It’s hardly rare to hear the words “major motion picture event” applied to a summer film.

Visually stunning or not, whether it’s the latest Hollywood biopic, all-star comedy or action adventure, the phrase is attached to big budget summer flicks so permanently and casually that we hardly take notice.

In the case of director Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s environ-epic “Home”, however, that phrase actually rings true…

Produced by Luc Besson and backed by PPR, a French holding company that specializes in some of the world’s most recognizable luxury brands, including Gucci, and Yves St. Laurent, “Home” captures the impact of human activity on earth from the skies above 56 countries in hi-definition, providing viewers with a bird’s eye view of both the wonders of our Earth and the wounds we’ve inflicted on it.

Coming out this past June to coincide with World Environment Day, the release of “Home” was an event – the first major motion picture released free of charge on both Youtube and television, as well as in theaters in over 50 countries simultaneously.

To celebrate and promote the film, a free screening, complete with speeches by Arthurs-Bertrand and producer Besson, was also scheduled for the evening of the release in Paris’ Champ De Mars, in the Shadow of the Eiffel Tower itself.

For the audience, the visual focal point was clear, a 20 x 8.5-meter (66 x 28-foot) screen suspended nearly 3 meters (10 feet) above the ground.

But the film’s images were so strong, says Didier Dal Fitto of DV2 of France and designer of the event’s audio system, that even on the small screen the power of the film and its message were incredibly potent. So much so that when the crew staging the event began to watch a short cut of Home on a Macbook following a six-hour pre-production meeting, “suddenly, everybody shut up,” he said.

To fully communicate that power to the audience at Champ de Mars as well as speak to the considerable challenges of the venue, Dal Fitto employed a similar concept that he’d utilized previously at a one-man show at the Stade de France with a similar capacity of 55,000.

Based around eight towers of line arrays incorporating 64 Adamson Y18s, the system was designed to provide “sync” sound to image for an audience divided into four areas across the Champ de Mars. Each area was covered by two towers of Y18s, at a 12-meter (39-foot) trim height, and spaced 43 meters (141 feet) apart along the length of the venue.

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The system also incorporated a Yamaha 01V digital console for monitoring, a Midas XL88 matrix mixer at Front of House, Lab.gruppen fP Series amplifiers, AES transport through EtherSound Ethernet-based audio transport and Wi-Fi multipoint access for XTA control.

To ensure the event went off without problems, even if the main system failed, in addition to providing audio – and video – via an AES output from a double HD image media server to preserve audio integrity, Dal Fitto also included a standard analog backup safety network as a fail-safe.

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