For Arte.tv, making interactive documentaries is 'a question of surviving'

Håvard Ferstad

Joel Ronez from Arte.tv recently attended the documentary festival "Nordic Panorama" in Norway. The channel is investing in its own future by customizing content for the web to target new audiences. "It's a question of life, of surviving," says Ronez, who is the channel's head of Internet.

"Prison Valley" is an interactive road movie about the prison system in Colorado. The documentary portrays the valley around Canon City and its numerous high security prisons as a new Alcatraz.

"We are making these kind of projects to learn how to better grasp the online storytelling and narrative web documentaries," says Ronez.

It is not only a question of who is the photographer, director and journalist. It is also a question of design and programming

Arte.tv is focusing on doing web documentaries. The goal is to produce video content which fits the nature of the Web. To achieve that, the entire team of programmers, journalists, photographers and designers is involved from the first stages of the project.

"It is not only a question of who is the photographer, director and journalist. It is also a question of design and programming," he says.

Ronez emphasizes the importance of customizing the content for different platforms and audiences.

"With Prison Valley, it was content first," Ronez continues. "We asked ourselves: What can become good interactive programs? Do we have the material to make good broadcast programs also?"

As a result, Prison Valley is published both as web and broadcast documentaries. Arte is working on optimizing and reusing the same workflow for web and broadcast for each new project, as this is more economically sound.

The future

Arte.tv is currently looking at making fictional productions. Part of the web strategy is to make new thematically focused websites about history and ecology.

With Prison Valley, it was content first. We asked ourselves: What can become good interactive programs? Do we have the material to make good broadcast programs also?

The channel is using the traditional model of having external production companies like Upian do much of the work, including the programming and design needed for the interactive platform.

The price tag for Prison Valley is a hefty 240 000 euros. Gaza/Sderot cost 216 000 euros. The web division of Arte, arte.tv, has a budget of 2 million euros. As a comparison, the television budget for Arte is 100 million euros. Arte is doing between 6-20 projects a year.

Zmâla, a French magazine has a very interesting article on Prison Valley and Upian (French).