte.
FB: We've been selected for a few festivals, by've tended to be in the exploration field. Series have a hard time finding their place at documentary festivals.
The presentation in Madrid, at Francia esta en pantalla, enabled Spaniards and film professionals to realize that documentaries can be highly complex to finance.
What are your plans? For Magellan and for CLPB Media in general?
VC and FB: For Magellan, after Europe and Canada, we're hoping for new sales, notably in the United States, with whom we're in talks with several specialized platforms, and in Australia. We're also looking forward to early 2024, with the opening of the exhibition at the new Musée de la Marine in Paris, and to thinking about possible spin-offs.
For CLPB Media, apart from its historical activities: live shows, documentaries, fiction and immersive films, the next big project is the launch of Unframed Collection, a distribution platform for immersive works. This project is spearheaded by Chloé Jarry and Alexandre Roux from Lucid Realities, internationally recognized and present at all VR trade shows. This B2B platform is aimed at cultural venues in the broadest sense (museums, libraries, arcades, etc.). The idea of this platform is to offer all the tools and a catalog of selected works. It will offer a player and a controller to facilitate the dissemination of experiences in these venues, and to enable rights management. The site is due to be launched in July, with international deployment scheduled for the last quarter of 2023. We have received support from Europe Creative Média and BPI.
Thanks to a unique system, France has the capacity to bring together all this talent, which is exported enormously. We're working to strengthen this sector and reduce the divide between different forms of creation. It is this creative synergy that characterizes the CLPB Media group.
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