The Giants in Montréal: Filming a Memory That Travelled Around the World
From May 19 to 21, 2017, Royal de Luxe’s Giants came to Montréal for the city’s 375th anniversary celebrations. For Tourisme Montréal, I worked on filming and editing a video about their visit. The project became a significant part of my career, both for the event experienced in the streets and for the images’ later journey.
Filming to the City’s Rhythm
At a street event, moments happen only once. You have to follow the movement and be ready when something unfolds. A May 20 exchange with Amélie St-Cyr brings me back to that day very concretely: I confirmed I would film that afternoon, taking advantage of the beautiful light rather than waiting until the next day.
In the field, my attention went to the characters and their presence in the streets, but also to the people following them. Showing the spectacle’s scale while leaving space for audience reactions let us tell the story of an encounter between a creation and a city.
From Filming to Editing
My involvement continued in the edit. We needed to establish continuity in the captured images and find a rhythm conveying the energy of the visit. Oliver Michael’s Diatribe, identified in my May exchanges with the team, is also part of this creative memory.
The video extended the event: it allowed people to revisit, share and discover it even if they hadn’t been in Montréal’s streets.
Travelling Beyond Montréal
Emails from the following weeks document that interest. In June and July 2017, Tourisme Montréal forwarded requests to reuse the video, including from Whoatastic, StoYo and Insider Travel. The exchanges show how the images began reaching media and platforms beyond their original context.
The video produced for Tourisme Montréal was notably featured by Bored Panda in “Giant Marionettes Take Over Montreal,” published on June 19, 2017. This reuse is a concrete example of the images’ journey after filming.
The video also reached an audience in Taiwan: Storm Media / 風生活 shared a version on Facebook in May 2017. An indexed record of that reuse shows about 90,000 views, offering a glimpse of its circulation among another audience.
Through its circulation on social media and internationally, the video accumulated more than 36 million views. This figure represents cumulative viewings. For me, that reach gives another dimension to work that began camera in hand in Montréal’s streets.
What I Keep from This Project
The Giants remain a fond memory of my collaboration with Tourisme Montréal. Filming and editing allowed me to contribute to the memory of an event that brought the city together. Seeing those images continue their journey long after the spectacle is part of what makes this project so distinctive in my career.
Read the Bored Panda article and view Storm Media’s Facebook post.
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