Introduction

NORMANDY DESIGNS AND MAKES SOFTWARE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL SITES
AND MUSEUM COLLECTIONS BY USING NEW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES.

VISION	Our cultural heritage is our gold mine. Digital technology helps to revolutionise its operation in an attractive, universal and sustainable way. Applying digital technologies to cultural content allows museums and monuments to completely reimagine the visitor experience – this is something that we are achieving through close collaborations with them.
MISSION	Allow the general public to re-discover the richness of cultural heritage through the use of new visually spectacular interactive technologies – accessible to all, and keeping strict faithfulness to our best scientific knowledge of the past.
VALUES	Editorial and technological innovation, artistic sensitivity and passion.

Museums and Castles

Residence of William the Conqueror

Falaise (Calvados)

In 2013, Normandy Productions creates the new scenography of the Château de Falaise (Calvados).

Outside the castle, the ‘promenade des HistoCams’ enables you to re-discover the Courtyard of the château as it would have been under the Duke and King Henri II Plantagenêt.
Once inside, the novel ‘HistoPad’ technology allows you to discover all the rooms in the château that have now been completely reconstructed in their 12th Century form – the furniture, decor and artefacts are shown in a highly realistic setting depicting the daily life of the Anglo-Norman kingdom.

This is where William the Conqueror was born in 1027, the duke of Normandy who became King of England. Over the course of your visit, you will be shown several different media types, including 12 short films, to let you directly experience the story of the Anglo-Norman kingdom, and to meet the lineage of the Conqueror. This epic saga starts with the story of how he conquered England, and finishes when Normandy was eventually annexed by the French crown.

Technology

Histopad

The HistoPad is a digital tablet that allows you to take control of your visit in an interactive, playful and personalised way. The visitor can interact with the collections displayed and the rooms visited: they can point the tablet in any direction, and ‘look through’ the screen at the reconstructed version of where they are standing. This is a novel use of Augmented Reality, that allows the HistoPad to be a literal window on the past. Scanning interactive objects, reveals their function and their story to visitors.

The HistoPad therefore makes it possible to make invisible things visible, and to handle virtual artefacts as if they were real.

Histocam

The intriguing concept of the HistoCam consists of looking through a stereoscopic telescope to discover, in the same viewing angle and in 3D depth, the reconstitution of a place such as it would have been in the past. The HistoCam operates under sunlight. It does not consume any power and therefore does not require an electrical supply. It is frost-resistant and weather-proof; its design is adaptable.

Films

Fly Low. Go Fast. Turn Left.

Short original fiction made for the Breitling Reno Air Races brand content campaign (2011).

William the Conqueror

This documentary fiction recounts the sixty years of the man who, from 1027 to 1087, transformed the Middle Ages and drew the map of a New Europe.

Program produced by Arte in co-production with “Les Films d’Ici” (2013).

Brand content

A brand can express its image and mould it using the new formats that have evolved on the Web: this is called ‘brand content’ or ‘advertainment’, a synthesis of ‘advertising’ and ‘entertainment’. This has been shown to be amazingly efficient in having an impact on the audience and becoming engraved in the memory.

Whether it is by telling an original story, or by immersing players in a strong interactive experience with the brand at the centre, it is possible to have the audience identify with the message and remember it long-term.

Normandy Productions directed the Breitling ‘Reno Air Races’ campaign, with a short movie for the Web, a game for Smartphone and tablet, and a viral launching via the Web.