But what could be more obvious than the combination of maps and travel? Don't the two just sit so comfortably together? What better way could there be to illustrate a travel programme than by creating accurate, high quality animated maps?

High Wire's resident graphics expert is Rory Gavin. He's formidable with Combustion, 3dsMax, Photoshop and, of course, Curious, which he uses along with Avid DS for all compositing and effects. Given his expertise, its no surprise that Frontier Films turned to him when maps were needed for Ireland's top rated travel show 'No Frontiers'.

The programme, broadcast on RTE, called for animated maps that flew from Ireland to each holiday destination. In all, Gavin created 40 maps and says Curious World Maps shortened the process by weeks, not days.

He explains: "In an earlier series of No Frontiers we used a combination of Photoshop, 3dsMax and Combustion to create map graphics, but this turned out to be a long and laborious process. We also had to do a lot of research to locate each holiday destination and that also took time.

"For Series 6 we decided to use Curious, which we hadn't had available before. It significantly shortened the whole process and being able to type in a country, then a town and animate over to that town instantly made a huge difference to our work flow. The fact that the whole process took place in one piece of software was hugely beneficial, as were the much faster rendering times."

Gavin adds that another benefit was the ease with which directors and producers could modify or refine the maps. Changes and updates could be made in a matter of minutes, so flexibility was maintained right up to moment that transmission masters were sent off.
High Wire has also used Curious World Maps to great effect on 'Imigh Le Sruth' a travel documentary that explores America along the length of the Mississippi, from it's source all the way down to New Orleans.

"This was an Irish language series produced by Obbo Films for Irish language station TG4," Gavin says. "We used Curious to produce map elements for the intro sequence and for around 25 maps that detailed the journey of the presenter along the river. 'Imigh Le Sruth' has a highly stylized look, so we needed to generate striking and original looking maps that matched the feel of the rest of the series. Curious did this brilliantly."

Again, Gavin saved time by being able to locate towns within Curious rather than having to research the location of each town. "Given the massive journey undertaken, we would have had to produce either one gigantic map (with gigantic rendering times) or a large number of smaller maps," he says. "Curious also allowed the director to look at finished programmes and add a map to illustrate a point at literally the last minute."

Alongside post-production for acclaimed television programmes, High Wire has also employed Curious on a full range of corporate videos for presentations, websites and DVD. The software has also been used to create elements for intro sequences and for graphics packages. High Wire's clients are rapidly becoming as enthusiastic about Curious Software as the company itself, thanks to the flexibility it allows them, the speed with which maps can be produced and the variety of styles and animations that can be achieved.

"Curious has made their lives easier, saved them money and made their productions better looking," says Gavin, "and for High Wire, it's provides a unique niche in the Dublin post-production arena. It's earned its cost back many times over by being a reliable, flexible product that does what it does brilliantly. Curious is a product we couldn't do without."