A Lifetime Of Dinosaurs

The Royal Television Society Craft & Design Awards were a special one for Framestore this year, with the company's Director of Computer Animation, Mike Milne, receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The awards were presented on November 24 2008 at London's Intercontinental Hotel in Park Lane, at a ceremony hosted by Fern Britton.
Milne received his award from RTS Chair, Wayne Garvie. In a short acceptance speech, Milne stressed the collaborative nature of the projects he'd worked on, thanking his many friends, colleagues and collaborators over the years, both from within Framestore and from companies such as Impossible Pictures, who were responsible for initiating the 'Walking With Dinosaurs' programmes, widely regarded as Milne's crowning achievement within the industry.
Milne's citation, read before a selection of his work was screened, ran in part: "(Milne) began his career in the mid-60s as an artist and beachcomber, developing a passionate interest in wildlife and all aspects of natural history and evolutionary theory, an interest which was to influence his entire professional career.
"He was an early pioneer of combining CGI with live action and won a D&AD Silver Award for his work on 'Spitting Image'. Then in 1992, he formed Framestore's first computer animation team. 1999 saw the appearance of the first series of 'Walking With Dinosaurs', a programme which revolutionised television creature work, bringing screen quality VFX to the small screen for the first time. The unprecedented success of 'Walking With Dinosaurs' created a host of sequels and spin-offs, which (Milne) has continued to supervise, taking viewers to the earth's most remote past, beneath its oceans and even into space."
Attending the ceremony were a number of his colleagues and friends from Framestore, including Joint CEOs William Sargent and Sharon Reed, Framestore Chairman John Spearman, Mike McGee, Fiona Walkinshaw, Andy Lomas and Esme Long.
(KMcA)