Concept and creative process
The opening titles for a nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough. A simple concept that highlighted the beauty of nature and played with a camouflage theme. From a 2D screen of rich plain colour, each animal emerged in full 3D glory. This sequence adopted the then new BBC1 branding within its logo. Whilst a couple of the animals featured, like the shark, were taken from the Natural History Unit archive library to save costs, the rest were filmed in Ealing studios. They had to be shot with their respective handlers in a certain order to avoid distress; e.g. the jaguar was filmed after the zebra and was the final shot, disappearing back into the blackness from which the logo emerged. A perspex model of BBC1’s channel ident was made and filmed in a rostrum studio to form the ‘1’ used in the logo. This gave the landmark series a strong brand synonymous with its channel. Each backdrop was carefully colour matched to each animal. The 35mm footage was then edited at The Mill.