Concept and creative process
Titles for BBC Two's classic wildlife series which tells in-depth stories of incredible animals, featuring award-winning photography in some of the most extraordinary places in the world. A single panning landscape takes the viewer on a journey around the world, from deserts to polar ice caps, together with a selection of its wildlife. The logo is punctuated with the ‘O’ of ‘World’ seen as a solar eclipse that reveals itself through the constant of the horizon line. The titles for ‘Natural World’ had changed every couple of years up until this point, and this idea, whilst initially more expensive to produce, was designed to showcase the natural history archive and stand the test of time. It was used for more than four years, thereby saving the production money in the long run. The apparent simplicity of this single panning shot belies the complexity of the digital effects involved in rotoscoping, matte painting and matching the different pieces of archive material into a single panning vista. So many layers were involved and manipulated to create each scene; from ice-capped mountains and cloud-filled skies in the distance, to the dragonflies or whales emerging from the sea in the foreground. The post production took more than three days at Framestore. It was common to do night edits to save money on expensive Soho post-production costs.