National Zero-G(eographic)

Gravity – overrated isn’t it? I mean, who really needs it. Unfortunately, since Newton ate an apple under a heavy tree and invented the bloody thing we’ve been stuck with it. Or something like that. We don’t know – The Reel deals with ads, not sciences.

Joshing aside, if there’s one thing that pretty much unites all ads it’s the fact that the people, products and places involved are all subject to the laws of physics. Well not any more, as brothers and sisters London have created a set of idents for the National Geographic channel that reduce the G’s to zero!

Made to correspond with the channel’s upcoming Space Week event, the campaign is the first time a TV channel and European agency have filmed in total weightlessness. To achieve the effects, the creative team took National Geographic’s iconic yellow border, 20 cubes of jelly, a rack of pool balls, four balloons, two apples, several torches, four packs of M&M’s shoved them in a G-Force One airplane.

Travelling to the Nevada Desert, the team, headed up by creative directors Steve Shannon of brothers and sisters and Lee Parker of National Geographic Channel UK, experienced weightlessness in a specially-adapted Boeing 727 aircraft - the G-Force One. The same type of plane used by NASA to train their astronauts, the aircraft performed a series of high-altitude flight movements, during which the plane climbed at a 45 degree angle to approximately 10,000 metres before freefalling rapidly in what is known as a parabolic curve. The top of each curve allows 30 seconds of true weightlessness – achieving zero gravity.

The crew experienced 17 parabolic dives in the vomit comet, giving them just eight and a half minutes to record the idents. Strategically positioned camera crews captured each angle, ensuring that every second of zero gravity was recorded on film. Each time zero gravity was achieved, every member of the crew on board was sent floating – lights, cameras and props in hand – as the action commenced. Amazingly, the majority of the shots worked!

The resulting idents are ‘experiments’ in zero gravity with various objects, including a handful of pool balls being hit by the cue ball, the bursting of a balloon filled with water; and crew members sliding up the walls of the plane, throwing each other to play catch. Smartly retaining the shambolic spontaneity of the shoot (for evidence just check out the terrific Making Of) by leaving in the accidental socks and crew floating in to view, the idents contain a truth that wouldn’t be achieved through a CG interpretation of the experience. Coupled with the fact that Nat Geo views got to recommend the items they wanted to go all Jim-Bexley Speed, the resulting work combines the channel identity, explorative nature and sense of fun with aplomb.

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