Walking with Dinosaurs (partially lost pitch pilot of BBC documentary series; 1997): Difference between revisions

From The Lost Media Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
No edit summary
mNo edit summary
Line 26: Line 26:
A full-body image of a Cetiosaurus was featured in the book ''Walking With Dinosaurs: The Official Sticker Album'', which came out in August 2000. The sticker book came with the first issue of "Walking With Dinosaurs magazine". The model of the Cetiosaurus featured in the sticker book appears to be very similar, if not a tweaked version of the model from the pilot.
A full-body image of a Cetiosaurus was featured in the book ''Walking With Dinosaurs: The Official Sticker Album'', which came out in August 2000. The sticker book came with the first issue of "Walking With Dinosaurs magazine". The model of the Cetiosaurus featured in the sticker book appears to be very similar, if not a tweaked version of the model from the pilot.


On the 8th of December, 2021, Discord user Electric Boogaloo would contact David Martill, the head paleontological consultant on the pilot. Martill responded with information about the reasoning for some of the paleontological decisions made in the pilot, along with a possible confirmation that there is a tape of the project.
On the 8th of December, 2021, Discord user Electric Boogaloo would contact David Martill, the head paleontological consultant on the pilot. Martill responded with information about the reasoning for some of the paleontological decisions made in the pilot, along with possible confirmation that there is a tape of the project.


Darren Naish, a friend of Tim Haines who had worked on multiple projects with him, was contacted on Twitter by the user FragileFragilis about the Walking with Dinosaurs pilot on the 18th of December, 2021. Naish would later ask Haines about the pilot, and Haines confirmed that tapes of the pilot can no longer be located, and the brief fragments shown in the ''Walking with Monsters'' featurette are all that exist. However, it is worth noting that Mike Milne may still own a tape of the pilot.
Darren Naish, a friend of Tim Haines who had worked on multiple projects with him, was contacted on Twitter by the user FragileFragilis about the Walking with Dinosaurs pilot on the 18th of December, 2021. Naish would later ask Haines about the pilot, and Haines confirmed that tapes of the pilot can no longer be located, and that the brief fragments shown in the ''Walking with Monsters'' featurette are all that exist. However, it is worth noting that Mike Milne may still own a tape of the pilot.


==Gallery==
==Gallery==

Revision as of 00:01, 28 June 2022

PilotEustreptospondylus.png

The pilot version of the Eustreptospondylus.

Status: Partially Found

Tim Haines created the pilot for Walking with Dinosaurs in 1996 to sell the show to the BBC, as the BBC wanted a television series centered around dinosaurs following the success of Jurassic Park. Partial clips of the pilot were featured in the Trilogy of Life (2005) documentary, which was a featurette on the Walking with Monsters DVD. This would be the first and only time clips of the pilot were released.

History and Production

In 1996, Tim Haines pitched Walking with Dinosaurs to the BBC. The BBC allowed Haines to create a short film that would be a proof-of-concept and gave him a budget to do so. The initial runtime was intended to be two minutes but the pilot ended up becoming six minutes long.

To find a filming location, Haines talked with an unknown paleobotanist and they determined that the best place to film would be coastal forests in the Mediterranian because its environment matched the time period and setting the film was intended to take place in.

Haines would then ask Mike Milne of the Framestore VFX company to create high-quality computer-animated dinosaurs on a television budget for the show. Milne initially declined the offer but later agreed to help Haines. Haines then went to the filming location with an unknown cameraman and, to help Milne's team, made dinosaur tracks with prosthetic boots. He also used the "ball-and-stick" technique. A practical effect(s) was also used in the pilot, where an animatronic Liopleurodon is stranded onshore.

The pilot remained unreleased to the public until 2005. To coincide with the release of Walking with Monsters, the documentary Trilogy of Life, which gave a behind-the-scenes look at Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts, and Walking with Monsters was released as a featurette on the Walking with Monsters DVD. A brief segment in Trilogy of Life featured short clips of the Walking with Dinosaurs pilot along with Tim Haines explaining how it was made. However, this is the only instance of the pilot that has ever been released and most of it remains unavailable.

Synopsis

Similar to the released show, the pilot is in a nature documentary format where dinosaurs are shown interacting, hunting, and eating. The animals featured in the pilot are Eustreptospondylus, Cetiosaurus, Scaphognathus, and Liopleurodon. We see Scaphognathus flying over the coastline to feed on fish below the water. Meanwhile, a Eustreptospondylus is hunting in the foliage, using its coloration to camouflage. The Eustreptospondylus then comes across a herd of Cetiosaurus who are browsing on the treetops. In the waters, a Liopleurodon is seen just below the surface. It is later beached on the shoreline.

It is worth noting that David Martill, the head paleontological consultant on the project, said in an interview with the Tet Zoo Podcast that there was a partial x-ray shot of the Liopleurodon which showed the inner workings of the nostrils and nasal chambers.

Many aspects of the pilot were later used in the third episode Cruel Sea of the released show. Eustreptospondylus and Liopleurodon were used in the final version while Cetiosaurus and Scaphognathus were cut. The Liopleurodon would end up getting beached in the final version much like how it does in the pilot. The same time period and setting would also be used in Cruel Sea.

Findings

A full-body image of a Cetiosaurus was featured in the book Walking With Dinosaurs: The Official Sticker Album, which came out in August 2000. The sticker book came with the first issue of "Walking With Dinosaurs magazine". The model of the Cetiosaurus featured in the sticker book appears to be very similar, if not a tweaked version of the model from the pilot.

On the 8th of December, 2021, Discord user Electric Boogaloo would contact David Martill, the head paleontological consultant on the pilot. Martill responded with information about the reasoning for some of the paleontological decisions made in the pilot, along with possible confirmation that there is a tape of the project.

Darren Naish, a friend of Tim Haines who had worked on multiple projects with him, was contacted on Twitter by the user FragileFragilis about the Walking with Dinosaurs pilot on the 18th of December, 2021. Naish would later ask Haines about the pilot, and Haines confirmed that tapes of the pilot can no longer be located, and that the brief fragments shown in the Walking with Monsters featurette are all that exist. However, it is worth noting that Mike Milne may still own a tape of the pilot.

Gallery

EmbedVideo is missing a required parameter.
EmbedVideo is missing a required parameter.

References

[1] [2]