The company’s founding members have many years’ experience in underwater and underground speleological research including the archaeological field. They are also experts in the professional video sector with full knowledge of the different techniques and systems, as well as the various technologies and the different communication strategies. Over the years they have acquired a high level of credibility backed by all the skills required in the design and production sectors. Studio Blu Production is able to provide a complete production cycle for documentaries starting from the planning and design stage through to distribution and promotion of the finished product. The main sectors in which Studio Blu Production operates are: underwater and underground speleology, archaeology, tourism and art.
PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTARIES AND FILMS:
The company’s founding members have many years’ experience in underwater and underground speleological research including the archaeological field. They are also experts in the professional video sector with full knowledge of the different techniques and systems, as well as the various technologies and the different communication strategies. Over the years they have acquired a high level of credibility backed by all the skills required in the design and production sectors. Studio Blu Production is able to provide a complete production cycle for documentaries starting from the planning and design stage through to distribution and promotion of the finished product. The main sectors in which Studio Blu Production operates are: underwater and underground speleology, archaeology, tourism and art.
VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICES:
Studio Blu Production specialises in underwater and underground sites, marine and lake floors even at great depths, natural caverns and manmade excavations (tunnels, crypts, mines, quarries, etc). Apart from being difficult to access, such locations require a whole range of special skills and equipment for successful shooting. This is where Studio Blu Production comes into its own, since a non-specialised team would incur prohibitive costs working in such places. Applying the experience gained in difficult and extreme settings has helped to build up the skills of Studio Blu Production in more traditional fields as well, enabling the company to plan, direct and shoot films from unusual viewpoints – something that would be difficult using ordinary methodologies and experience. Complex images and sequences can be filmed directly by Studio Blu Production operators using state-of-the-art digital cameras backed up by all the equipment required for climbing or diving. Studio Blu Production can also provide training and support assistance should clients prefer to carry out shooting with their own crew and equipment. Studio Blu Production also has considerable experience in the field of aerial photography, operating throughout Italy, with prompt intervention at reasonable costs.
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHIC FILMING:
Thanks to the professional know-how of its founders and to a network of specialised partners, Studio Blu Production makes use of innovative technologies and deploys special equipment in order to carry out complex video filming in particular areas. Such equipment includes surface and underwater remote-controlled robots, micro-video cameras, “endoscope” filming arms, radio-frequency or satellite transmission systems (audio and video) and other equipment required to research and explore locations where it is impossible to send an operator for live filming.
VIDEO AND MULTIMEDIA PROJECTS:
Full production autonomy and links with other specialised companies enable Studio Blu Production to undertake complete video services in the industrial, scientific, corporate, institutional and promotional sectors. Studio Blu Production can directly handle any type of communication project, from the planning and design stages through to distribution of the end-product in a variety of complementary ways (videos, photo reportages, multimedia supports such as CD-Rom, DVD, Internet, as well as organising events and displays).
EXCLUSIVE ARCHIVE OF VIDEO SEQUENCES (UNDERWATER & UNDERGROUND:
Studio Blu Production has an exclusive archive of video sequences and images shot in underwater and underground settings, which are available on request for other video, cinema and TV production companies. Those who are interested in using material of this type will receive the time-code version so that they can choose the sequences to be ordered.
PORTFOLIO: Documentaries
THE LORDS OF IRON (I Signori del ferro)
(Archaeology – 42 or 30 minutes)
“453 B. C.: a fleet of 60 ships invades Elba, which is laid waste, with the inhabitants of Monte Castello and Castiglione S. Martino being annihilated. The Syracusan general Apelles led the army that, after having swept the coasts of Etruria and Corsica, reached its most ambitious target: that island rich in the metals that make the Etruscans one of the foremost industrial powers in history. This marks the beginning of the parabola’s descent for the most resplendent and powerful period of the Etruscan civilisation; that period linked to the most important metal in history; even more important than copper, silver and gold; a metal that by then had become indispensable for forging utensils and, above all, weapons, in a world perennially engaged in struggles. That period that will for all time consecrate them throughout the whole of the ancient world as the … "LORDS OF IRON"
Selected in Competition at the International Exhibition of the Archaeological Cinema held in Rovereto (Italy) - 2005
Selected Out of Competition at the “Archeocinema - Archeofestival” – Perugia (Italy) – 2006
IN THE MILL (In fondo al “mulino”)
(Cave diving – 30 minutes)
Luigi Casati is one of the most experienced spelaelogy divers worldwide. His current diving record in caves stands at a depth of 186 metres in the SmallSubioloLake and at 180 metres in the White Elephant cave. We now follow him on his third explorative expedition in the “Risorgenza del Mulino", in the “Grotte di Castelcivita” complex, researching a continuation that will finally provide an answer to the complex hydrology of this spring. Our filming team follows him with two video-filming diving operators down to 90 metres, at which point Luigi, with an underwater scooter on which we installed a camera, continues to descend in the “risorgenza”, for the first time filming even the deepest and most complex part of this dive. He re-surfaces after 5 hours and while, on the spur of the moment, he reports his impressions to his trainer and diving companion, Jean Jacques Bolanz, our curiosity to see the images filmed from the scooter is uncontrollable…
Selected in competition at the “FESTIVAL MONDIAL DE L’IMAGE SOUS MARINE”- Antibes (France) - 2005.
USTICA, BEYOND THE SEA (Ustica sopra e sotto il mare)
(Underwater archaeology – 30 minutes)
The Isle of Ustica ,most important integral Italian Marine Reserve for its splendid and uncontaminated sea beds, the "black pearl” of the Mediterranean, is also a very rich site of archaeological findings, to date still largely unexplored. In a strategic position on the commercial maritime routes that used to connect the Roman Empire to its African provinces, its ocean depths guard innumerable archaeological findings. After years of sporadic research of the underwater site of Cala Santa Maria, the first underwater archaeological site was made ready with the purpose of initiating an organised activity of research, study and development of the enormous submerged archaeological heritage. We follow all its organising, setting up and excavating phases, through to the recovery of findings, mainly consisting of amphora, in this way discovering that underwater archaeology is not made up solely of exceptional and sensational findings, but consists in a lengthy and complex work of investigation and research.
Selected in Competition at the BEOGRAD International UNDERWATER FILM FESTIVAL held in Beograd (Serbia) - 2006
CUMBIDA PRANTAS … invites your footsteps
(Archaeology and Speleology – 30 minutes)
Shelters, sanctuaries, burial sites and "water factories": these are the caves of “Supramonte di Dorgali”, in Sardinia. They hold a precious heritage of millenary testimonies. Maria Masuri and Leo Fancello, naturalistic guides and expert spelaeologists, accompany us in this fascinating and complex exploration through places of ancient memories of the Sardinian people .
Selected in Competition at the International Exhibition of the Archaeological Cinema held in Rovereto (italy) 2006
THE THREAD TORN(Il filo “strappato”)
(Cave diving – 30 minutes)
What drives a man to don a cumbersome wet suit, load himself with heavy equipment, board an underwater craft and dive into the bowels of the earth for five long hours in water that is at a temperature of no more than 10 degrees? What desire pervades him to the point of inducing him to dive to such depths, with only the light of his torches to dispel the darkness, with the full awareness that it is only a thin Ariadne’s thread that represents his sole possibility of return?
These are the questions we pose ourselves whenever we follow Luigi Casati, one of the most expert European underwater spelaeologists, on one of his new undertakings. And if each exploration provides us with a different answer, the motivation that originates remains identical: the passion for discovering unique, almost inaccessible places, revealing the mystery and the secrets held by these remote places. A continuous discovery, made of small steps, between failures and successes, on a path that follows a thread, an ideal, to be rediscovered each time one is alone with oneself, a thread to re-knot whenever we find it before us, torn, floating at the mercy of the current…
PANTA REI … everything flows(Panta Rei … tutto scorre…)
(Cave diving and Speleology – 30 minutes)
An excursion in the caves of Diros in Greece is an unforgettable experience. The boat glides on the crystal-clear waters descending from MountTaigeto, between cleverly illuminated stalactites and stalagmites. For 30 minutes, one lives in a world of unreal splendour, passing from a cave to the next, the deepest of which, called the "BigOcean", reaches a depth of 70 metres. After having rowed for about 800 metres on board small boats, in religious silence, a group of underwater spelaeologists lower themselves into the submerged and mostly unexplored cavities in this immense complex, gently paddling with flippers through unreal and awesome environments, amid calcareous columns that remind one of a cathedral, though narrow passages that lead to halls with changing colours, in one of the most beautiful submerged caves of the whole planet. But, the surprises don’t end here: in the most recessed part were found bones belonging to prehistoric animals that, thousands upon thousands of years ago, fleeing the glaciations, found their last shelter here …
Selected in Competition at the International Exhibition of the Archaeological Cinema held in Rovereto 2006
Selected in Competition at the “FESTIVAL MONDIAL DE L’IMAGE SOUS MARINE” held in Antibes (France) – 2006
Selected in Competition at the “SOLUNTO FILM FESTIVAL” held in Palermo (Italy) – 2006
Selected in Competition at the BEOGRAD International UNDERWATER FILM FESTIVAL held in Beograd (Serbia) - 2006
Selected in Competition at the “FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DEL CINEMA ARCHEOLOGICO – “CAPITELLO D’ORO” held in Rome (Italy) - 2007
THE SAN NILO’S MYSTERY (Il “mistero” di San Nilo)
(Subterrains – 30 minutes)
We will follow A.S.S.O. and the Underground Research Centre EGERIA through the underground passages and tunnels of the San Nilo Abbey in Grottaferrata in an exploration that as its main purpose, has the surveying, documenting and reconstructing of the underground structures of the architectonic complex. Built on the ruins of a majestic Roman villa, the central part was made up by a low building in “opus quadratum”, formerly a sepulchral cell of the Republican era, readapted from the Vth century as a Christian oratory. It had double iron grating at the windows, from which was drawn the name of the surrounding area, called Cryptaferrata [then Grottaferrata]. But the research, of a scientific-character, could also lead to unexpected findings; to date, in fact, no one has yet found the small silver coffin that preserves the mortal remains of the Saint….
Selected in Competition at the International Exhibition of the Archaeological Cinema held in Rovereto 2007
FROM THE SHIPWRECKS TO THE CAVES(Dai Relitti alle Grotte)
(Underwater History - 30 minutes)
In latter years the under-water diving as a sport has enjoyed increasing interest and, aiming mainly at tourist and naturalistic explorations, allows an ever increasing number of enthusiasts to discover the fascinating “sixth continent”. But there are still submerged places in which the underwater exploration is reserved for experts and specialist teams, through the deployment of sophisticated technologies in complex and potentially dangerous environments.
Ever more often, professional, social and scientific needs require the deployment of specialised underwater technicians for works that range from underwater archaeology to the exploration of submerged caves, from rescue and recovery activities to extreme-depth works, from surveys of submerged geological phenomena to environmental impact monitoring activities. This will be a trip discovering places and persons that, utilising forefront techniques are now creating the history of the underwater environment for the next years.
Selected in Competition at the “SEA&TV” European and Mediterranean Festival on Sea Television 2007
Selected in Competition at the “FESTIVAL MONDIAL DE L’IMAGE SOUS MARINE” held in Antibes (France) – 200/
Selected in Competition at the BEOGRAD International UNDERWATER FILM FESTIVAL held in Beograd (Serbia) - 2007
Credits for all productions:
à Script: NICOLETTA RETICO, MASSIMO D’ALESSANDRO
à Executive Producer: MARIA TERESA PILLONI
à Photography: MARCO CAMPOLUNGO
à Music: FLIPPER MUSIC EDITION
à Voice over (italian): CLAUDIO CAPONE
à Director: MASSIMO D’ALESSANDRO
Of all StudioBlu productions, editions of differing duration are available, as well as in multi-language versions: English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and others.