A Landmark Documentary Delivered in Realtime

On April 30th we completed Ripple Effect – The First Wave which tracked the COVID-19 pandemic from epicenter to epicenter in realtime for our launch networks, German public broadcaster ZDF and the pan-African powerhouse M-Net. It was a feat of documentary filmmaking which tested the bounds of what is possible, explored new technologies, tapped our global network of production partners and was only made possible by our decades of contacts and relationships around the world.

Produced in under six weeks, while our teams were under various forms of lockdowns and social distancing rules, Ripple Effect was filmed across 14 countries in five continents from Australia to Norway. It is the first of a multipart documentary series that will follow the biggest, most costly, most unknown threat which anyone alive today has ever faced.

Part one traces the virus from early January 2020 until the end of April and looks at the social, economic and human cost of COVID-19 and what it means to our planet, our people, and our way of life. To capture this moment in history we incorporated real life stories of people impacted by the Coronavirus, balanced alongside interviews with an impressive collection of worldwide experts in medicine, economics and national security.

Documentary Filmmaking is at Its Heart Story Telling

Ripple Effect – The First Wave features exclusive access to ICU wards in Wuhan and political analysts in Washington. We interviewed a coffin make in Bergamo at the heart of Italy’s breakout and profiled a group in Bangkok which used crowdfunding to pay closed restaurants to provide free meals to frontline medical workers. And we brought to life stories of COVID-19 sufferers around the globe; from a Mom in the UK who made it through an ICU stay to a teacher in Brooklyn who had to suffer though the virus alone as there was no room in the hospital, to a widow in Detroit whose her bus driver husband’s video warning went viral just before catching the disease.

We found an Australian researcher stuck on the most remote inhabited island in Norway after the planes were grounded, and sat down with an Italian Priest who still can’t comprehend the pain of trying to fight, “an evil enemy you cannot see. ” We tapped some of the greatest minds to provide perspective and insight and worked to dispel the lies and misinformation on the Coronavirus which is so prevalent on social media.

The film is real, the stories are gripping, the emotions are strong and the lessons are stark.

We’re All in This Together

Ripple Effect – The First Wave is distributed by Cactus Tree and still available in many markets around the world. Liz Levenson one of the film’s Executive Producers and Founder of Cactus Tree lost her Father to COVID-19 during the production, so the movie is dedicated to the memory of Maury Levenson.

Part two of this series, The Race For The Cure is already in production.