Sony Broadcast and Professional celebrates the launch of the Arabia's Cycle of Life Series

The world premier of the first episode of the documentary took place on 14th January 2005 on Showtime. This remarkable documentary captures the Middle East's extraordinary wildlife and spectacular locations in never before seen footage. Sony Broadcast & Professional Middle East (B&P ME) co-sponsor this momentous project by providing additional DVCAM camcorders and NLE Editing facilities to further enhance the production qualities of this important work.

Arabia's Cycle of Life, captures unprecedented underwater images of coastal and marine life, images of wildlife inhabiting mountains, wadis and deserts across the region. The main focus of the series is the presence of fresh water and how it plays a central role in the presence of wildlife within the environment. The plight of key species such as the Oryx, Ibex, Baboons, and many of Arabia's mammals, birds and freshwater fish are particularly focused upon. The key objective of Arabia's Cycle of Life was to highlight the conservational efforts made in the region.

The first series of 'Arabia's Cycle of Life' has been produced on DVCAM. The Sony equipment used for filming this documentary includes a DSR570, DSR500, a DSR-PDX10 and DSR-PD150 with lenses ranging from 8.5X, 18 X to x36 zooms.

"We are delighted to have been given the opportunity to get involved in such an amazing project, that brings the wildlife treasures of Arabia to the screen for the first time, said Nigel Thompson, Marketing Manager, AV, Sony B&P ME. "Sony's DVCAM Camcorders and VTR's were put through some pretty tough tests during this project. The ruggedness, reliability and quality of the DVCAM product is evident in the superb pictures captured by the Cycle of Life team."

Ease of use has been true of all the Sony cameras that we use in the filming of this documentary. This combined with exceptional quality, digital clarity, automatic aperture and Sony's white balance features, have helped make shooting difficult scenes so much easier.

"I hope that Cycle of Life will give people the chance to experience the thrill of discovery, the breath-taking eco-systems, the research that went behind uncovering Arabia's amazing wildlife and their living habits and the challenges that we faced when capturing these images," added Jonathan Ali Khan, film producer, Arabia's Cycle of Life. "This first series of Cycle of Life was captured on Sony's DV-CAM and we are planning to use HDV and DV-CAM for the upcoming series. More than 400 hours of footage were edited down in state-of-the-art Sony editing suites".

The first series captures the beauty and the fragility of the eco systems in the region and will form an important piece in the future conservation and protection policies of the various countries featured as well as providing an important educational tool for those establishments already involved in this aspect of the series.

Several wildlife conservation organizations and bodies from across the region are participating in this series; including the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development (NCWCD) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sharjah Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife in the UAE, the Royal Society for Conservation of Nature, Jordan and the Office of the Advisor for the Environment to the Royal Diwan in Oman.

Jonathan Ali Khan is planning to commence shooting for the second set of programs, which will focus mainly on Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait in winter 2006. Shooting for the 3rd 12-part series is scheduled to take place in 2006 and will feature Egypt and North Africa.