The Universe

The Universe

The Universe is a follow up to The Planets, a phenomenally successful series which first aired in 2019 and has gone on to be broadcast in 30 countries and viewed by over 1 billion people.

This new series covers the history of the Universe from the Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago, to the death of the last star trillions of years in the future. Professor Brian Cox guides us through some truly mind-blowing events and explores some of the Universe’s strangest inhabitants – Rogue planets, fossilised stars, black holes more massive than a million Suns.

Across five episodes, Professor Brian Cox roams the vastness of space and time uncovering exquisite moments of sheer drama that changed the Universe forever. Watch the birth of a star in a stellar nursery, experience the power of a supermassive black hole as it consumes an entire planet, and witness the chaos created as another galaxy collides with our own galaxy, The Milky Way.

Lola was once again tasked with creating more than two hours of VFX across the series, illustrating some extremely weird and wonderful phenomena. Some of the briefs were extremely tricky and abstract – How to immerse the viewer in a time before the Big Bang, when space had nothing in it, not even light. Or a collision of two Black Holes, featuring science so complicated the only official simulation literally has a hole in it (because the maths is too hard). Passing through the event horizon and witnessing the entire history of the universe played out in seconds…

Lola’s VFX team created more than 400 shots, combining CG, location plates and high-speed studio FX.

VFX Supervisor – Rob Harvey

VFX Producer – Rebecca Kelly

2D Supervisor – Sam Reed

3D Supervisor – Rasik Gorecha

FX Lead – Alex Marlow

VFX Coordinators – Emma Askew, Hannah Dakin

Storyboard Artist – John Kennedy

BBC Studios

Directors – Tom Hewitson, Ashley Gethin, Kenny Scott and Suzy Boyles

Series Producer – Gideon Bradshaw

Executive Producer – Andrew Cohen