Dinosaurs Reanimated
So here’s the deal: I’m fucking bored with all the CG dinosaurs running around on the TV box these days. So I’m teaming up with some dino buddies and we’re making a spec doc that we’re going to try to develop into a TV series. I’ve created a blog where we’ll be putting various production materials and giving/getting feedback. Check it out, read our mission statement, RSS it, and let us know what you think as we put stuff up. We’re open to ideas and we hope you’ll hold us to a high standard of quality and scientific accuracy:
Dinosaurs Reanimated Production Blog
Yeah, yeah I know, CG dinosaurs sometimes ‘look cool’ but very very rarely move well or act like real animals. Furthermore the docs that feature the CG dinos often present speculation as fact, make stupid shit up, and just strait up get stuff wrong. I call it ‘bullshitting’, and I generally don’t like motherfuckers who do it, especially to children.
Turns out, I’m not entirely alone in my weariness of CG and bad paleo docs. Paleontologists galore are also often regularly frustrated and disappointed by the shows they often advise on but have too little say in the creative process to be able to do anything much but blog about it. They work hard to discover rad stuff, and then give their time and energy advising on documentaries who often ignore what they say or even actively misrepresent them. It sucks.
On top of that there’s a diversity of talented animators out there who are skilled in a variety of mediums, who understand behavior, story and the drama of survival, and who could make much more interesting animation than the void-of-substance CG that has risen to ubiquity in recent years. With the advent of digital technology the push has been to digitize as much of the workflow as possible, and aim at an impossible level of ‘photo realism’ instead of figuring out interesting ways to hybridize and streamline beautiful traditional techniques with digital technology to (perhaps even more efficiently) present original art to the public. And that’s the thing – it’s all just ‘art’. It’s never going to look like the real animals because nobody’s ever seen the real animals. And from what I can tell, the only visual goal of ‘photorealistic’ CG is to try and look like something real THAT NOBODY’S EVER SEEN. That’s just fucking dumb. Stop wasting all that time and money.
Ultimately, what compels me most is that there are more certain truths about dinosaurs and other extinct animals that these docs could elaborate on in a gripping way, but that are completely overlooked in favor of that ever elusive “cool factor”. What I’m talking about is the fact that these were real animals, that went through gnarly harrowing shit in order to survive for millions and millions of years. They were parents, hunters, victims of natural tragedy and witnesses to the incredible beauty and vivacity of life. They struggled with so many of the same basic challenges that we do; trying to find food, a mate, a safe place to live, and they dealt with these challenges in amazing brilliant ways, many of which are actually recorded in the fossil record!
Thanks for reading. If you have the time, check out our production blog – we need your critical input!
dmaas on 14 Sep 2011 at 8:18 am #
Getting a 404 on the plog….
I think the first issue you should address with the concept is distribution… is this a pitch to the self-same executive forces that corrupted Revolution? Or a fan film done by paleo-enthusiasts for internet release? Or something else?
Very interested….
David Orr on 14 Sep 2011 at 12:37 pm #
I’ll be watching with interest, and sharing with LITC readers. A couple linksto the new blog are broken, btw.
Historian on 14 Sep 2011 at 6:04 pm #
OH! Sorry about the broken links! Thanks for the heads up, David.
David Maas, as far as distribution goes we are initially going to put this out on the web while we shop it around. We have some contacts at Nat Geo and Discovery and our hope is that a 1-2 punch of polished unique content that execs can actually watch (as opposed to just hearing me wax about) along with some internet attention will convince somebody to give us the money and creative space to make something really neat. It may be a long shot, but the very worst thing that could happen is that the finished mini-doc floats around the web for a few years and gets people talking about dinosaurs… and I’m alright with that.
So yeah, share this around, be brutally honest and critical with us as we put stuff up, and keep talking about dinosaurs on your blogs! I read both of them!
SCIENCE!!!!!!!
Galileo on 19 Sep 2011 at 1:25 am #
Hey I am sure that We need to do something againts that thing called Dinosaur revolution, but pls anything you do, pls dont call Tom Holtz or Scott Hartman, they seem to have a very tweaked vision of dinosaurs and of course don’t ever think about getting David Krentz Involved with his Disney Ideas, lol. Anything I can help you just drop me a mail .
All the best.
Galileo on 19 Sep 2011 at 1:25 am #
By the way. SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!
Historian on 19 Sep 2011 at 7:09 pm #
Galileo, thanks for commenting. You do beautiful work.
I would actually be interested to learn how much of ‘Dinosaur Revolution’ really was influenced by the vision of the paleontologists advising on it. From everything I’ve heard, the flawes creep into paleo docs because of the involvement of creative executives, bloated writing staffs, and bad technical direction on the part of the animation directors who know more about running Maya than they do about how animals move and behave…
But don’t worry, I have no direct connections to Holtz or Hartman… so far anyway…
Galileo on 19 Sep 2011 at 8:38 pm #
Hey man.
Thanks for the kind words, yeah, I think the animators may have been involved, Ithink they were very involved in the pterosaur bugs bunny cartoon-like scene, but take a look at this video and let me know what do you think : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OFunlQdDfk
Galileo.
PS: I must admit I am very surprised about its vision of dinosaurs.
Historian on 20 Sep 2011 at 3:57 am #
yeah that was full of dumb bullshit. here are my reactions…
Rahonavis mimicking noises? only modern corvines and parrots mimic and they are the most intelligent birds alive today with much much larger, more developed brains than rahonavis or any other dromeosaur/primitive bird had.
MELONS?!??!?! WTF?? Primitive berries had just evolved!!!!
Birds don’t circle like a dog before sitting… gah. watch a chicken sit down. they scratch a spot and then squat strait down…
Majungasaurs were almost certainly cannibalistic. It is much more likely that the young would’ve stayed well away from the adults.
If Beelzebufo behaved anything like it’s very similar modern relatives, then it was a sit and wait predator, and probably not very gregarious. Also they probably didn’t have especially long tongues.
What the heck is up with the environment? It’s just a flat plane with mist and melons.
Historian on 20 Sep 2011 at 7:05 am #
Also i think it is highly unlikely that a bird-like dromeosaur would’ve regarded any seed as food. Seed eating requires adaptations that I’m pretty sure early birds/bird like dinosaurs hadn’t yet evolved…
Galileo on 20 Sep 2011 at 3:48 pm #
Yeah man! Bravo, I totally agree with you and thats the whole point, you might be a good story teller but that doesn’t make you a good paleontologist, making a dinosaur documentary would require a lot of knowledge in the field or at least a intelligent direction!
I am really sure that there are a lot of Way interesting stuff to learn about dinos and yeah we can speculate a little but on real grounds. Not just ideas coming out from my Disney programed brain, LOL!
Galileo on 20 Sep 2011 at 3:54 pm #
Remember this ? Its a beautiful animation about 20 years old and its way better in terms of story telling, In DR they say they wanted to be very different by not having a narrator and if you check the rest of this animations they have very little narration of some of them not a single word. And again, 20 years old aprox.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsqQ3qw8olo&feature=related
Historian on 20 Sep 2011 at 4:03 pm #
Yeah that animation has been a big inspiration to me for a long time. Beautiful stuff. Obviously not entirely accurate by today’s science, but really well done, and the animal behavior is at least believable and plausible…
Stay tuned, I’ve got some test animation of my own that I’ll probably be putting up end of this week.
Matt on 03 Oct 2011 at 12:46 pm #
I can see your objections to Dinosaur Revolutions and certainly understand them. Meanwhile I have some experience in TV land and animation and know how hard it is to get anything made let alone made to a particular vision or set of ideas.
Budgets, time constraints and interference from higher up the food chain all dilute what you set out to make.
I can only imagine that these sort of documentaries are a constant battle between concept, science, creativity and (did I mention)budget, budget, budget.(which affects time, resources, and inevitably, who calls the shots)
So your idea might have something to it Brian, a crowd sourced ‘representative style’ rather than photorealism which can take the time to get the science right and tell it in an interesting way. I’ll keep my fingers crossed! If I can squeeze some time in I might even be able to contribute.
As I wrote on your Youtube channel, I like what you’ve done so far.
Matt
Historian on 03 Oct 2011 at 5:55 pm #
Thanks for the optimism Matt. I’m aware that it’s ridiculously difficult to get anything on TV, especially with any kind of a cohesive vision, but occasionally it happens, and I figure even if it’s an impossibility for me to get a show launched at this stage in my career I’m not going to stand any chance of influencing any kind of change unless I can make something new to actually show people. I’m young and have no kids, so I figure it’s a good time to take risks if I’m ever going to.
I would be honored to have you creatively involved. You do beautiful work.
Matt on 03 Oct 2011 at 10:08 pm #
Generally making stuff with your own money is considered insane in the film business, but I think there have been more than a few things people have done on their own which have been picked up and become quite big.
Saying that, your biggest danger will likely be entropy. I suspect you might have encountered the unraveling that happens as the energy drains out of a creative project, animation is particularly prone to this because it’s so time consuming.
Strike while the iron is hot!
You have picked a good time to do this though, no kids!
Historian on 09 Oct 2011 at 6:51 am #
a lot of what i do is generally considered insane.
Sakari on 26 Oct 2011 at 11:43 am #
You’re right on about the difference between a creative process and a technical process. They are not the same thing. When the latter dictates the former it also obligates what the creative process should be. As documentaries can only offer us a fraction of understanding from what real biology is(as it is more vast than audiovisual expression can fully cover) it would be important for them to focus on building their foundation within the limits of that understanding instead of showing off with wild assumptions about a real science. In that sense computers only play a small part instead of being a center piece.
While a 3D space can be a useful tool I personally favor traditional because of it’s essence being much closer to what the artist tries to say. Much more with so much less. No eye candy padding. While it’s crude it gets the job done and can even be enjoyable with the right mindset which I assume is what you’re aiming for. The animation test looks really promising and I wouldn’t mind another stylistic way to present a prehistoric ecosystem with it’s strengths and limits. Especially the limits.
I wouldn’t rule out other traditional methods either. With some clever mime acting and frame editing some ordinary puppets and animatronics can gain surprising boosts of live without looking rubbery. Believe me, I’ve already made some tests. ;)
Historian on 26 Oct 2011 at 5:58 pm #
You’ve done puppet tests!?!?!??!?! Please share them!!!!
Sakari on 27 Oct 2011 at 10:46 am #
My tests are rather crude and few in numbers. Maybe once I have done enough of them but it’s something anyone could do. Just exaggerate a slow motion with a flexible puppet/marionette to look like real time fast motion when speeded up in frame rate. Then it’s just digitally enhancing blurs and removing possible control rods/strings with a post-production program. Try it, it’s fun and intuitive. I’d also advise you to check out some flipping awesome stop motion done by a guy named Peter Montgomery. His YouTube name is kezadrone. Lots of creative potential and inspiration for more hands-on practical artists right there.
I was greatly influenced by Peter as well as the rather costly stuff by Creature Technology Company. So yeah, not everyone is brainwashed with the computer “magic bullet” bollocks. Jurassic Park or not, it all owes it’s existence to traditional pre-production that’s been around even before Ray Harryhausen. Some ignorant ones just give modern gadgets the magic bullet fame because they can.There is no magic bullet! It’s art, nothing more and nothing less. It all still takes intense focus and work just to shell out. I believe traditional art deserves more respect than it gets.
Everyone should have the right for their own distinctive style, computer or not. I wish I could have understood that as a young lad if I hadn’t been seduced by technology.
I really hope you succeed with this. Best of luck and be creative!
Adry on 11 Dec 2012 at 6:05 pm #
My favourite part of lrenniag about dinosaur’s was painting my dinosaur!! My favourite dinosaur is the T-Rex because he is huge and scary. The T-Rex is a predator. They are carnivore’s which means they eat meat! Im glad dinosours are extinct because they would probably eat us!!!