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The making of Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur Virtual Reality

2016-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

When we made the TV show Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur we were presented with the opportunity to bring the biggest animal that’s ever walked our planet to life. The problem with dinosaurs is no one has ever seen one.

However, by scanning the bones of the giant titanosaur found in Patagonia we rigged, modelled and textured the gigantic CG dinosaur that featured in the programme and showed audiences this amazing creature for the very first time.

With this already produced and the programme a huge success, we saw a second opportunity.

With the new generation of virtual reality headsets it is not a massive leap to take CG animation produced for television and create a 360 experience.

So that is what we decided to do. To place you on our planet 100 million years ago alongside Sir David, closer than anyone has ever been before to this magnificent animal.

We in the BBC’s Natural History Unit believe that these types of immersive projects help us try out new and exciting ways of telling incredible stories. Working closely with BBC Taster, the BBC’s experimental platform, we have already brought natural history to life with projects including Amana, Unearthed and Big Blue Live Seal Lions and Kelp Forest.

We want the story of this dinosaur and Sir David's fascination to be told in an innovative, memorable, and shareable way.

360 filming is such a new technique that there are few fixed rules. This particular demo was produced by filming Sir David against a green screen with him later composited in to the CG world. We wanted you to feel like you were there with Sir David and for the experience to be as real as possible, hence the scissor lift he’s on.

Chris, our researcher, played the role of the titanosaur. Choreographing the movement of the largest dinosaur to ever walk the earth using only a pole and a balloon. Not quite as scary as the real thing, but nonetheless effective.

Any green screen shoot is a challenge. Sir David, by his own admission, is not an actor, but he delivers a performance alongside the dinosaur that places you at the heart of the experience.

The development of this project has posed challenges from start to finish, virtual reality has so many unknowns: how to cut, whether to cut at all, which point of view to use, when does personal become personal space, does the camera move?

There are plenty of things we may consider doing differently if we were to undertake this again, we want to spark a debate about how to make 360 films as well as how amazing this creature was.

We hope it is an experience that’s one step short of time travel; that is ultimately the promise of VR, even if it is very early days.

Fortunately for us, Sir David loves pushing the limits of technology in the pursuit of new ways to deliver stories. He embraced the project from the start, so long as there was a cheese sandwich for lunch.

Paul Deane, Digital Development Lead, BBC Natural History Unit

Try Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur on BBC Taster
Watch Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur on iPlayer

People with disabilities in technology

2015-03-09T14:47:04+00:00

Attendees at the BBC's second People with Disabilities in Technology Development and Networking Day

Toby Mildon leads the Diversity & Inclusion team in BBC Future Media as the department attempts to increase the diversity of its staff. In this post he reports on last week’s People with Disabilities in Technology – Networking & Development Day which coincided with Reflect and Represent, a week of activity to promote diversity across the BBC and saw 50 invited attendees gather at MediaCityUK to find out more about BBC Future Media and the work it does.

The BBC is one of the most renowned story tellers globally and strives to be one of the most creative organisations in the world. We can only do this with an array of first-rate skilled and talented people working across the corporation, offering their diverse abilities and life-experiences.

At the present time the BBC is striving to increase the number of disabled people working at the BBC to 5.3% (5.0% for those in leadership roles). And in pursuit of that, the BBC recently announced plans to appoint a new Disability Exec who would be responsible for championing disabled talent and projects across the BBC. That role is currently in recruitment and applications close next Monday. The work of our existing schemes to offer employment opportunities to disabled staff continues with our Elev8 and Extend schemes.

We know that 3.4% of BBC Future Media are impaired in some way because they chose to disclose their disability. Comparing that figure with the wider BBC, the total of disabled staff is 3.8%.

In Future Media, we’re determined to address this gap within our own workforce to better reflect the diversity of our licence fee payers in pursuit of the best digital products. And on Friday 6th March we moved a step closer by hosting the second People with Disabilities in Technology Development and Networking Day (#BBCPDT) at MediaCityUK. Over 50 invited attendees took part including graduates through to those with some professional experience. All of the attendees were looking to advance their careers in digital media and technology, but don’t presently work for the BBC.

Tara O’Reilly, Head of Business Operations, started the day off by providing a little background about Future Media. Explaining our commitment to inclusion and diversity, Tara quoted Tony Hall's speech outlining how the organisation is to become "an internet-first BBC which belongs to everyone and where everyone belongs". Presentations followed from Richard Southorn, BBC HR Direct Access Unit Manager, and Paul Bepey, Chair of BBC Ability (the network for staff with disabilities) and Assistive Technology Manager, who leads the Assistive Technology service for the BBC.

Paul Bepey presents at the People with Disabilities in Technology Development and Networking Day

We also screened ‘A Film About Disability’, something we featured on the About the BBC Blog a year ago.

BBC Disability Affairs Correspondent Nikki Fox facilitated a Think Tank discussion exploring the issues of attraction, recruitment and retention of people with disabilities within the technology industry with conversations including the questions: When does someone disclose an impairment? What are the best reasonable adjustments? How accessible are online application forms? Why should employers hire people with disabilities?

The group spent the afternoon working together in masterclasses acquiring new skills and experience from The Blue Room team, design research methods from the BBC’s User Experience & Design, and discovered how BBC iPlayer is responsively built for multiple screen sizes and devices and how the BBC Operations team keep BBC Online available 24 hours every day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in a personal development session on overcoming obstacles of unconscious bias. This session explored our personal biases, how they impact upon recruitment and what tools we can use to overcome them. The workshop also focused on personal branding, self-belief and how best to sell oneself in an interview.

Dr Phil Friend closed the day with his keynote speech. Friend says "life deals us cards and we must play those cards to our best advantage". By the end of the day the mood in MediaCityUK was uplifting.

We hope that this event helped BBC Future Media challenge the underrepresentation of people with disabilities working in the team. We addressed some of the myths of working in our industry and showcased the inclusive culture that the BBC already has. Ultimately, we opened our doors to a diverse community of people with essential abilities, skills and experiences, which are crucial in delivering greater value and quality to our audience, who, quite rightly, expect nothing less. One attendee told me that he always thought the BBC was a diverse organisation but now he knows that we are serious about it.

Toby Mildon is Diversity & Inclusion Lead, BBC Future Media

See all the pictures from the event
Find out more about the recruitment of a pan-BBC Disability Executive to champion disabled talent and projects (applications for the job close next Monday)
Read about Challenging disabled staff targets to be reached by 2017: 5.3% for all staff and 5%for those in leadership roles
Visit the Disability microsite

Technacool – A dynamite day

2015-02-10T10:41:56+00:00

Participants of BBC Future Media and BBC Outreach Technacool event at NBH

Technacool is a BBC Future Media initiative supported by BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility, trying to help young people find out more about the different jobs people do to keep the BBC’s online content going and encourage the technologists of the future – irrespective of gender. Here, Claire McLaughlin reveals what happened when a group of schoolgirls were invited to learn about IT careers at the BBC.

At the end of January, Technacool took over New Broadcasting House, with 84 girls joining us to learn about careers in IT. With activities taking place across most of the floors, it’s true to say our presence was noticed and we had over 40 members of staff taking part in one way or another to share their experience and advice. The day from BBC Future Media was supported by BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility as part of our commitment to promoting diversity in our staff and reflecting all of our audiences.

Six interactive workshops gave the 13-year-old girls a taster of an existing technology role at the BBC, and they all took part in a Tech Tour where they met staff working to keep Radio 1 on air or creating engaging visual journalism graphics.

We heard from Ralph Rivera, Director of Future Media, at the start of the day, who talked about how his career in technology began and the turns it has taken – as well as why he thinks technology is an exciting place to be at the minute.

At lunch, we were joined by staff working at various levels who networked with our young guests and answered questions – as well as an external guest who came along to talk about careers in the wider technology industry.

Finally, we closed the event with senior managers working at the BBC discussing where they think technology is heading in the next 10 years and tips from their own careers. The girls had some very interesting questions in every session.

Some of the participants were also School Reporters, so they took pictures to feature on the BBC News School Report page – you can see their pictures and learn more about the project teaching journalism skills to 12 to 16-year-olds here.

It was a dynamite day but an engaging one too and I think we helped the girls understand that technical careers can be diverse and wide-ranging – as well as fun and creative! We understand that technology is constantly changing and brings with it new challenges, so we’re keen to help break down stereotypes of what the jobs are and, most crucially, who does them. The key to challenging the gender imbalance across the IT industry is reaching girls at a younger age and encouraging them to study subjects that will equip them to undertake these careers. Hopefully, Technacool will inspire some of them to think again about what technology means and encourage them to take related GCSE options.

Claire McLaughlin, Head of Interactive Technical Advice and Contracts Unit, BBC Future Media

Read also Lyn Picken’s blog It's Technacool to make it digital
And Diversity in Tech: Women in Tech and Technacool