Prehistoric Park at Framestore CFC

Prehistoric Park, a new series of dinosaur adventures currently being aired on ITV, is the latest collaboration between Impossible Pictures and Framestore CFC.
The partnership has previously produced award-winning shows in the Walking With… series, as well as Space Odyssey and Ocean Odyssey. The six one-hour episodes star Nigel Marven, presenter of several previous Impossible Pictures dinosaur documentaries, as well as a host of familiar – and new – saurian stars.
Framestore CFC worked on Prehistoric Park for 18 months, from planning and storyboards, through creating and animating the CG creatures and visual effects, to the final Digital Intermediate given to each episode. Altogether, a team of over 70 artists, technicians and producers created around 750 shots (including 630 CG shots), featuring 22 different species of prehistoric creatures, many of them with variant looks for different ages.
Bringing fresh life to a successful formula is always tricky. With Walking With Dinosaurs and its sequels and specials, Impossible Pictures single-handedly invented the dinosaur documentary genre. With increasing sophistication, the shows progressed from straightforward documentaries, wherein the dinosaurs were seen in their natural prehistoric environments - shot 'straight' - in the style of a modern wildlife documentary, to the more recent programmes, which introduced Nigel Marven as presenter. Marven was seen actually in the shots with the prehistoric creatures, interacting with them in increasingly inventive ways.
Now, with Prehistoric Park, Executive Producer Jasper James and his team have brilliantly made the leap to a fully realised dramatic adventure. We follow the intrepid Marven on his quest to stock his eponymous Park, using 'time portals' to jump between the present and the past. Each episode contains several story threads, with Marven's adventures in a variety of prehistoric environments contrasting with those of his team of Park staff in the present – including Bob (Head Keeper) and Suzanne (Vet) – as they work to ensure the safety and comfort of the captured prehistoric creatures.
In addition to the (naturally) magnificent prehistoric creatures, Prehistoric Park features some beautiful cinematography in a variety of stunning locations. Three directors – Sid Bennett, Karen Kelly and Matthew Thompson – handled two episodes each. The park footage itself was shot in South Africa, while the 'prehistoric' locations to which Marven travels included the Yukon, Brazil, Chile, Florida, Australia and New Zealand. The educational component is still there – Marven manages to pass on a lot of information about the dinosaurs whilst on his jaunts – but the 'romp' factor has been considerably boosted. Overall, the series conveys a marvellous sense of fun, wonder and excitement.
VFX Supervisor for the show was Framestore CFC veteran of 12 years, George Roper, who had already worked on a number of previous Impossible Pictures collaborations. "One of the things I think we all enjoyed about Prehistoric Park," he says, "Was the different slant that the programme makers took this time around. It was great to be able to put on our light entertainment hats, so to speak."
Each episode required about a month on location, and senior Framestore CFC staffers Mike McGee, Tim Greenwood, Sirio Quintavalle, Christian Manz and Pedro Sabrosa supervised these shoots, which proceeded throughout Spring and Summer 2005.
Meanwhile, work had begun in London on the creatures. Animation Supervisor Neil Glasbey recalled: "The first maquettes (clay models used to design the look of the creatures) started coming through in the Spring of 2005. Some of the creatures were old friends. Triceratops, T. Rex, Woolly Mammoth were all creatures we'd worked on before. But there were differences. For example, the T.Rexes, this time, were two juvenile specimens captured in the first episode, which we then follow as they grow to maturity. Also, this time around, a good 50-60% of the shots featured the dinosaurs interacting with human performers – being fed by them, chasing them and so on, so there were new challenges even there."
(GB)