Creative brief

Returning for a second season, In the Eye of the Storm portrays real-life survival stories from some of the most extreme weather events in modern history. Combining eyewitness footage, audio recordings, and testimony, the series immerses viewers in the extreme experience of natural disasters. For Season 2, Discovery Channel and Arrow Media focused on events across the US, including a devastating derecho that swept across Texas, spawning multiple tornadoes and putting entire communities at risk.

To support the editorial with clarity and visual drama, Little Shadow was commissioned to create a suite of animated maps for each episode. These maps needed to show the scale, movement, and impact zones of various storm systems, and most crucially, they had to precisely indicate where contributors were positioned during each event. The emotional stakes were high — so was the need for technical accuracy.

Our approach

Our design priority was to keep the maps fast, clear, and legible for television audiences, while also supporting the tense, first-person storytelling style of the show. Working closely with Arrow’s production team, we sourced verified GPS data and meteorological overlays, aligning with NOAA reports and radar footage wherever available.

Each episode required multiple maps: initial storm trajectories, close-up tornado tracks, and zoom-ins showing contributor positions relative to the danger. We built a modular toolkit in After Effects that included state borders, terrain styling, weather paths, and bespoke markers for vehicles, homes, and storm cells. To reflect the urgency of the series, the animation style used fast wipes, pulses, and directional arrows designed to feel like a weather centre visualisation under pressure.

For the Texas derecho episode, we created a three-stage sequence: tracking the system’s spread across the state, spotlighting a cluster of tornadoes, and finally homing in on the isolated farmhouse where a dramatic rescue unfolded. Contributor positions were carefully marked and animated in sync with their testimony, letting viewers grasp the spatial risk without overwhelming the narrative.

Throughout, we maintained a high visual contrast and typographic consistency — ensuring maps worked just as well on mobile devices as on large-format TVs.

The results

In the Eye of the Storm 2 premiered in summer 2024 as part of Discovery’s action-driven factual slate. Little Shadow delivered over 30 map animations across the season, supporting key emotional beats and logistical clarity. The maps were praised internally for helping ground the chaos of storm footage in understandable, high-impact geography.