The story behind Picture It

You’ve seen our latest showreel – or you should have! Now find out what happened behind the scenes…

Our video editor Rose shares some thoughts on her creative process for making this showreel

Throughout history, the natural world has sat at the core of creative inspiration. Its dramatic diversity of colours, shapes and sizes feeds our imagination and desire to fill blank canvases. As someone who has always used nature as her muse, working as NPL’s video editor often leaves me feeling like a child in a sweet shop. During my working day, I process and edit the latest video submissions, which means reviewing footage sent to us from all corners of the globe, providing me with the opportunity to see species and behaviours I’ve never seen before. I, therefore, wanted the latest video showreel to act as a taster for the impressive assortment of footage available within our little sweet shop of natural wonders.

Spectacular range

When gathering the footage for our showreels, I always enjoy looking through the spectacular range of species that our video collection houses – everything from tardigrades to tigers, from hedgehogs to humpback whales, and from snakes to shongololos (search it)! It’s safe to say that during their ventures in the animal kingdom, our contributors have captured an impressive array of behaviours, from mass migrations across land, sea and air to courtship displays, hunts and more.

While it’s animals who often take the spotlight within natural history storytelling, the library also has footage of Earth’s equally fabulous flora. Whether it be an aerial shot of mist rising across the Amazon Rainforest at dawn or a close up of a moth pollinating a rare and beautiful butterfly orchid at night, NPL has it.

But don’t forget the little things

However, we’re not just a pretty picture. Understanding the importance of the conservation of our natural world, NPL is here to aid the storytellers with video footage that documents topical conservation and environmental issues from around the world. In addition to footage of widely known threatened megafauna, we also have footage of the lesser-seen rare species such as the UK’s narrow-headed ant, which has only one remaining population in England.

Whether you are working on a project for broadcast or online distribution, entertainment or education, NPL has a library of stunning high definition and 4K natural history footage. We include underwater, terrestrial, timelapse, slow-motion, macro, micro, thermal, infrared and long lens footage that will bring your vision to life.

You can see all the clips used within our showreel in this gallery. Please contact us if you need any help with video searches, quotes etc.