THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411270286
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: Dave Mayfield
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
In a 5-by-5-foot pit deep in the woods of Fort Raleigh National Historic Site near Manteo, N.C., Nicholas Luccketti is learning how to act like a TV archaeologist.
Luccketti had helped dig the pit the weekend before as part of his Williamsburg-based archaeology team's search for artifacts of the Lost Colony, the late 16th century English settlement here on the shores of Roanoke Sound.
Now, he was back to re-enact his work for viewers of The Learning Channel's ``Archaeology'' series. The Lost Colony is one of the featured episodes for the series' current season.
The people at New Dominion Pictures Inc. of Virginia Beach, which produces ``Archaeology,'' say making their subject work on TV requires such scene-setting.
``Otherwise, it would look like 1950s educational television,'' said Tom Naughton, New Dominion's founder. ``We're an MTV generation.''
Naughton and his writers, researchers and film crews have grown accustomed to dealing with ethical questions: How much should they dramatize events? How much time should they give to archaeologists working outside mainstream theories?
And with New Dominion recruiting some of its employees from Pat Robertson's Regent University film school, Naughton said conflicts between scientific and religious beliefs sometimes surface within his work force.
That's because New Dominion also produces The Learning Channel's ``PaleoWorld'' series, which in its exploration of dinosaurs and other primeval creatures is basically about evolution.
``The fact of evolution,'' Naughton said. ``Not the myth, not even the theory. The fact.''
Trouble is, some of his workers ``don't buy this stuff at all. So we have long, very interesting philosophical conversations on why. I don't know how many employers in Hampton Roads have to have these conversations.''
For the two Learning Channel series, New Dominion film crews shot for about 175 days between March and November - on six continents. New Dominion employees and subcontractors have spent even more time in post-production, whittling that combined 100 hours of footage into 26 half-hour programs.
They added in photo stills, graphics and computer animation, and layered on music, sound effects and voice-overs from series hosts John Rhys-Davies (``Archaeology'') and Ben Gazzara (``PaleoWorld'') to complete the packages.
``It's been a marathon,'' said Bertrand Morin, a French-Canadian who has directed seven shows for the two series this season. His itinerary: Cambodia; the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta; Kansas; Greece; Germany; England; the Netherlands; Hong Kong; China; Florida; Virginia Beach.
In Cambodia, he and his crew worked in mine fields and kept an ear out for machine-gun fire from the plundering Khmer Rouge.
Home at the Beach, his biggest threat is time. Deadlines are tight. ``If you drive that strip at 3 o'clock in the morning,'' Morin says, motioning to Pacific Avenue below, ``I bet you'll see a light up here.''
Back in North Carolina, on an early-November morning, director Joe Wiecha is about to finish the last shoot of New Dominion's current season.
He positions archaeologist Luccketti in the pit. As the camera approaches, Luccketti rises slowly, turns and thrusts a fragment of Indian pottery skyward.
Wiecha likes what he sees. ``Nick, thanks a lot,'' he says after the wrap. ``It's going to be great.'' n ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Drew C. Wilson
KEYWORDS: MOVIE COMPANY by CNB