While the French audiovisual group GEDEON Media Group is best known (and has been for almost 30 years) in the traditional documentary world, its approach to immersive formats is not new. Its GEDEON Experiences branch, now headed by Agnès Garaudel, has already produced several narrative works for the world of heritage. These include GAUDÍ, L’ATELIER DU DIVIN in 2023, co-produced by Small Creative and NHK, and POMPEI, co-produced with RMN Grand Palais and Pompeii Archaeological Park.
In 2024, GEDEON Experiences will be offering Excurio (Emissive), a new immersive expedition celebrating 150 years of the Impressionist movement at the Musée d’Orsay. Raphael Haddad, the department’s business development manager, takes a look back at this well-launched activity.
Exploring new formats between documentary and fiction
Raphaël Haddad – My arrival at GEDEON Experiences to take charge of the department’s business development is a new step in what has turned out to be a very immersive career. In 2011, I started working on panoramic photography and 360° videos. I then joined Digital Immersion, a creative agency specializing in immersive technologies for advertisers and major groups (Club Med, Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga…). I also worked with Delusion, a company that produces LBVR content for arcades – but also software solutions for operators. Notably on the second opus of JUMPERS REVENGE, and a signed collaboration with Ubisoft and a network of arcades behind it.
R. H. – Following this career path, I joined GEDEON Experiences to accelerate the marketing and development of innovative experiences in the field of culture and entertainment. We are a branch of GEDEON Media Group, a company that has been producing and distributing documentary films for 25 years. We have a strong editorial line on certain themes: History, Culture, Science, but any theme can be the subject of an immersive experience as long as there is a strong creative, narrative or experiential challenge. GEDEON Experiences was created in 2019 to explore all immersive technologies: VR, AR, mapping, large format etc. It’s the stories that motivate us above all, and understanding the narratives to be integrated into these new formats.
GEDEON Experiences, at the service of exhibition venues
R. H. – The group has a long-standing interest in innovation and technology. For the purposes of our documentaries, we have acquired considerable expertise in initiating 3D reconstructions of vanished spaces from our heritage and the past, enabling us to bring the past to life. This incredible material was the starting point for this new activity. Strolling through these 3D models is ultimately to offer visitors the chance to relive and understand a moment in history. This quickly led to collaborations with various players in the industry, such as Ubisoft in the video game sector. And it’s a dialogue we’re continuing with XR players such as Small Creative and Emissive on our two latest productions, studios whose know-how and technology we appreciate.
R. H. – Our track record enables us to work with major cultural institutions to design unique experiences, as we did for the Pompeii exhibition at the Grand Palais 3 years ago (link). Over 200,000 visitors in 3 months, for a production linked to the archaeological site of Pompeii and completely geared towards phygital, with a real scenography, monumental projections and the presence of archaeological objects from the site. The strategy was therefore to offer a multi-channel production with a classic documentary film accompanied by more innovative formats. Virtual or physically located, sometimes turnkey on commission (from content to final scenography):
- Japan” exhibition at La Villette (link) to coincide with the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,
- Ocean” exhibition (link) in France and Europe since 2022, with the support of the French Ministry of the Sea,
- Via Sensoria, an immersive tasting experience, at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux in 2023 and reopening soon in April 2024 (link), on the theme of the 4 seasons,
- L’Expérience VR GAUDÍ, L’ATELIER DU DIVIN in 2023 on tour for 1 year in Japan with the Sagrada exhibition, at festivals and in LBVR cinemas (link), with the documentary “Sagrada Familia: Gaudi’s challenge”.
GAUDI, an immersive format for historical exploration
R. H. – GAUDI was the idea of diving into the designer’s workshop, and discovering its history, inspirations and working methods. The workshop itself burned down in 1936, and we had to recreate the space in 3D as closely as possible to historical reality, based on rare photographs found in foundation archives and newspapers from the period. Everything was done on the documentary side like a real shoot, with actors and a virtual production studio equipped with LED screens. With this 3D model, it seemed to us that we could tell another story, and that’s when the idea of a virtual reality experience emerged. In co-production with Small Creative and NHK, we have created a multi-user, free-roaming experience that is both narrative and accessible, aimed at the general public. And so GAUDÍ, L’ATELIER DU DIVIN was released in June 2023, and has since toured Japan alongside an exhibition on the artist. And it is now available on the Illucity network in France.
R. H. – The idea with GAUDI was to open up to all audiences, in a fun and highly cultural way – in particular by providing real information, and a real feeling, emotion. The theme of time travel, the discovery of lost heritage and past personalities, prompted us to develop a collection dedicated to this format. The second episode will focus on the Château de Versailles, VERSAILLES, L’AUBE D’UN JARDIN, again with Small Creative and authors Stéphane Landowski and Gaël Cabouat. The subject places us around the site’s vanished gardens, the Grotte de Théthys, the Labyrinthe and the Menagerie, and the encounter with a young Louis XIV at a time when everything was very festive.
Next step: an immersive expedition to the Musée d’Orsay
R. H. – Our next production, from March 26 to August 11 2024 at the Musée d’Orsay, is “Un Soir avec les Impressionnistes, Paris 1874”, in co-production with Excurio (Emissive) and the Musée d’Orsay. The project was initiated several years ago, based on the observation that there was very little documentation and virtually no iconography of the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 (a pictorial movement that emerged in France in the 1860s in opposition to academic art). The challenge was to put together a real research team, as with GAUDI, and find out in the historical archives what had taken place. We had to find what would enable a faithful reconstruction of this first exhibition, held in the studio of the photographer Nadar. We found correspondence from painters, information on how the paintings were hung, the interior and exterior architecture of Nadar’s studio, street lighting in Paris at the time, and so on.
R. H. – Once our development had matured around this information, we launched the production of an experience that invites the viewer to relive that inaugural evening on Boulevard des Capucines. We enter the studio, discover the works and meet the artists, the effervescence of the place, the inspirations and influences of the paintings. The Excurio immersive expedition format welcomes the general public with a capacity of 80 simultaneous users. The experience will take place in the Musée d’Orsay’s Hamon gallery, on 700 square meters of immersive expedition space. The 40-minute virtual reality expedition is complemented by a pre-show and a post-show in video mapping, which introduce and conclude the experience, providing context on the history of Paris at the time and the regions that inspired the painters, and thus offering the public a visit lasting around 1 hour.
R. H. – This project is part of the Musée d’Orsay’s exceptional exhibition “Paris 1874 – Inventing Impressionism”, featuring 130 Impressionist works (link), created in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which will host the exhibition of paintings following on from the Musée d’Orsay. The immersive experience “Un Soir avec les Impressionnistes, Paris 1874” is also destined to travel, alongside of course the docu-fiction film “1874, la naissance de l’impressionnisme” produced by GEDEON Programmes, with a touring program that will take her to North America and Asia.
In partnership with Voyages Impressionnistes.
Operation supported by Visit Paris Region, Normandie Tourisme, the Ile-de-France & Normandie regions and the French government – Fonds national d’aménagement et de développement du territoire.
To be continued with GEDEON Experiences
R. H. – We believe that immersive technologies have reached a form of maturity that allows them to reach out to the public. XR has emerged from the gaming niche, with obvious benefits for the cultural sector. And people in the cultural sector are attracted to these innovative formats. The target audience we can reach is very broad, and that motivates us to create new stories for them. And for GEDEON, broadening access to knowledge in an entertaining way. It’s obvious that XR’s level of retention, with each viewing, is far greater than traditional content. The whole thing is interactive, and the wonder is there!
R. H. – The arrival of GAUDI in the LBVR and arcade distribution cycle is an opportunity for us and Small Creative to see what this type of content can achieve outside museums. And, in particular, to confront an audience more accustomed to gaming, and to participate in opening up the public. On this point, we’re still experimenting to find new outlets. And we’re continuing to find new venues for this experience, as well as looking at formats for wider use, to open up the gauge to more spectators simultaneously. Emissive’s immersive expedition model is very inspiring in this respect.
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