Dinotopia - Postings - animation management in the television miniseries

Post, July, 2002

LONDON -- Over two years in the making, Framestore CFC (www.framestore.co.uk) in London created a fantastic society of dinosaurs that walk, talk, read and play ping-pong in the ABC miniseries Dinotopia, based on the books by James Garney.

Following the success of Walking With Dinosaurs, Framestore CFC employed 45 animators, 42 technical directors and 14 compositors to make the CG dinosaurs in Dinotopia interact with live action actors.

Director Marco Brambilla wanted it to look like a period film similar to Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. But in order to get the sharpest, best-quality images from the bluescreen shots, of which there were thousands, this look was added in post with a series of diffusion filters.

Over 14 animators were dedicated to creating Zippo, the ping-pong playing dinosaur (pictured). Framestore used Discreet's Inferno and Flame as its main compositing tools. The CGI was created primarily in Softimage, though Alias\Wavefront Maya was used for the flocks of pteranodons.

For more on Dinotopia, visit www.postmagazine.com