Concept and creative process
David Attenborough presented the documentary ‘The First Eden’, looking at the history and natural history of the Mediterranean Sea and the lands around it, from its formation 5.5 million years ago, to 10,000 years ago when man began to settle down and transform it.
Andy Coward took inspiration from the mosaic patterns which have survived from antiquity in countries all around the Mediterranean and conceived the opening titles as an animated mosaic. He commissioned the animation company A for Animation to carry out the creation and filming of the artwork. This required the rotoscoping or tracing of the action frame by frame from original live action film. The tracings of the separate short scenes were then translated into drawings that related to the fixed pattern of the irregular shapes of the mosaic pieces of the background, so that the irregular animated shapes appeared to be moving, yet always remained part of the mosaic background. The drawings were then painted on cels and filmed over the mosaic background on a rostrum camera, with animated wipes creating transitions from one scene to the next and finally to the programme title logo itself.