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January 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 6 POST JANUARY 2018 BITS & PIECES LONDON — National Geographic began airing the three-part docu- mentary special Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist back in December. The program takes an in-depth look at the life and work of Fossey, who spent years in the jungle of Rwanda studying mountain gorillas. While there, she helped raise awareness of the poaching that was threatening the species — even in a protected national park. Her advocacy for the gorillas made enemies, and on Christmas of 1985, she was murdered in her cabin in a machete attack. Prior to her murder, Fossey had agreed to be the subject of a film about her work. In 1988, Gorillas in the Mist was released, with Sigourney Weaver starring as Fossey. In the new Nat Geo special, Weaver returns to provide narration, reading passages from Fossey's journal. Zara Hayes directed Secrets in the Mist, working once again with editor Fergal McGrath. "When Secrets in the Mist started to evolve last year, she contacted me to check whether I would be avail- able and interested," McGrath recalls. "I ended up on the job and it was a fantastic project to be a part of." The special is presented in three 'broadcast hour' episodes running approximately 40 minutes each. "It was quite tough," says McGrath of telling the story. "You have to learn to squeeze it all in in that amount of time and make the hard breaks your friends to move the story along." National Geographic was a sponsor of Fossey's work, and as such, had a large vault of media that they made available for the project, including 300 hours of Super 16 footage that was transferred to 4K by Technicolor. In addition, there were around 5,000 stills available too. "I've never had a job with so much material for a certain part of some- body's life and so little for another part of their life," says the editor, referring to Fossey's early life and her initial time spent in Rwanda. The production team created reen- actments to help fill in storyline gaps by building a set that resembled the Karisoke research facility. The original facility was abandoned and destroyed during unrest in Rwanda in the '90s, so the production shot instead in Costa Rica. "It was quite difficult to take a [chapter] approach because of the lack of material, especially from the early part of her life," he explains. "We tried to interweave two ele- ments: the biography of Dian Fossey, but also the unsolved murder of the same woman. It wasn't your stan- dard structure at all." McGrath spent the first six months assembling an offline edit from his home studio, which is equipped with an Avid Media Composer running on an HP Z440 workstation. New material was shot in 5.5K using a Red camera. Additional footage included 4K, HD and SD material. Several times a week, the team at Tigress Productions (www. tigressproductions.co.uk) in Bristol, UK, would send a hard drive with the latest rushes, which McGrath would then transfer to his LaCie Thunderbolt drive. McGrath says that viewers get to know Fossey and the gorillas in the first episode. In the second episode, they come to understand the enemies that she made and the situation that she was in. The final episode reflects on the aftermath of her murder and the case itself. Films at 59 Bristol (www.filmsat59. com) provided post services for the project, including edit suites, color grading and online. The final project was delivered in the 1080/23.98fps format. — By Marc Loftus EDITING NAT GEO'S DIAN FOSSEY DOCU-SERIES Fossey spent years in the jungles of Rwanda. Sigourney Weaver during a recording session. narration Editor Fergal McGrath cut the project on an Avid.

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