Concept and creative process
A title sequence for ‘Horizon’, a science-based, long-running documentary series. The idea was to reflect some of the things covered in the series with references to the science-based aspects, such as lasers, outerspace, microbiology, fibre optics etc. Each object was actually a small part of just one letter from the word 'Horizon'. The idea was to move past these objects and, at the end when the camera settled at a certain angle, the bits of letters would be seen to slot together and form the word 'Horizon'. The model itself was static, only the camera moved. The models were made by Alan Kemp. Each model, which was just a part of a letter, was mounted onto a black velvet pole and positioned in an 'S' shape for the move. However when setting up, which took two days, each letter also had to be positioned so that the letters came together at the end to make up the word 'Horizon'. This was done by creating a version of the logo in wire. We had to look through the camera when setting up to position all the objects in their designated places to resolve into each letter. The shoot was done on a motion control rig by cameraman Doug Foster, with the camera suspended from the ceiling at Cell Animation. The shoot consisted of 28 passes, all in frame-accurate registration with each other. Passes included a smoke run, a back-lit run, a run specifically for the fibre optics, a rim-lit run etc. All these passes allowed us to dissolve in perfect registration from one lighting style to another in post-production, done by Rob Harvey at Cell Animation on Quantel Harry.
Concept and Creative Direction - Liz Friedman.
Winner Broadast Designers Association (BDA) Bronze Award.
Finalist International Monitor Awards.
More Information
Horizon models and publicity
Horizon model set up
Horizon model during filming
Horizon publicity postcard
Horizon book extract