Colossus Productions · 2014
Conquest Of The Skies with David Attenborough
David Attenborough's 300-million-year story of flight, shot native stereo from Borneo to Europe with a drone-mounted 3D rig built for the film. Best 3D Documentary and a BAFTA nomination.
What it was
Conquest of the Skies follows the story of flight across three hundred million years, and stereo is at the heart of it. Stereo separates a cluttered scene front to back, so a bird that would be lost against a jungle in 2D reads clearly, and that is what the format brings to natural history.
The shoot ran for a year, from the jungles of Borneo to locations across Europe, combining native stereo photography with CGI that had to stand up to an audience that already knows what an Attenborough film looks like. The film won Best 3D Documentary at the International 3D Society Awards and was nominated for a BAFTA for Special, Visual and Graphic Effects.
Technical approach
Vision3's Matthew Smith and Melissa Byers joined the production at key points through the shoot, working in remote locations with rigs that had to travel, including a drone-mounted stereo camera rig built specifically for the film. Angus Cameron oversaw the post production so that the finished stereo matched the ambition of the shoot and of the previous films in the series.
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