Beyond Imagination-Colosseum/Pompeii/Pyramid (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Making Of-The Pyramid Notes-Fact Files Featurette-Before and After Visual Effects Sequences Gallery-Photo Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Colosseum-A Composer's Story Interviews-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	158:49 (Case: 237)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Jonathan Stamp Tilman Remme Peter Nicholson
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Robert Shannon
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$39.95	Music	Martyn Swain Ilan Eshkeri Ty Unwin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.75:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This double disc set includes three BBC produced documentaries with very high production values. They focus on historical events but use a different approach to most previous documentaries. The approach is to mix normal documentary style filmmaking with filmmaking which would usually be associated with feature films. The producers take historical facts, including newly discovered details about the events in question, and use them to build a dramatic story around the historical event. They use actors to play particular historical characters such as Pliny, Pharoah Khufu or a particular Roman gladiator and in some cases characters which they have created based upon known facts about people who lived at the time such as the lead character in the Pyramid-Beyond Imagination documentary, Nakht. I get the impression that these documentaries were not necessarily a series as such but rather three separate productions done with a similar approach.

    The three documentaries are:

• Pyramid - Beyond Imagination (57:41) This documentary covers the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza from the perspective of a conscript worker, Nakht, who joins the team who are building the pyramid and works on it for the next 10 years or so. It is interesting to note that these people were not slaves but rather were peasants conscripted from their villages to work for the Pharaoh. They were well treated and better fed than they would have been living in their villages. I found this program to be very interesting and I felt that the approach of presenting it from one man's perspective was ingenious. This program uses a lot of CGI to recreate the pyramid and the building methodology which enhances the viewer's understanding of the process.
• Colosseum - Rome's Arena of Death (50:25) This one chronicles the life of a gladiator, Verus, taken as a slave from his home in the Balkans, through his time working in a quarry, on to his being enrolled in gladiator school and then to his eventual freedom due to his great victories. His greatest fight occurs during the games which open the Colosseum under Emperor Titus. The story is quite reminiscent of the movie Gladiator and in fact the stunt co-ordinator also worked on that film amongst many others including Braveheart and The Mummy. To my mind, this documentary offered the least in terms of new insights of the three but was still interesting.
• Pompeii - The Last Day (50:43) - This documentary was recently shown on the Nine Network in Australia. It chronicles the last day in the life of the Roman city of Pompeii, during which Mount Vesuvius erupted destroying the city and surrounding areas. This documentary includes dramatisation of real characters from the time such as Pliny, an Admiral and his son and characters created from historical details, such as a fuller (a business which washed laundry using human urine) and other merchants, gladiators and noblemen. It includes fascinating new details about the nature of the eruption itself and why so many people (over 5000) were killed.

    My only criticism of these documentaries would be that they could sometimes be a little pompous and full of their own self worth.

    Overall, this is an interesting set of documentaries presented in a different way to most historical documentaries.

Video

    The video quality is generally very good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.75:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio (or very close to it).

    The picture was generally clear and sharp, with no evidence of low level noise. Some light grain was present, more obviously on the second disc containing documentaries 2 & 3.

    The colour was excellent throughout with all colours being well saturated and free from colour bleeding.

    There were only some minor artefacts including aliasing (e.g. at 1:50 on the pyramid) and a few white specks here and there.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired which were clear, easy to read and fairly exact to the spoken word.

    The first disc is single layered, so does not have a layer change and the second disc is dual layered but each program seems to be on a separate layer.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains only one audio option, a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s. This track performs perfectly adequately for the program at hand.

    The dialogue and voiceovers were clear and easy to understand.

    The surround speakers added a little atmosphere when the soundtrack was played using ProLogicII but little more.

    The subwoofer was not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are quite plentiful on these discs and are available for all three titles.

Menu

    The menu systems were simple to use and included scene selection and music from the documentaries.

Pyramid - Making Of (14:15)

    An interesting featurette about the challenges faced by the crew in recreating a great pyramid. Includes interviews and details of costumes, casting and the 18 month production cycle. It is spoiled slightly by a monotonal voice-over.

Pyramid - Fact Files

    15 items of quite interesting trivia about the pyramids and their construction.

Pyramid - Before & After Visual Effects (3:25)

    This featurette compares mock-ups with the final visual effects shot of the pyramid.

Pyramid - Photo Gallery

    A selection of approximately 20 stills mostly taken from the feature itself

Pyramid - Trailers (1:57)

    A compilation of the various trailers used on the BBC to promote this show.

Colosseum - A Composer's Story (17:09)

    It seems to me that a 17 minute featurette on the score for a 50 minute documentary is overkill. This is proved correct as this is only marginally interesting and gets boring after about 5 minutes.

Colosseum - Interviews

    There are 6 separate interviews which are quite interesting as follows:

• Tilman Remme - Producer/Director (5:20) - Discusses casting, concept, approach and the locations in Tunisia.
• John Leonti - Visual Effects (4:27) - Discusses how they recreated the Colosseum
• Andreas Patrides - Action Director (4:31) - Discusses how they prepared the actors for the fight scenes and the techniques used.
• Maurice Cain - Production Design (4:49) - Talks about how they found the locations and props used
• Jeremy Turner - Costume Design (4:49) - Discusses the simplicity of the costumes and fabrics used for authenticity
• Robert Shannon - Actor - Verus (4:03) - Talks about the training he went through and makes it obvious that he was re-voiced in the documentary.

Colosseum - Fact Files

    Five pages of interesting trivia.

Pompeii - Interviews

    There are two interesting interviews included here as follows:

• Peter Nicholson - Director (5:53) - Discusses locations in Tunisia and other aspects of the production
• Isolde Sommerfeldt - Costumes (4:29) - A interesting interview about how they made the clothes look dirtier for poorer characters and how they achieved the effect of people having ash and pumice on their clothes.

Pompeii - Fact Files

    5 text pages of interesting trivia about the eruption.

    Despite this being a BBC production, I cannot find any evidence of this set being available anywhere except Region 4.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good.

    The disc has a wide selection of quite interesting extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall