Walking with Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs
The official DVD cover of Walking with Dinosaurs
Genre	Documentary
Created by	Tim Haines
Directed by	Tim Haines Jasper James
Creative director(s)	Mike Milne
Narrated by	Kenneth Branagh (BBC broadcast and home video and Discovery Channel) Avery Brooks (Discovery Channel broadcast)
Composer(s)	Ben Bartlett
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	6 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	John Lynch Michelle Clark (Season 2)
Producer(s)	Tim Haines Jasper James
Location(s)	Bahamas, California, Chile, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tasmania
Cinematography	John Howarth Michael Pitts
Editor(s)	Andrew Wilks
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	BBC Natural History Unit Impossible Pictures Banyan Productions (Season 2)
Distributor	BBC Worldwide 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (USA home video, 1999–2000) Warner Home Video (USA home video, 2000–present)
Release
Original network	BBC, Discovery Channel, TV Asahi, France 3, ProSieben
Original release	4 October (1999-10-04) – 8 November 1999 (1999-11-08)
Chronology
Followed by	Walking with Beasts
Related shows	Other shows in the Walking with... series
External links
Website	www.walkingwithdinosaurs.com
Production website	www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/tv_radio/wwdinosaurs/

Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television miniseries created by Tim Haines and produced by BBC Natural History Unit.^[1] The series first aired on the BBC in the United Kingdom in 1999 with narration by Kenneth Branagh.^[2] The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Avery Brooks replacing Branagh. The first entry in the Walking with... series, the program explores ancient life of the Mesozoic Era, portraying dinosaurs and their contemporaries in the style of a traditional nature documentary.

Developed by Haines and producer Jasper James, Walking with Dinosaurs recreated extinct species through the combined use of computer-generated imagery and animatronics that were incorporated with live action footage shot at various locations. The Guinness Book of World Records reported that the series was the most expensive documentary series per minute ever produced.^[3] The series received critical acclaim, winning two BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award in 2000.^[2][4] A feature film of the same name, inspired by the series, was released in 2013.^[5]

A re-edited version of Walking with Dinosaurs aired on Discovery Kids for the first season of Prehistoric Planet. It was made more appropriate for children by removing most of the graphic content and trimming down some footage to fit the run time.

Production

Conguillío National Park in Chile (top) and New Caledonia served as filming locations.

Creator Tim Haines contemplated the idea of a dinosaur-centric documentary in 1996, spurred by the resurgence of public interest in prehistoric life following the release of Jurassic Park (1993).^[6] Together, with producer Jasper James and effects specialist Mike Milne, Haines shot a six-minute pilot in Cyprus as a proof-of-concept to BBC Worldwide and Discovery Channel for financing.^[7] Principal photography took place at a variety of global locations, including Conguillío National Park in Chile, the Redwood National and State Parks in California, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Bahamas. Filming consisted of wide landscape shots devoid of any live-action creatures and close-up shots with animatronics. The only creatures in the pilot that are not shown in the series are Cetiosaurus and Scaphognathus.

Since an extensive amount of computer-generated imagery would be necessary in creating the numerous full-size dinosaurs that the project demanded, Haines initially approached Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the company responsible for creating the visual effects in Jurassic Park. ILM projected a cost of $10,000 per every second of footage featuring a CGI shot, an estimate which BBC deemed too expensive for a television budget. Instead, Haines contracted Framestore, a local British visual effects company to create the CGI elements. Framestore consulted several paleontologists in assisting them with developing natural movements and appearances for the dinosaurs.^[8] Michael Benton, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., Peter Dodson, Peter Larson, Dave Martill, and James Farlow, served as consultants; their influence in the filming process was documented in the companion piece, The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs. The CG work was created over the course of two years.

Scientific accuracy

Michael J. Benton, a consultant to the making of the series and professor of vertebrate palaeontology at the University of Bristol, notes that a group of critics gleefully pointed out that birds and crocodiles, the closest living relatives of the dinosaurs, do not urinate; they shed waste chemicals as more solid uric acid. In the first episode of Walking with Dinosaurs, Postosuchus urinates copiously. However, Benton notes that nobody can prove this was a real mistake: copious urination is the primitive state for tetrapods (seen in fish, amphibians, turtles, and mammals), and perhaps basal archosaurs did the same. He believes many other claims of "errors" identified in the first weeks fizzled out, as the critics had found points about which they disagreed, but they could not prove that their views were correct.^[9]

Ornitholestes, a theropod dinosaur of the Late Jurassic, is shown with a small crest atop its head. However, subsequent studies have concluded that it most likely did not have such a crest, and that the misconception that it did came as a result of broken nasal bones in the holotype.^[10] Tropeognathus is depicted as far larger than it actually was. In the book based on the series, it was claimed that several large bone fragments from the Santana Formation of Brazil possibly indicate that Tropeognathus may have had a wingspan reaching almost 12 metres and a weight of a hundred kilograms, making it one of the largest known pterosaurs.^[11] However, these specimens have not been formally described. The largest definite Tropeognathus specimens known measure 6 metres in wingspan. The specimens which the producers of the program used to justify such a large size estimate are currently undescribed, and are being studied by Dave Martill and David Unwin. Unwin stated that he does not believe this highest estimate is likely, and that the producers likely chose the highest possible estimate because it was more "spectacular."^[12] However, no other Early Cretaceous pterosaurs reached its size. Similarly, Liopleurodon is depicted as being 25m long in the series, whereas the adult size known to have been reached by Liopleurodon is around 7m.^[13] Utahraptor is also shown living in Europe, whereas it actually, true to its name, lived in Utah.

List of episodes

No.	Title	Time	Directed by	Original air date
1	"New Blood"[14]	220 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	4 October 1999 (1999-10-04)
220 million years ago, Late Triassic (Arizona) Filming location: New Caledonia By a river, a female Coelophysis stalks a herd of dicynodonts called Placerias, looking for weak members to prey upon. Downstream, a male Thrinaxodon resides in a burrow with his family. A female Postosuchus, a rauisuchian and one of the largest carnivores alive in the Triassic, attacks the Placerias herd, and wounds one individual; the herd scatters, leaving the wounded Placerias to the Postosuchus. Early pterosaurs called Peteinosaurus are depicted feeding on dragonflies and cooling themselves in the little water remaining during the drought. Still searching for food, the Coelophysis discover the Thrinaxodon burrow; the male wards them off. An inquisitive pup follows the male to the entrance and is eaten by the female Coelophysis. At night, the Thrinaxodon pair eat their remaining young and then move away. On the next day, the Coelophysis work to expose the nest. The female Postosuchus is later shown to have been wounded by the Placerias, which left her with a tusk wound on her thigh. After being unable to successfully hunt another Placerias, she is expelled from her territory by a rival male. Wounded, sick, and without a territory, the female dies and is eaten by a pack of Coelophysis. As the dry season continues, food becomes scarce. The Placerias herd embarks on a journey in search of water, while the Coelophysis begin to cannibalise their young, and the male Thrinaxodon resorts to hunting baby Coelophysis at night. Finally, the wet season arrives; the majority of the Coelophysis have survived, and the Thrinaxodon pair have a new clutch of eggs. The episode ends with the arrival of a migrating herd of Plateosaurus, foreshadowing the dominance of the sauropods after the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Animals Coelophysis · Thrinaxodon (unnamed; identified as cynodont) · Placerias · Postosuchus · Peteinosaurus · Plateosaurus · Lungfish · Dragonfly
2	"Time of the Titans"[15]	152 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	11 October 1999 (1999-10-11)
152 million years ago, Late Jurassic (Colorado) Filming location: California State Parks, Chile, Tasmania, New Zealand This episode follows the life of a female Diplodocus, beginning at the moment when her mother lays a clutch of eggs at the edge of a conifer forest. Months later, some of the eggs hatch; the young sauropods are preyed upon by Ornitholestes. After hatching, the hatchlings retreat to the safety of the denser trees. They face many dangers as they grow, including predation by Ornitholestes and Allosaurus. While fending off a pair of Allosaurus, a Stegosaurus also accidentally kills one of the hatchlings while swinging its tail. Elsewhere, adult herds of Diplodocus are shown using their massive weight to topple trees in order to reach cycad leaves. Each Diplodocus hosts a small mobile habitat of damselflies, Anurognathus, and dung beetles. After some time, the creche of Diplodocus have grown into subadults. Nearly all are killed by a huge forest fire; only three survivors emerge onto the open plains, including the young female. They encounter several Brachiosaurus before two reach safety to a herd of adult Diplodocus. Several years later, the female mates, and is attacked by a bull Allosaurus. She is saved when another Diplodocus strikes the Allosaurus with its tail. Although she is wounded, she rejoins the herd. The closing narration notes that the sauropods will only get larger, becoming the largest animals to ever exist. Animals Diplodocus · Allosaurus · Ornitholestes · Stegosaurus · Brachiosaurus · Anurognathus · Dryosaurus (unidentified) · Othnielia (unidentified)
3	"Cruel Sea"[16]	149 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	18 October 1999 (1999-10-18)
Eustreptospondylus puppet head that was used in Walking with Dinosaurs at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History 149 million years ago, Late Jurassic (Oxfordshire) Filming location: The Bahamas, New Caledonia The episode begins with a Eustreptospondylus being snatched from the shore by Liopleurodon. Meanwhile, hundreds of Ophthalmosaurus arrive from the open ocean to give birth. Hybodus sharks and a Liopleurodon are on the hunt; when a mother Ophthalmosaurus has trouble giving birth, a pair of Hybodus pursue her. They are frightened off by a male Liopleurodon, which eats the front half of the ichthyosaur. Meanwhile, a Eustreptospondylus swims to an island and discovers a turtle carcass; it fights over the carcass with another Eustreptospondylus. Later, during the night, a group of horseshoe crabs gather at the shore to lay their eggs, which attracts a flock of Rhamphorhynchus in the morning to eat the eggs. However, a few of the pterosaurs are caught and eaten by a Eustreptospondylus. While the Ophthalmosaurus juveniles are growing up, they are hunted by Hybodus, which in turn, are prey for the Liopleurodon. While the male Liopleurodon is hunting, he encounters a female Liopleurodon; after the male bites one of her flippers, she retreats from his territory, and a group of Hybodus follows the trail of her blood. A cyclone strikes the islands, killing many animals, including several Rhamphorhynchus and the Liopleurodon, who is washed ashore and eventually suffocates under his own weight. A group of Eustreptospondylus feed on his carcass. At the end of the episode, the juvenile Ophthalmosaurus that survived the storm are now large enough to swim off and live in the open sea. Animals Ophthalmosaurus · Liopleurodon · Eustreptospondylus · Cryptoclidus · Rhamphorhynchus · Hybodus (unnamed; identified as shark) · Perisphinctes (unnamed; identified as ammonite)  · Leptolepis (unnamed)  · Horseshoe crab  · Squid
4	"Giant of the Skies"[17]	127 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	25 October 1999 (1999-10-25)
Tropeognathus puppet head that was used in Walking with Dinosaurs at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History 127 million years ago, Early Cretaceous (Brazil, North America, Europe and Cantabria) Filming location: New Zealand, Tasmania The episode begins with a male Tropeognathus dead on a beach. Six months earlier, the Tropeognathus, resting among a colony of breeding Tupandactylus in Brazil, flies off for Cantabria where it too must mate. He flies past a migrating group of the iguanodont Dakotadon and the nodosaur Polacanthus. He reaches the southern tip of North America, where he is forced to shelter from a storm. He grooms himself, expelling his body of Saurophthirus fleas; the crest on his jaw begins to change color in preparation for the mating season. He then sets off across the Atlantic, which was then only 300 kilometers wide, and after a whole day on the wing, reaches the westernmost of the European islands. He does not rest there however, as a pack of Utahraptor are hunting Iguanodon; a young Utahraptor is bullied off an Iguanodon carcass by the adults. The Tropeognathus flies to the outskirts of a forest to rest after stealing a fish from another pterosaur, but is driven away by Iberomesornis. Flying on, he reaches Cantabria, but due to the delays, exhaustion, and old age he cannot reach the center of the many grounded male Tropeognathus and consequently he does not mate. After several days under the sun trying to attract a mate, the protagonist Tropeognathus -alongside others who lost out- dies from heat exhaustion and starvation. The next generation of Tropeognathus feeds on their corpses. Animals Tropeognathus (Identified as Ornithocheirus)  · Utahraptor  · Dakotadon (identified as North American Iguanodon)  · Iguanodon · Tupandactylus (identified as Tapejara)  · Polacanthus  · Iberomesornis (unnamed; identified as bird) · Plesiopleurodon (unnamed) · Saurophthirus (unnamed)
5	"Spirits of the Ice Forest"[18]	106 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	1 November 1999 (1999-11-01)
106 million years ago, Middle Cretaceous (Antarctica/Australia) Filming location: New Zealand A few hundred kilometres from the South Pole, a clan of Leaellynasaura emerge during spring after several months of total darkness. They feed on the fresh plant growth, and build nests to lay their eggs; a male Koolasuchus also wakes and heads to a river, where he will stay during the summer. Out on the banks of the river, migrating herds of Muttaburrasaurus have also arrived to feed and lay their eggs. When summer arrives, many of the Leaellynasaura clan's eggs have been eaten; however, those of the matriarch hatch successfully. Meanwhile, a male Australovenator hunts both the Leaellynasaura and the Muttaburrasaurus. When autumn arrives, the Muttaburrasaurus herd begins to migrate, and the Koolasuchus leaves the river to find a pool for hibernation. During the migration, some Muttaburrasaurus become lost in the forest; they vocalize loudly while trying to return to their herd, preventing the Leaellynasaura clan's sentries from hearing the Australovenator approaching. The predator manages to kill the matriarch of the clan. Winter descends and the forest is shrouded in darkness, but the now matriarch-less Leaellynasaura clan is able to stay active, using their large eyes to help them forage for food. Finally, spring returns, and two Leaellynasaura males challenge each other for the right to mate, and the clan establishes a new dominant pair. The closing narration states that continental drift will soon pull this landmass closer to the South Pole, and this unique ecosystem will soon disappear. Animals Leaellynasaura · Koolasuchus · Polar allosaur (=Australovenator) · Muttaburrasaurus · Steropodon (unnamed; live-acted by coati) · Giant weta  · Tuatara
6	"Death of a Dynasty"[19]	65.5 mya	Tim Haines & Jasper James	8 November 1999 (1999-11-08)
Tyrannosaurus rex puppet head that was used in Walking with Dinosaurs at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History 65.5 million years ago, Late Cretaceous (Montana) Filming location: Chile, New Zealand Several months before the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, the last dinosaurs are living under intense environmental stress due to excessive volcanism. A female Tyrannosaurus abandons her nest, the eggs rendered infertile due to poisonous volcanic gases. Her calls for a mate are answered by a smaller male, who kills a young Triceratops to appease her. Three days later, after repeated copulation, she drives him off. The mother fasts as she tends to her nest, contending with raids by Dromaeosaurus and Didelphodon. Meanwhile, herds of Edmontosaurus wander between islands of vegetation among the volcanic ash, and Torosaurus rut for the right to mate, while losing their young to attacking Dromaeosaurus. Only three of the Tyrannosaurus eggs hatch; the mother hunts an Anatotitan to feed herself and her brood. Several days later, while defending her two surviving offspring, the mother is fatally injured by the tail of an Ankylosaurus. The juveniles remain expectantly next to the carcass of their mother the next morning; several hours later, they are killed along with the other dinosaurs in the region by the impact of a comet. In an epilogue, the present-day African plains are shown; while they are dominated by mammals, they are still populated by numerous surviving dinosaurs: the birds. Mammals like Didelphodon have evolved into a variety of mammals after the extinction. Animals Tyrannosaurus · Edmontosaurus (identified as Anatotitan) · Ankylosaurus  · Deinosuchus (unnamed)[note 1] · Didelphodon  · Dinilysia (unnamed; live-acted and identified as a snake)  · Dromaeosaurus[note 2] · Quetzalcoatlus · Torosaurus · Thescelosaurus (unidentified)  • Triceratops (carcass)

Music

Ben Bartlett composed the score for Walking with Dinosaurs. Bartlett was encouraged to accept the duties of composing the series' music at the behest of Haines and James. Bartlett wrote different leitmotifs in separate styles for each episode, citing the different themes and settings presented in each episode as inspiration, elaborating, "I tried to create a different sound world for each episode of Walking With Dinosaurs. That was easy, as they all had different moods. The first episode is all about heat and bloodlust, parched deserts and so on, while the second one was pastoral, peaceful, and beautiful, about dinosaurs living in symbiosis with the forests. And so on."^[6]

The recording process took place at Angel Studios in Islington, with four sessions scattered over the early months of 1999. The score was recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra. During these sessions, Bartlett admitted to being enriched with experience by the task, stating, "It was the biggest orchestral endeavour I've ever undertaken, and I learnt so much from the first session. Practical things, like handing out the parts to the players before the session, numbering pages... tiny logistical things that can really screw up a session."^[6]

Soundtrack

Ben Bartlett's original score for Walking with Dinosaurs was released by BBC Music on CD on April 11, 2000.^[20]

All music composed by Ben Bartlett.

Reception

Walking with Dinosaurs received critical acclaim following its initial broadcast. The series won two BAFTAs for Innovation and Best Original Television Music and earned six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning for Outstanding Animated Program, Outstanding Special Visual Effects and Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Programming – Sound Editing. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 1999, voted on by industry professionals, Walking with Dinosaurs was placed 72nd.

Common Sense Media praised the program, giving it five stars out of five and saying that, "Somebody had a great idea, which was to make a documentary series about dinosaurs, but with a twist. The aging Tropeognathus on a desperate final flight to his mating grounds, the sauropod hatchlings struggling for survival in the late Jurassic, the migrating herds and the undersea life of 150 million years ago would all seem as real as a nature program about polar bears or snow monkeys."^[21] This technique of narrating the prehistoric life as though it were current has been used several times since, for example in the BBC's 2011 Planet Dinosaur series.

In other media

Companion book

A companion book was written by Tim Haines to accompany the first screening of the series in 1999. The settings of some of the six episodes were changed between the time the book was written and the screening of the television series, and some of their names were changed: "New Blood" is set at Ghost Ranch, and "Cruel Sea" is set at or near Solnhofen in Germany near what then were the Vindelicisch Islands. The book elaborated on the background for each story, went further in explaining the science on which much of the program is based, and included descriptions of several animals not identified or featured in the series.^[22]

Live theatrical show

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular is a live theatrical show adaptation and travelling exhibition of the series that originated in Australia in January 2007 (as Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience), and toured North America in 2007–10, Europe in 2010, and returned to North America until 2011. It also toured Asia beginning in December 2010. In 2011 the show came to its final destination of its first tour, New Zealand. In 2012, the show toured the UK, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands.^[23]

Featured species:

• Liliensternus
• Plateosaurus
• Stegosaurus
• Allosaurus
• Brachiosaurus
• Tropeognathus
• Utahraptor
• Iguanodon
• Torosaurus
• Ankylosaurus
• Tyrannosaurus

Film adaptation

Released in 2013, Walking with Dinosaurs is a feature-length film about dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous period 70 million years ago. The production features computer-animated dinosaurs in live-action settings with actors John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Tiya Sircar, and Skyler Stone providing voiceovers for the main characters. It was directed by Neil Nightingale and Barry Cook from a screenplay by John Collee.

The film was produced by BBC Earth and Evergreen Films and was named after the original BBC miniseries. The film, with a budget of US$80 million, was one of the largest independent productions to date; it was financed by Reliance Entertainment and IM Global, with 20th Century Fox handling distribution.^[24] The crew filmed footage on location in the U.S. state of Alaska and in New Zealand, which were chosen for their similarities to the dinosaurs' surroundings millions of years ago. Animal Logic designed computer-animated dinosaurs and added them to the live-action backdrop. Though the film was originally going to have a narrator like in the miniseries, Fox executives wanted to add voiceovers to connect audiences to the characters.

Walking with Dinosaurs premiered on 14 December 2013 at the Dubai International Film Festival. It was released in cinemas in 2D and 3D on 20 December 2013. Critics commended the film's visual effects but found its storytelling to be sub-par and derided the voiceovers as juvenile. The film grossed US$34.4 million in the United States and Canada and US$71.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of US$106 million. The Hollywood Reporter said the film's global box office performance was disappointing in context of the production budget and marketing spend.

International broadcast

Country/region	Channel
United Kingdom	BBC [25][26][27]
United States	Discovery Channel
Sweden	SVT
Denmark	Kanal 5
Finland	YLE TV2
Japan	TV Asahi
France	France 3
Germany	ProSieben
Italy	Rai Gulp
Australia	ABC [28][29]
Croatia	HRT
Czech Republic	ČT1[30][31] / Prima ZOOM
Slovakia	STV1 / Jednotka [32]
Philippines	ABC 5 / TV 5
Portugal	SIC
South Korea	KBS
Russia	Channel One Russia
Ukraine	1+1

Notes

References

External links

• Walking with Dinosaurs at BBC Programmes
  
• Walking with Dinosaurs at BBC Earth
• Walking with Dinosaurs on IMDb
• "Walking With Dinosaurs: The Origins". Retrieved 28 May 2012. 
• ABC's Walking With Dinosaurs site
• BBC Science & Nature – Prehistoric Life
• Walking with Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular official website