BBC Global Channels Commission English & Pockett

Branding and design agency English & Pockett has been commissioned by BBC Global Channels to produce full broadcast packages for the new channels BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle.
BBC Global Channels, one of six BBC Worldwide businesses, recently launched two new channels in Asia. BBC Lifestyle and BBC Knowledge are designed to appeal to a broad range of audiences, local and international.
All the idents were shot on location in England, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Egypt and Hong Kong. They combine live action with 3D elements created in Maya. In order to give true reflections to the CG marker in post, the position of the marker had to be decided before shooting began to ensure consistency and accuracy in the reflections. After offline editing, the footage was graded and on-lined in Smoke and selected shots were tracked for the 3D element to be seamlessly integrated in Flame.
“It was definitely an exciting job to work on,” said Dan Capstick, Director on the project. “Cramming five global locations into a gruelling 13-day shooting schedule was hard going the team really got their teeth into the project – from the first days’ 4am call to shoot a time lapse of dawn breaking at Jodrell Bank through to the final days’ sweltering heat, holding the tourists back at Angkor Wat whilst capturing the sun’s golden rays reflecting off the trees.”
Golden Square’s Senior Animator Dave Child added: “The main challenge for Golden Square’s 3D department was to create reflections that matched the gigantic scale of the BBC Knowledge marker. In many of the shots, the reflective surface is hundreds of feet high, and in an inaccessible location where it would be impossible to shoot exact reference footage. As a result, Golden Square had to recreate each environment by building a “virtual set” and applying textures stitched together from hundreds of hi-res still frames and hi-def footage – provided by Director, Dan Capstick, and Director of Photography, Tim Green.
“Once the marker was placed in the virtual set, it was possible to guarantee that all reflections would be true, yet still give Dan the creative flexibility to chose which sky, landscape or building should be reflected in the marker. The 3D was rendered in layers and then composited and graded by Tim Rudgard in flame.”
Delivery elements included: five idents, five bumpers, five menus, logo design for on and off air applications, promo toolkit including endboards, straps, pointers, colour palette and bespoke font. There are five different genres represented by the delivery elements and each set has one ident, one cut down, one bumper and one menu.
(DS)