Experience in underwater photography, dramatic recreations, science documentaries, archeological digs and being a ‘preferred producer’ of Discovery Communications projects has paid off in spades for Toronto’s CineNova Productions.

The documentary production company has been selected to produce two one-hour programs for dci, one documenting the momentous archeological find of Cleopatra’s royal quarters in Alexandria earlier this year, and the other a biography of the Egyptian queen titled The Real Cleopatra directed by Katherine Gilday (The Famine Within). Both will premier back to back in a simulcast March 14, 1999 across 21 different Discovery Channel Networks, dubbed in 13 different languages and broadcast to over 140 countries around the world.

‘It’s exciting for us and it was a real honor for us to be chosen,’ says David Lint, chairman and ceo of CineNova.

‘It was also particularly exciting to be out in Alexandria when all these extraordinary things were going on,’ says Jane Armstrong, CineNova president and producer/director of Cleopatra’s Palace: In Search of a Legend.

Indeed, Armstrong’s doc – shot over three weeks in Alexandria and padded with interviews, computer animation and dramatic recreations recently shot in Toronto – chronicles underwater explorer Frank Goddio’s three-year expedition to uncover Cleopatra’s palace, which has been hidden beneath Alexandria’s eastern harbor for the last 1,600 years.

The find, unveiled to the world by Goddio on Oct. 28, unveiled key archeological treasures, including an ancient shipwreck, jewelry, the lost island of Antirhodos and several important statues including a sphinx, whose face is probably a representation of Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy xii.

The project’s production costs, which were undisclosed, were provided entirely by dci, says Lint. Clearly pleased that the two CineNova productions have a shot at a global audience that could reach well into the tens of millions, Lint says his company’s reputation and experience led to the high-profile assignment.

‘We have an international reputation – much of it made on productions for Discovery – for being able to do programs which do science, exploration and re-enactment,’ says Lint, perhaps best known in Canada for its documentary on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which also combined expedition footage with re-enactments, computer animation and interviews. ‘Discovery wanted a program which would combine these elements.’

The Cleopatra assignment may have already paid off for CineNova as it is currently shooting another documentary for dci about Napoleon’s battle for the Nile. The doc is also centered on Goddio’s expeditions.

While the Alexandria harbor’s dreadfully murky waters presented some particular production challenges for Armstrong, dop Harry Makin and gaffer John Rogers (a qualified dive instructor), finding Toronto locations that could double for ancient Egypt was no small task either.

The neo-classical architecture of a Toronto Dominion branch at King and Yonge made the bank a perfect location, as did some similar styling at the Sunnyside Pool on Toronto’s Lakeshore. Locations were used for both Gilday’s and Armstrong’s docs. A garden located just out of town in Oshawa that was inspired by the finds of Pompeii was also used.

‘By very careful use and some clever art direction we were able to recreate Alexandria in Canada,’ says Armstrong.

Special effects were created at Toronto’s Soho Post & Graphics, which was handed the task of recreating what the ancient shipwreck found by Goddio would have looked like in its seaworthy days. John Fraser of Axis has been commissioned to create representations of the port in Alexandria as well as maps and ‘locator graphics.’

The last time Discovery Channel Networks collaborated on such a global broadcast was last August with Titanic Live, Discovery Canada’s all-time top-rated show, drawing an average-minute audience of 597,000 viewers.