Totem me neither. The 25th edition of Koh Lanta will kick off this Tuesday evening on TF1. Known for its images of heavenly beaches and lush jungles, the famous adventure game is not without consequences for the planet. From plane rides to challenges in the lagoons, the producer of the show Julien Magne reveals to Vert the efforts made to limit the impact of the game.
Have you already carried out a carbon assessment of the show?
No, this is not work that we did. The CNC [Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, NDLR] asks certain productions, particularly fiction, to carry out a carbon footprint, but this is not our case. It takes a lot of time, and there are so many parameters and variations of these parameters depending on the sites on which we shoot that we haven’t done any calculations.
You still film in natural, relatively preserved spaces, which has a certain impact…
Unfortunately, these are not completely preserved natural spaces since each season we are unfortunate witnesses to the extent of plastic pollution. We land on a beach that we think is deserted, heavenly and cut off from all civilization, and we come across piles of diverse and varied plastics. I remember some sites in Indonesia where the tide brought the equivalent of 40 or 50 100-liter garbage bags of plastic waste every day. Our first job is to clean the different sites where the competitors will live, where the events take place… When we leave, the places are much cleaner than when we arrive.
What practices have you put in place to limit the environmental impact of filming?
Our objective each season is to reduce the staff who come from France, and this also applies to freight, particularly for the technical equipment that we try to recover locally. It’s been a few years since we decided to shoot several seasons in a row in the same location, which has a significant impact because we no longer need exploratory trips since we know the sites and part of the technical freight can stay in place.
We only use natural materials for the installations, everything is entirely designed, assembled on site and dismantled. This means that we never leave anything behind, so we either recycle it for other events, or we pass it on to people who can reuse the wood, rope, bamboo, etc. We use drones rather than helicopters to shoot images.
We are introducing drastic selective sorting, and we are raising awareness among the villagers on these issues. For several seasons, we no longer or almost no longer use plastic water bottles since we installed water fountains and provided insulated bottles to everyone. Smokers are equipped with pocket ashtrays. The sunscreen offered to adventurers and teams is labeled so as not to impact corals. More generally, we choose sites that are not far from each other — a maximum of thirty minutes by boat — to limit travel times and fuel consumption. These may be small details, but they are a daily concern for production teams.
© A.Issock/ALP/TF1
What regarding the tests, which often require the installation of infrastructure?
We will always think regarding and implement our games as responsibly as possible. We sometimes cut grass and bushes, clearing certain areas, but obviously, this is always done in agreement with the local authorities. On the other hand, we are hyper vigilant never to cut down trees. We also take great care in mangrove areas, since these are very important spaces which will release a lot of oxygen into the atmosphere. If we believe, always with the local authorities, that we can enter without impact, we do so, but otherwise we do not take any risks. We know how complicated it is to have perennial mangroves so there is no question of us playing in them.
For events that take place in water, specialists help us select locations. First of all, we’re never going to play on corals. Both for environmental reasons, because it is out of the question for an adventurer’s foot or a platform for camera operators to be on a coral potato, but also for health and safety reasons [le corail peut provoquer de vives brûlures et des infections, NDLR]. This is one of the constraints we impose on ourselves, so we will always look for sandy bottoms to play safely and without impacting the local ecosystem.
How do these concerns translate on screen?
Beyond the way in which Koh Lanta is produced, there is also what viewers will see. We shoot in natural environments, and it’s also a way for us to highlight the beauty of the planet. It may seem trivial but it is a reality that the public often brings up to us, because they take pleasure in seeing a resplendent and living nature and it allows them to become aware of certain values.
For several seasons, we have been implementing rewards [gagnées par les aventuriers à l’issue d’épreuves, NDLR] which highlight environmental protection actions. In the last season, for example, adventurers were able to meet people who work on coral preservation and discover their daily lives, make coral grafts, etc.
This is not the only vocation of Koh Lanta, but we use our power and our resonance to convey a message of awareness to millions of viewers
How do you work with locals before and during filming?
We never shoot in completely isolated locations, since they must be accessible to the film crews, close to a hospital that meets international standards and we can find accommodation for the staff. This means that we must work hand in hand with local residents and the authorities. There’s no way we’re going to show up like cowboys demanding certain things. All decisions are made following discussions so that any arrangements are made in agreement with everyone. The people on site need to be there, so we will hire a certain number of people, inject money into the local economy and also, we will leave the sites much cleaner than when we arrived.
It’s difficult to talk regarding the environmental impact of the show without talking regarding air travel. How many flights are carried out for the same shoot?
We have around a hundred people traveling back and forth from France. Some come for three months, two months, but once people are there, they don’t move. Besides that, we add around 250 people recruited locally to work with us (as builders, managers, boat pilots, etc.), and we try to increase this proportion little by little to reduce the number of flights.
We are increasingly limiting the number of people who go on site for the preparatory phase and we are relying on fixers in different countries. We also brought the implementation phase (to decide where to shoot a particular game) closer to the construction and infrastructure installation phase to limit travel. To be clear, there are maybe four people making an extra trip back and forth as part of filming.
Have you ever considered abandoning very distant destinations in favor of filming closer for Koh Lanta?
To be completely honest, we asked ourselves the question at the time of the first confinement, and we might not find a site isolated enough to accommodate us. Afterwards obviously the notion of change of scenery and exoticism is important for the show, but it is not at any cost for us.
Photo d’illustration : © A.Issock/ALP/TF1
