The Diana Investigations

“This landmark series combines first-person testimonies with news archive and contemporary reconstruction, leading the viewer through the French and British investigations which followed the tragic events of the night of 31st August 1997.

During the on-line edit, we worked hard to preserve as much detail as possible in the archive footage, most of which was 4:3 SD interlaced news footage of relatively poor quality. We used various plug-ins and techniques to add video fields together, without introducing blurring, which made the archive more stable and easier to watch. The CCTV footage required more work to stabilise the recordings, keeping the date/time stamp securely positioned in the same place on screen. Text elements were designed and positioned to complement the supplied graphic sequences.

Two versions of each episode were created, one for Discovery+, one for Channel 4, so we were constantly alert to the differences between both sets of deliverables, in terms of caption safe areas, and content/spelling.”

“My brief was to create a mix that was abstract and steered away from a traditional dramatic reconstruction documentary. This provided me with an exciting and interesting task. I started with the dialogue mix, which consisted of cleaning and levelling the dialogue. The audio was a mix of interviews and archive footage, some of which was over thirty years old – so needed work to fit in with the new footage. I then created the abstract, atmospheric sound effects to accompany the visuals.

With the series being shown with two different broadcasters, there were some slight changes between the mixes. For example, Channel 4 requires a Stereo Mix whilst Discovery + requested a 5.1 Mix.

It was fascinating to hear from the French side of the investigation for the first time, it really makes the programme standout from other programmes on the subject.”

“The series directors came in with a specific look in mind. A key theme in the series is conspiracy theories that came out of the early world of the internet. Green is a key colour that gradually ramps up as more conspiracies are introduced. The consistent use of green made all the conspiracies feel part of the same ‘world’ to create one picture. There is a real film noir feel to the dramatic reconstruction that makes the documentary feel mysterious.

Archive footage was an important part of the series, which helped put the puzzle together from that night in Paris. I enhanced the material but without giving the footage a modern look. For example, a news broadcast from the time was enhanced but it is still obvious that the broadcast is from the 90’s. I did this by using a LUT which enhanced the colour palette but did not take away the look of the archive.”