"We are making a show on the 20 years of" Loft "for C8, do you want to record the voice-overs for the tape recorders? "... April 2001, So 20 years ago, I saw myself in an auditorium, with the instruction not to reveal anything of what I was going to see and record. To tell the truth, I didn't see much, all the footage was non-def, blurry, or even nonexistent for some shots. On the other hand, I did of course hear the "heady" music of the credits that everyone recognizes today from their first notes. I recorded, without suspecting the media echo that it would unleash, the voice-over of the credits of the first "reality TV in France": LOFT STORY. The French version of the Dutch “Big Brother”.
I remember having recorded the first names of people who have never walked through the door of the "Loft", no doubt to avoid possible "leaks".
Everything was "Top Secret" until the first broadcast on April 26, 2001 on M6.
The 225 m2 loft surrounded by a 380 m2 garden was built on the parking lot of studio 103 in La Plaine Saint-Denis.
The night of the premiere, the audience is a record for M6 "the small chain which goes up": approximately 5 million televiewers. The final will be seen by more than 7 million curious, a peak audience of 11.7 million was even recorded when the announcement of the victory of Loana and Christophe at 11:10 pm.
What an adventure!
The following year, April 11, 2002, the production asked me again to record the credits for Season 2.
See you tonight on French TV C8 to relive all these moments.
- Jean-Marc Lancelot