Save the Albatross
Oct 2005
www.savethealbatross.net
The RPSB, in partnership with Volvo Ocean Race, launched the Save the Albatross campaign to raise awareness of the plight of these fast disappearing sea birds and generate much needed funds.
Given the dire nature of the problem (19 of the world’s 21 species of Albatross are classified as ‘under threat of extinction’, with over 100,000 dying every year, killed unnecessarily by longline fishing), we decided to tell the story in the most emotive and powerful way we could.
I selected video from the RSPB’s immense library, and edited it down a 25 second movie that dramatically showed the journey of an Albatross leaving his nest to find food, getting caught on a line, drowning, and finally being tossed back into the ocean. I used audio to make a greater impact, starting with the sounds of the birds in their natural habitat through the horror of the drowning and culminating in complete silence and a still shot of the empty sea.
This animation began with a photograph of an Albatross in flight over sea, and I used this image to then form the background texture of the rest of the site, and using it as a springboard into the main site navigation.
For the campaign launch, I also designed a media gallery so that journalists could use the resources to populate articles that were promoted around the campaign launch.
The site gave me a great opportunity to create a Flash-based interface, allowing me to tell the story in a more graphical and emotive way.
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