We're using real-world locations as much as possible, because there's no substitute for the real world, that nuance that you get from Mother Nature. Then, we find a location that represents that arena. We then take those beats, we turn them into pre-vis, and use virtual cameras to create a virtual version of the arena-the location-and then we work out all the shots that we require. In this case, we feature Rapetosaurus, a large type of sauropod, and then we start to storyboard the beats out. We know, from the fossil record, which other animals were around Beelzebufo. We know from our experience that that type of animal will behave in a certain way. Let's say it's Beelzebufo, and we're going to see Beelzebufo try and attract a mate. With all of that in mind, we then storyboard a sequence out. We know that we need to create stories that reflect the natural world it's just 66 million years ago. We've got a really good fossil record from that period, so you can see which animals are around what the habitats were like, and then we start to build stories utilizing experience of being out in the field and looking at the kind of behaviors that animals do. We're in a relatively small window of geological time: the Maastrichtian, which is the last five or 6 million years of Late Cretaceous. Now add all of that together, and then look at the fossil record, and you see what animals were around at the time that we're depicting. So not just bones and stones, but paleoclimatology, paleobotanists, behavioral specialists. Everyone can talk to each other on the Internet and transfer data very, very quickly, and we've got a wonderful relationship with paleos across the world in loads of different disciplines. The paleontological world is moving at a faster pace than ever before. Of course, until you've seen a behavior on camera, it's hitherto unknown, isn't it? Then you put it on camera and everyone knows that it happened.Īdded into that, we've got our fingers on the paleo pulse. We work with a great team of wildlife filmmakers, people that have been out in the field filming every animal imaginable on every continent, so they've got vast experience in terms of how things look and how you capture things, but also the type of behaviors that you then see from animals. Now, that extends across into the rest of the production team as well. Working with Mike is a real privilege because Mike has spent 35 years making some of the most iconic blue-chip natural history documentaries that the world's seen, so we've got this incredible wealth of experience. What we've got to remember is at the heart of this is wildlife filmmaking. We've got an amazing collaboration here between ourselves as the BBC Natural History unit, and then Jon Favreau, and then the amazing team at MPC. Tim, can you talk about the process of putting together a single shot from start to finish? This can deliver." The level of authenticity, the level of nuance, the level of behavioral sophistication we can now reflect in these CGI animals is just mind-blowing. We did that as a test, and it was incredible, and we just thought, "Absolutely. In fact, it became the T-Rex swimming sequence where the T-Rex goes on the beach with the baby turtles and the baby T-Rexes. We knew that, yes, there'll be technology, but could it deliver? It was only when Jon joined us. So, the ambition was a theoretical ambition. He came into the sphere of the planners, and because he had just done Jungle Book and just done Lion King, which elevated the ability to make these hyper-real, hyper-accurate creatures, that was the technological thing that allowed us to realize the ambition. Suddenly, they clicked into alignment when we met Apple, met Jay Hunt, and at the same time happened to be talking to Jon about some projects. Luckily, it took a long time to get the right people together and to raise the resources and all the rest of it, and during that time the stars were never quite aligned. It was a shift in thinking, basically, "Could we do a classic natural history series like Planet Earth, but set it 65, 66 million years ago?"Īt the back of your mind, of course, it would have to therefore be in CG. So the idea is a bit older the idea really was about 10 years ago-maybe more, actually, now. If you go back to Walking with Dinosaurs, people have CG-animated creatures. Mike Gunton: In some sense, the technology has been around for a while. Did this idea predate the technology, or did the technology inspire you to use it in this unique way? Screen Rant: Mike, I believe you had the concept for this show, which was then made possible with the help of Jon Favreau and his work on the technology side.
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