Concept and creative process
Titles for ‘The World About Us’, a long-running natural history documentary programme series, created in 1967 by David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2. These iconic titles became synonymous with the programme. They were designed by Bernard Lodge using a skeleton globe made of vertical and diagonal bands of metal. The globe was filmed in 35mm against a black background as it revolved and was panned across the shot from one side of the screen to the other. The shot was duplicated in a film optical six times and superimposed over itself, with each dupe staggered by 2 or 3 frames, building a complex pattern of horizontal and diagonal bands as a single image. This dupe was repeated again but reversed left to right. When assembled in the final optical, a globe entered the shot from each side of the frame, creating an even more complex pattern during the cross-over in the centre. For the final zoom on a single globe to create the title background, the rotating skeleton globe was again filmed on black. Again, a series of optical dupes was made of the shot, each one staggered by several frames and composited one over another. Both shots were married up in the final optical, with the zoom shot dissolving in as the panning shot was about to clear frame. The title was superimposed over the living hold.