Dinosaurs walk the earth again (sort of)

October 7th, 2009

I came across this excellent video this morning. Check it out, then scroll down for more information. Be sure to click on "HQ" for high quality and maybe full screen if your computer can handle it.


	Walking with T-Rex

I did a little research and discovered that this was an event on a live German TV show. The dinosaurs are from the BBC production of "Walking with Dinosaurs, the Arena Spectacular". This is the live action adaptation of the wonderful BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs".

This show looks incredible. There are 15 life-size dinosaurs that roam freely on the arena floor. The largest dinosaur in the show is 72 feet from nose to tail. The T-Rex, for example took a team of 50 craftsmen and engineers a year to build. The show follows the dinosaurs evolution straight through to their demise from a comet impact. Yikes!

The dinosaurs are controlled by both puppeteers inside and maneuvering them on stage as well as off-stage puppeteers using scale model versions of the dino’s to manipulate their full-size counterpart by radio control.

I’ve complained in the past that the coolest stuff is not here in the US, but in this case, it is. Unfortunately for us, it was just in Washington DC in September and we missed it. Hopefully, it will come back to our area (they are adding new dates yet). But for those of you in other areas of the US, the show has dates listed through November.

Incidentally, they have a very nice website as well with information on all the "cast members" and very cool video from the show.

You may be wondering "how did they do this?". I know I was. Following is a "making of" video that answers some of those questions.