Michael Palin's Travels

Working closely with the excellent graphic designer Bernard Heyes, Atomic Arts have now created titles and in-programme graphics for two of Michael Palin's world renowned travel series, Sahara and more recently New Europe, charting his travels around the rapidly developing countries of Eastern Europe. For the Sahara titles (featured here), live action plates of Michael were taken on location, including a close up of his boot walking into shot. This was rotoscoped (isolated from the shot frame by frame) and recomposed on top of a CG sandscape, in which a computer-animated beetle traces out the programme title, before nearly dying as the real foot appears to crush it into the sand. For the titles and graphics for New Europe, a jigsaw analogy was designed to illustrate how many countries exist in Europe.

Since the entire 3d jigsaw was created virtually, each new title sequence was easily produced, with the camera tracking in on the particular pieces (i.e. countries) featured in that episode.