January 2021 marks 20 years since The National Geographic Channel began cable & satellite programming to millions of homes across North America. From 2000 to 2002, Przyborski Productions filmed many of the network’s major on-air promotions.

Working with Lorraine Snebold, Senior VP of Brand Management / Creative, Glenn Przyborski directed and photographed dozens of Nat Geo’s promos & program elements. All projects were filmed in 35mm at National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

National Geographic converted one of their buildings on Washington’s M Street into a beautiful, state-of-the-art, TV studio that originated live & pre-recorded programming every day. For scheduling purposes, Przyborski Productions had to film all promo projects on weekends. For each shoot, we brought a small group of key people from Pittsburgh and used Washington based freelancers for most crew positions.

All Nat Geo promotions featured complex computer graphics. Przyborski worked closely with digital artists from San Francisco’s 168 Design who handled post-production special effects and motion graphics. 168 was able to sync their animations to match Glenn’s camera moves. (Motion controlled camera systems weren’t used due to the time required to set-up & program these devices.)

From the start, Przyborski & 168 Design decided to shoot at 29.97fps. The decision was predicated on the large number of plasma video displays that were featured around the studio set. Most studio scenes were filmed with a 35mm Arriflex 535B, mounted on a Fisher 10 crab dolly. Przyborski’s Arri 35BL4 shot from a camera crane. For the “Base Camp” promotions, Glenn used a Wescam stabilized camera system, mounted on a Jet Ranger helicopter. 35mm film processing was handled by CineFilm in Atlanta.

The iconic National Geographic theme music, originally composed by Elmer Bernstein, was adapted and customized for most of the promos. To maintain the network’s international feel, non-traditional, non-American voice-over artists were often used.

This video showcases a few of the dozens of promos produced for the channel’s launch, through its first full year of programming. It’s standard definition video from Digital Betacam masters that have been upsampled to 1080P using a Teranex video processor. The “pillar box” format maintains the original 4x3 aspect ratio.

Nat Geo was originally a joint venture of National Geographic and FOX. Today, the Walt Disney Company owns over 70% of the Nat Geo and Nat Geo Wild cable channels.