Creative Brief

In A Real Bug’s Life, audiences are taken on a journey through an astonishing miniature world – where bugs must use extreme adaptations to survive. Narrated by Awkwafina and inspired by the spirit of A Bug’s Life, this new National Geographic series for Disney+ set out to blend real-world macro footage with visual storytelling flair. Little Shadow was invited onboard working closely with Plimsoll Productions to design the pipeline and post-production strategy needed to bring this unseen world to the screen.

Our Approach

Capturing and crafting the lives of bugs at this scale presented unique challenges – not least of which was directing performances from creatures who refused to hit their marks. Our role was to stitch together convincing sequences from fragmented moments, often combining multiple takes to build composite performances that felt organic and continuous.

We employed a wide toolkit across the season: photogrammetry and photo stacking to achieve deep focus in macro scenes; high-end clean-up and matte extractions to isolate subjects; camera tracking and stabilisation to bring fluidity to handheld or remote macro footage; and wire and rig removal to keep the illusion intact. 

In many scenes, we layered live-action plates with digital augmentations-adding atmosphere, environmental FX, and invisible compositing to create depth. The multi-pass grade was crafted to balance realism with vibrancy, supporting the show’s tone as both educational and enchantingly cinematic.

Our team’s pipeline was built to handle iterative delivery across episodes, ensuring quality control and visual consistency under broadcast timelines.

The Results

A Real Bug’s Life premiered on Disney+ on 24 January 2024, delivering an immersive, playful take on the insect world that resonated with viewers of all ages. Our contributions helped shape the visual language of the series-ensuring that even the smallest actors had big-screen presence.