Britain from Above
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So, you think you know a thing or two about Blighty? Britain from Above will show you stuff you never dreamed was out there. This unique series, meticulously crafted in HD by crack camera operators and cutting-edge computer modellers tells a story of Britain that it has never been possible to tell before. Making sense of it all for us is Andrew Marr, whose enthusiasm never wanes, even when he's plunging towards the Earth from two miles up!
Lofty Vision
What causes phantom traffic jams on motorways? How do you regulate 50,000 football fans streaming towards Glasgow's Ibrox Park? What do the UK's 36 million commuters look like once they get going? For Britain from Above, the producers have used the latest technology to produce pin-sharp aerial pictures that inform us about ourselves and the land we live in. From the carefree revellers of Glastonbury to the frenetic hydraulics of Felixstowe container port, everything looks different once you're aloft.
Busy Brits
But aerial filming isn't the only element to Britain from Above. Ground-breaking fusions of statistics and computer modelling have produced fascinating and strangely beautiful visualisations of Britain and Britons. Watch as the nation's telephone system comes alive. Follow the GPS traces of 380 London taxis over 24 hours, as they dart across the capital. Track Britain's air traffic highways, packed with more than 7,500 aircraft a day. Or imagine yourself at the helm of a ship plying the world's busiest waterway — the English Channel. We like to be busy, we Brits.
Action Man
That Andrew Marr, he's more than a clever-clogs political journalist. He likes to get stuck in. For Britain from Above, Andrew takes to the sky in a microlight aircraft, skydives from two miles high and hurls himself off a hill dangling beneath a paraglider — a device he describes as "a plastic bag attached to some string". But it wasn't just about adrenaline for Andrew. "My abiding memory, alongside the terrifying, exhilarating plunging and soaring through our skies, will be a renewed sense of the vitality and energy of the country," he says of the series. "The biggest reason I can see that we keep this vast, intricate, living system known as Britain functioning is simply the tolerance, good humour and mutual respect of us, her people."
What causes phantom traffic jams on motorways? How do you regulate 50,000 football fans streaming towards Glasgow's Ibrox Park? What do the UK's 36 million commuters look like once they get going? For Britain from Above, the producers have used the latest technology to produce pin-sharp aerial pictures that inform us about ourselves and the land we live in. From the carefree revellers of Glastonbury to the frenetic hydraulics of Felixstowe container port, everything looks different once you're aloft.
Busy Brits
But aerial filming isn't the only element to Britain from Above. Ground-breaking fusions of statistics and computer modelling have produced fascinating and strangely beautiful visualisations of Britain and Britons. Watch as the nation's telephone system comes alive. Follow the GPS traces of 380 London taxis over 24 hours, as they dart across the capital. Track Britain's air traffic highways, packed with more than 7,500 aircraft a day. Or imagine yourself at the helm of a ship plying the world's busiest waterway — the English Channel. We like to be busy, we Brits.
Action Man
That Andrew Marr, he's more than a clever-clogs political journalist. He likes to get stuck in. For Britain from Above, Andrew takes to the sky in a microlight aircraft, skydives from two miles high and hurls himself off a hill dangling beneath a paraglider — a device he describes as "a plastic bag attached to some string". But it wasn't just about adrenaline for Andrew. "My abiding memory, alongside the terrifying, exhilarating plunging and soaring through our skies, will be a renewed sense of the vitality and energy of the country," he says of the series. "The biggest reason I can see that we keep this vast, intricate, living system known as Britain functioning is simply the tolerance, good humour and mutual respect of us, her people."
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