earthTV network GmbH
The earth television network GmbH operates a network of remote-controlled cameras that capture footage from over 70 locations worldwide. The company primarily supplies television broadcasters, as well as airports and hotels, with its programme “The World Live”, which consists mainly of 90-second clips in which live images from well-known locations are accompanied by current weather data and background music.
earthTV is broadcast by television channels in over 200 countries, including BBC World, France 2, TVE (Spain), The Weather Channel (USA) and SBS in Australia. It is usually broadcast for around 90 seconds. According to the program’s own figures, it reaches over 2 billion viewers in 200 countries and has become the most successful daily program in Europe.
Source: Wikipedia (German)
As a freelancer, I was involved in the transition from analog to digital television production, a process that was already well underway when I joined the project. I succeeded in developing a programmable and customizable animation system that was used for the vast majority of productions.
I consider the greatest challenge of this project to be ensuring reliability and the timely delivery of productions at all times. Due to the live footage and the inserts featuring up-to-date information, production could only ever take place shortly before the broadcast. The excellent team – with whom I have formed friendships that last to this day – and the varied tasks, both technical and creative, remain fond memories.
The earthTV Design
The brand’s signature design, together with the music (Ron Carnel – North Gate on YouTube), is instantly recognisable worldwide. To this day, the brand’s simple, understated and ageless elegance – and thus its functional design – has been preserved and can be found in many of its products. The brand’s high profile, thanks to its high recognition factor, continues to make it extremely attractive to customers.
Individual Designs
The new animation system made it possible to offer customers bespoke designs for the on-screen graphics. In addition to the new creative freedom, news, events and other information could now be incorporated directly into the production, alongside weather forecasts.
Happy New Year
At the turn of each year, visitor numbers to the website skyrocketed, bringing the servers to their limits. It was only by deploying a special version, highly optimised for efficiency, that the website’s operation could be safeguarded throughout the transition from 2013 to 2014.
Arabic Schript
In the Arabic alphabet the shape of letters changes depending on their position within a word and due to the nature of calligraphy. As my animation routine would, for example, assemble words letter by letter over time, the letters written last had to be marked or manipulated according to their final position in the word.
Picture-In-Picture Designs
Another challenge was picture-in-picture productions, such as the 3-day weather forecast shown here. Ultimately, three films were produced separately and then combined using superimposition. This made it especially crucial to coordinate the timing of the various processes in order to deliver a reliable result on time.
