Creative brief

Nightmares of Nature is a hybrid natural history and horror tone documentary series produced by Plimsoll in partnership with Blumhouse. The show flips the conventional wildlife narrative by emphasising the darker, visceral, often unsettling realities of survival in nature – creatures that bite, bleed, stalk, and resist.

Little Shadow was brought in to support key sequences requiring heightened atmosphere and emotional storytelling through visual means. Our scope included compositing, environment enhancements, and seamless integration of visual effects – working to deliver final EXR sequences under tight timelines

Our approach

We worked closely with Plimsoll’s editorial team to understand the constraints of the raw footage: low light, high ISO, motion, insects, nocturnal settings. We also scoped which sequences had room (or need) for post work.

EXR Workflow & Delivery

We received and worked with RAW linear EXRs, allowing us to extract and manipulate fine shadow detail without degrading the source.

Final deliverables were EXR sequences structured per Netflix delivery specs – clearly versioned, slate-embedded, and conformed to Plimsoll’s editorial master.

The timing constraints were significant. With production already deep into offline edit, our EXR delivery schedule had to fit tightly between editorial lock and master turnover. Many sequences were turned around within 2-3 days from plate receipt to EXR delivery, including multiple internal review cycles.

The results

This was a rewarding challenge – not just creatively, but operationally. It proved that with strong communication and a clean EXR pipeline, Little Shadow could contribute high-quality sequences to a global streamer series, even on compressed timelines.

Link to trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vped7Y8Caa8