Concept and creative process
‘Gardeners’ World’ is a long-running series on BBC Two, first launched in 1968 and still going strong. It has a practical magazine format with presenters showing viewers how to garden. This was a high budget commission requiring not only an opening title sequence but also lots of small 2 second sequences and vignettes of the imagery, to be used as punctuation marks and wipes between different items in the programme. The brief was to take the series away from a traditional older audience and make gardening attractive to a different age and demographic. Starting with the final title frame playing on the word ‘World’ and a central sundial viewed from a top-shot angle, the premise of circles was born. Gardens are generally viewed from a standing or sitting head-on perspective, but if gardens are viewed from a bird’s eye top view or from plan drawings of gardens, it is clear that much is based on the circular structuring of a garden space. So, using the concept of circles, the screen was divided into 4 quarter circles. As the programme focuses on a practical guide to gardening, we created 4 seasonal gardens representing Autumn, Winter, Spring, culminating in a final Summer garden. The idea was to represent the different stages and practical work and progress needed to take care of a garden. Starting with the Autumn garden with leaves falling, the colour palette was golden brown set on a small rooftop balcony garden that young people have or aspire to. The Winter garden was in preparation with digging and was seen mainly as a vegetable garden, the colour palette changed to darker greys and rusty red colours. The Spring garden took over in fresh colours of yellow and greens with planting as a central theme. The Summer garden was full of colour and relaxing enjoyment of a glorious space, the result of a well-planned garden that has been worked on throughout the year. In this garden the central quarter was a fishpond and if you looked carefully, even the fish were swimming in a circle! The sequences were filmed on 35 mm with a fixed top shot rigged camera. The four gardens were miraculously created in the middle of winter in an indoor studio. A set designer built 2 big frames within which the gardens were created. Whilst we filmed one garden the next garden was created on set. Plants were supplied by nursery gardens, and props, furniture and accessories were used by actors on set. Tons of earth and compost were used to form the bed of the Winter and Spring and Summer gardens. The 4 sets were filmed over 4 days, including filming all the small vignettes like a basket of potatoes and onions, a spray of flowers in a bouquet, a bucket and trowel and sundials, amongst many others that made up about 24 vignettes in total. The title sequence was a finalist in the Royal Television Society Awards.