Rhythms Of The World (1993)

Titles for ‘Rhythms of the World’, a series of musical performances from around the globe from ‘Arena’ Series Producers Anthony Wall and Nigel Finch. Designer Pete Wane’s concept was to depict the Earth spinning in space, with music notation orbiting around it. The producers already had music in mind, a rhythmic orchestral recording of an upbeat Latin-American piece, which proved ideal to choreograph the sequence to. Modelmaker Alan Kemp built two identical motorised spheres for the shoot and video effects designer Dave Jervis oversaw the shooting of all of the video footage needed to create the final sequence. The basic ingredients consisted of the rotating black and white globe designed to be used as a matte in the subsequent video edit. The second globe, with the addition of music staves and notation, was filmed through a sheet of ripple glass to give the notes the Latin rhythm as they rotated. The same globe was then covered in crushed tinfoil and two takes were filmed at exactly the same speed as the matte run, one lit with a blue gel and the other with an orange/gold gel. Finally, a cloud effect to create the transition from the titles to the programme content was captured using dry ice, shot against black in real time and wafted by hand. The title caption, set in the ‘Arena’ type face Murray Hill Bold, was animated by Steve Woods to ripple on and off and the black and white artwork was filmed on a rostrum camera, transferred to video and composited with the other elements. In the final VT edit Dave Jervis, having overseen their production, pieced all of the elements together with meticulous care and concern for limiting the loss of quality with each successive pass. The background cosmos was provided by a colour still photograph, filmed on a rostrum camera, with superimposed slowly zooming star-fields adding depth to the scene. Using the black and white matte globe, the coloured sea and land masses were composited separately, the music notation was added as another layer and finally, the animated title was composited with its own colour and texture infill. 

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