The beginning of a great adventure
Everything started in mid-June in Montreal, Canada, I arrived early morning with my trailer full of equipment and ready to load all the personal belongings of the rest of the crew, ready to leave for the Gaspe peninsula for a summer of discovery and salmon, that’s what we thought at the beginning.
So after a few stops to get all the personal belongings of the crew, we hit the road, direction BRP (Bombardier Produit Récréatif) in Valcourt Quebec, to take delivery of à beautiful Quad motorcycle that was to be used during the show, the producer as got a sponsorship from the company who wanted to promote their brand with a TV show, and in return they wanted us to use their quad during the whole season of the show
It's time to get on the road
Everything was set and we were ready for a 12-hour drive to the first filming location, the Bonaventure River. The next day we started filming André fishing and interviewing a fishing guide we met on our adventure, but we also had a lot of shooting to do around the river itself, so we had to get up early to shoot videos for one of the segments we planned to create in the show. The Bonaventure River was beautiful and allowed us to shoot some spectacular footage that will be featured throughout the season. When you’re filming a fishing show, you have to be ready to get up very early and go to bed late, so throughout the production, we had to be ready early in the morning because you know the phrase: “the early bird gets the worm”, so to catch a fish it’s the same rule plus with twilight, it was the time when the fish were most hungry.
However, although we were amazed by the beauty of the Bonaventure River and its scenery, we were quite frustrated as we were not able to catch many fish despite a lot of patience in locating them, we still did not manage to get a good enough number of salmon for our video segment which was planned for that week, the summer was very bad for salmon fishing in Eastern Quebec. We did manage to shoot some video and got some great footage of the Bonaventure River and various interviews with André and local fishing guides. All the guides we met told us the same thing, it’s not a good summer for salmon, but we had so many good places to film in the different rivers that we took advantage of it and went there, and also thanks to André who knows the area like the back of his hand.
Émilie Marchand
Taking pictures for the behind-the-scene. Documenting a production and paying tribute to the creators and technicians.
Richard Duquette
No matter where the host is, it is often the director of photography who has to take the most risk
From technique to creativity
I was the director of photography and fixer for King of the River Tv Series, and it was my job to make sure all the sequences were shot for each episode. With me, I had Emilie who was in charge of the third camera as well as all the logistics and equipment required. The rest of the team was made up of two other cameramen, a drone operator, a sound recordist and a DataWrangler who were all incredibly efficient and could work under pressure. We had to get up early and travel a lot during the summer months to make sure we met all production needs and finished all the episodes on time. It wasn’t an easy task, but with all of us working together, we managed to do it, and I’m proud of the results we achieved!
The TV Show “King of the River” was aired all around the world and was very well received by a large public. it was a great adventure and a lot of fun to be part of this project and work with such a great team.
The Team
Films.Solutions
