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  1. Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World

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    We were delighted to work with the BBC to deliver the graphic design and motion graphics for the three-part programme which follows Greta around the world as she urges viewers to listen to the science behind the crisis, instead of her.

    With graphics illustrating the rate of climate change, Greta’s journey so far and the role of social media, our team were able to fuse together incredible never-seen-before footage of Greta as she embarks on an incredible one year journey confronting climate change deniers and sceptics face to face.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: BBC
    Production company: BBC Studios Science
    Executive Producers: Rob Liddell & Helen Thomas
    Producer: Joe Myerscough
    GFX Production: Scott Metcalfe
    Art Direction: Alex Dilworth

  2. Eight Days that Made Rome

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    Eight Days That Made Rome is a new Channel 5 series presented by historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes in which she selects eight pivotal days that defined the Roman Empire and its establishment as the world’s first superpower. From Hannibal’s defeat at the battle of Zama to Spartacus’ breakout from gladiator school, stories from Ancient Rome continue to fascinate.

    Moonraker worked with October to maximize the scope of the Drama including set extensions, crowd replication, CG city builds and matte painting.  We also took care of the graphic design and map visualisations.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: Channel 5
    Production Company: October Films
    Executive Producers: Adam Bullmore, Matt Robins, Blair Krempel, Mark Wood
    Series Producer: Jim Greayer
    Line Producer: Alexander Brunati
    Directors: Jim Greayer, Gareth Johnson, Sebastian Smith, Nigel Levy
    VFX Creative Director: Graham Stott
    VFX Executive Producer: Jon Grafton
    VFX Producer: Emma Kolasinska

  3. Dogs: An Amazing Animal Family

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    In this fascinating natural history series, Biologist Patrick Aryee embarks on a journey through the twists and turns of the canine family tree. In stunning locations around the world we see how different members of this family have evolved physically and how their intelligent behaviours and their tight-knit social groups have allowed them to thrive in some of the planet’s wildest landscapes.

    Having been awarded an RTS award for best Visual Effects for Cats, An Amazing Animal Family and following the very successful Monkeys, An Amazing Animal Family, we were commissioned by Offspring Films to further develop the Animal Family brand, this time with man’s best friend, Dogs.

    To achieve this, we combined specially filmed aerial drone material and carefully composed live action of the dogs themselves to help create a stunning desert environment and magically populate our CG tree with the various canine breeds.

    Built with specialist software, our tree was carefully constructed to provide the visual rhetoric for our various canine lineages. Our compositing team then had the skillful task of seamlessly integrating our family of dogs into the tree.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: Sky One
    Production Company: Offspring Films
    Executive Producer: Alex Willamson
    Series Producer: Sam Hodgson
    VFX Creative Director: Simon Clarke
    VFX Supervisor: Graham Stott
    3D Supervisor: Jem Grimshaw
    VFX Producer: Jon Grafton

  4. City in the Sky

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    What does it take to get a million people and their luggage off the ground and up in the air? Presenters Dallas Campbell and Dr. Hannah Fry go to extremes to get under the skin of the remarkable story of commercial flight, in the BBC TWO series ‘City in the Sky’. You will never look at flying in the same light again…

    Moonraker have made the impossible possible, to demonstrate the spectacle of flight that can not be captured in camera. Our team of artists combine real global data with detailed 3D models to help visualise the scale and intensity of global air traffic and the logistical operations to put over a million daily passengers in the air.

    Fluid dynamic systems were created to simulate accurate airflow, helping to explain the process of lift on take off. Other sequences used the latest in HDRI projection mapping and image based lighting to create impressive photorealistic camera views, revealing a years worth of in-flight food production in a single live action shot.

    High altitude aerial photography is transformed into 3D, providing vertigo inducing conceptual sequences that visualise the enormity of daily baggage handled at Dubai airport; we travel from our baggage trailer on the ground to a building tower that eclipses the height of the Burj Kalifa in a single camera move.

    Our signature shot captures real data of planes taking off from Dubai International airport. The realism of these shots immerse the viewer into a previously unseen hidden world.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: BBC 2
    Production Company: BBC Scotland
    Executive Producer: Jane Aldous
    Series Producer: Jobim Sampson
    Produced And Directed By: Russell Leven, Matt Barrett
    VFX Creative Director: Simon Clarke
    VFX Producer: Jon Grafton

  5. Cats: An Amazing Animal Family

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    We were commissioned by Bristol based Offspring Films to develop a signature series look to visualise the Big Cats family tree for SKY ONE. Using specialist software, we created a 4K photo-real asset that accurately represented the Big Cats family tree that could grow, animate and adapt to the editorial needs.

    Footage of cats was carefully chosen and composted into the tree to create a seamless visual narrative. Each episode tells the story of how each of these cat dynasties came to be.  The tree plays an integral part in the series as its branches grow, representing the feline lineages that evolved over time.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: Sky One
    Production Company: Offspring Films
    Executive Producer: Alex Willamson
    Series Producer: Sam Hodgson
    VFX Creative Director: Simon Clarke
    VFX Supervisor: Graham Stott
    3D Supervisor: Jem Grimshaw

  6. Buried Secrets of the Bible

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    Moonraker are proud to have completed another series for National Geographic working with production company Caravan Media.

    Buried Secrets of the Bible, hosted by scientist and adventurer Albert Lin, uses cutting edge 21st Century technology to try to uncover the truth behind the ancient mysteries including the biblical stories of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea and also the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

    Moonraker were appointed to create a series style to bring to life the hidden evidence that exists today and also to craft visual effects sequences reconstructing the epic stories as they are told in the bible.

    These included bespoke crowd simulations, photoreal reconstruction of ancient cities, a series lidar shader set up and a variety of Houdini techniques to realise flood simulations. Shots included meteor destruction, earthquakes, flooding and tsunamis. Moonraker also undertook dedicated photogrammetry shoots and solves to create the ancient landscapes.

  7. Big Beasts: Last of the Giants

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    Patrick Aryee checks out the biggest animals on Earth as he reveals why size matters in the natural world. Moonraker created the visual effects, graphic design and animation for this 3 part series for Sky.

    The series styling was designed to work in tandem with the editorial direction. To achieve this, we designed and created an antiquarian bible of ancient beasts. This created an atmospheric feel for the shots and provided a canvas on which to show off the amazing anatomical detail of the beast.  Human details were incorporated to make the sheer scale of these ancient animals tangible. The Megalodon was able to open its mouth to a 4ft gape!

    We started with beautiful illustrations of the beasts from talented artist Roman Uchytel. We rotoscoped and graded the images to bed them into our bespoke ancient parchment texture and then rigged the images to allow us to create subtle animation to bring the animals to life. An additional layer of lighting and particle effects were added to bring the book further to life.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: Sky One
    Production Company: Offspring Films
    Executive Producer: Alex Williamson
    Producer/Director: Simon Muriel
    Series Producer: Sam Hodgson
    Illustrator: Roman Uchytel
    VFX Lead Designer: Graham Watts
    VFX Executive Producer: Jon Grafton
    VFX Producer: Emma Kolasinska

  8. Barbarians Rising

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    After the epic ‘World War 2 From Space’ that won Simon Clarke and Graham Stott an Emmy with Director Simon George, we had the opportunity with October Films to turn the clock back over 1500 years to create over 400 shots for History Channels’ “Barbarians Rising” a historical 8-part drama doc that tells the story of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire from the perspective of the Barbarian rebel leaders. Filmed over 12-weeks in Bulgaria, the VFX team supervised many blood thirsty battle scenes, shooting plates and elements to provide the backdrop for digital armies of Romans and Barbarians using Goalem crowd replication software.

    3D assets were created with exacting detail to ensure that they could be placed next to the live action extras even in mid shots, this included cloth simulation for free flowing garments when fighting running and walking. Invisible effects included the piercing of skin with arrows and swords, beheading, additional blood and scars for example.

    The series also required the design and execution of a number of analytical graphics that provided the global, strategic and historical context for the drama.  For this we designed a stylised earth and infrared style camera to help explain the strategic movement of Romans and rebel hoards across the globe. See our ‘making of’ for a behind the scenes look at our work.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: History Channel
    Production Company: October Films
    Executive Producers: Adam Bullmore, Jos Cushing
    Series Producers: Michael Waterhouse, Chloe Leland
    Drama Directors: Declan O’Dwyer, Maurice Sweeney
    Edit Director: Jim Greayer
    VFX Creative Director: Simon Clarke
    VFX Supervisor: Graham Stott
    VFX Producer: Clare Tinsley, Scott Metcalfe
    3D Supervisor: Jem Grimshaw

  9. America: Promised Land

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    America: Promised Land is an epic tale that begins in 1600s New Amsterdam and takes us through nearly 400 years to more recent waves of migration post WW2. This 2-part, 4 hour documentary special for History Channel was produced by Nutopia and broadcast on Memorial Day and was a fascinating project to work on at Moonraker.

    The team thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of bringing the census data to life in an engaging and stylised way. The bold design enabled the key elements of the stories to be told clearly and helped the maps to tie in with the overall feel of the series. We used multiple two dimensional and three dimensional techniques to achieve the unique look and to ensure that the maps were accurately conveying the census data.

    Key Credits

    Broadcaster: History Channel
    Production Company: Nutopia
    Executive Producer: Dominic Crossley-Holland
    Series Producer: Hereward Pelling
    VFX Executive Producer: Jon Grafton
    VFX Creative Director: Simon Clarke
    VFX Producer: Emma Kolasinska

  10. Test Project

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    Moonraker worked with Emmy and Bafta award winning production company Talesmith to produce thirty minutes worth of photoreal CGI for this ambitious two-hour feature documentary.

    Life of Earth is a spectacular film that delves into the planet’s extraordinary 4.5 billion year history, as never seen before, from the unique vantage point of space.

    Shots produced ranged from thermal imaging of the first humans crossing the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, to views from the International Space Station, which have been transformed to show Earth as it would have been seen over a span of billions of years..

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