TALES FROM THE EXPLORERS CLUB PRODUCTION.
M any of us spent a large part of our childhoods dreaming of becoming an explorer. Whether we’ve been inspired by watching the 1969 moon landing, reading about Howard Carter’s discovery of the intact tomb of King Tutankhamun or watching Indiana Jones racing the Nazi army to the Holy Grail, we have all flirted with the idea before settling on a ‘normal’ career. If you still harbour ambitions to experience some of the greatest achievements of mankind – but from the comfort of your own sofa – Tales from the Explorers Club could be the series for you. A six-part documentary by Ping Pong Productions/Circle the Globe for Discovery+, it explores some of the most inhospitable environments in the world. Presenter Josh Gates takes viewers from the peaks of Mount Everest to the unknown expanses of space, the densest forests to polar expeditions, all to recount history’s great achievements. ‘The Explorers Club’ is a very real society, with past members including Teddy Roosevelt, Neil Armstrong, Jane Goodall, Edmund Hillary, John Glenn, Sally Ride and Bob Ballard. The series recounts club members’ death-defying exploits to the top and bottom of the world. Of course, Gates doesn’t really fly to the moon or scale Mount Everest; a certain amount of television trickery is employed in the retelling of these tales – but that doesn’t mean the production of this show was in any way simple. “In VFX, snow is notoriously difficult as it tends to blow out and lose detail. We had to control the highlights for each new set-up” TO BOLDLY GO Tales from the Explorers Club includes fables both worldly and extra-terrestrial – such as that of Apollo 13
PEAK PERFORMANCE ARwall’s speedy set-ups bought a taste of realism to the show’s re-enactments
31. MARCH 2023
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