Sky Nature
BREAKING NEWS: ‘Seahorse’ the third and final, luscious ident for Sky Nature goes live!
From our initial brand concept ‘Get Closer’, right through to delivery, the team on Sky Nature were presented with some considerable challenges along the way. As the team expanded from a couple of designers, a producer and a production co-ordinator, to the addition of motion design and visual effects, we started experimenting and crafting some of our ideas and were starting to see some interesting results, and then lockdown happened!
Overnight, the process of creating a channel brand moved from the cosy confines of Sky 2 to the spare room/kitchen worktop/garden shed! However, this sudden transition was hardly noticeable thanks to the skills and dedication of all involved. We virtually carried on where we left off without any problems.
For the creation of our Channel assets – Idents, Break bumpers and OSP, we used a mix of computer graphics, visual effects, stock imagery and shot footage to create usable and ownable brand assets, but this was not a straightforward task. Finding the imagery with the right attitude to represent the brand took hours of searching through image sites, photographer’s portfolios and show footage. Where we could, we created many of our images from scratch and were brought to life by the fantastic team in Brand Studio, using a clever mix of visual effects and stunning 3D modelling.
The biggest challenge in creating these assets was crafting them to look as real as possible; from the underwater atmosphere of our coral bumper, through to the detailed fur of our tiger promo endboard. But despite these challenges we managed to deliver everything on time and to an extremely high standard. Something we can all be extremely proud of given these unprecedented times.
For every baby animal, the first days, weeks and months are the most challenging and Wild Animal Babies was one of the first shows to air on the brand-new Sky Nature channel. Hosted by Patrick Aryee the show follows an adorable cast of characters as they face their ultimate test! We were asked to show as many different baby animals in as many different landscapes/habitats as possible, BUT nothing too cutesy! After a round of feedback, we were told that it needed an ‘injection of gravitas’… as you can imagine, adding an element of danger/fear was rather challenging with the content at hand. With the right copy lines, and dialogue from the host, we managed to find the right balance between cute and jeopardy and got the sign off!
Opening with an almost Wild West style standoff, the promo for Gangs of Lemur Island aimed to get viewers excited about the rival gangs as they compete with each other for food, territory and survival. SPOILER ALERT: it contains a lot of lemurs!
