Zoo Quest For The Paradise Birds (1957)

Concept and creative process

Opening titles for a series in which David Attenborough and a team from London Zoo travel in search of exotic animals. Their aim is to capture them and bring them back to the UK to exhibit in the zoo. David Attenborough journeys along the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and into the mountains of New Guinea in search of birds of paradise. The titles comprised hand-drawn illustrations of exotic birds and fish with titles superimposed on cel overlays and filmed on a rostrum camera. The negative of the titles was cut onto the negative of the programme in order to make the transmission print.