BBC Post Production scores at New York Festival

BBC Post Production has snapped up two Gold awards at the New York Festival for Best Art Direction and Best Digital Effects for ‘Secret Weapons’.
The 3D and digital effects team created the computer graphics and effects sequences for the documentary produced by Big Wave Productions, which aired on National Geographic Explorer/MSNBC in the US.
The wins coincide with the transmission of further digital effects work by the team for Big Wave Productions on ‘Bug Attack’ for Channel Four.
BBC Post Production created ‘Robobug’, a computer-generated inch-long flying robotic insect, a futuristic fusion of technology and nature. The creature featured in a dramatic reconstruction that showed how the use of Robobug technology could be deployed in the event of a fictitious terrorist attack on a US city both for surveillance and rescue scenarios.
‘Secret Weapons’ is set in the future and utilises computer graphics effects, macro photography and natural history footage, to show how military design seeks inspiration from nature to create revolutionary intelligence gathering devices and surveillance applications.
Working in close collaboration with Big Wave Productions, BBC Post Production based the design of Robobug around various actions that it performs within the script and examined the movements of real insects to achieve a delicate balance between a mechanical design and natural insect-like characteristics.
Following the success of their work on Secret Weapons, BBC Post Production also produced 3D and digital effects work for Big Wave Productions on ‘Bug Attack’, which involved re-creating swarms of killer bees and locust plagues.
Andy McNamara, computer graphics supervisor at BBC Post Production, said: “We are delighted to have won two Golds at the New York Festival. Robobug seemed to capture people’s imagination and it was a major achievement to develop a creature that could not only mimic the movements of a robotic fly, but also looked natural against the backdrop of a highly digitally enhanced landscape of a US city. The awards are testament to what can be achieved on a modest budget and it was the success of this creative work that secured us the work on ‘Bug Attack”.
(GB)