Prehistoric Planet

Prehistoric Planet was produced to feel as authentic as possible and make it look as if a camera crew had travelled back in time to shoot the dinosaurs for real. The CGI was integrated into back plates shot by a natural history camera crew using the same framing and lenses they would use to capture real animals in the wild.

The starting off point for the edit was having key shots storyboarded and scenes roughed out in animatic form. Instead of then boarding every shot and being locked into a paper edit we had VFX House MPC supply over length previs animation, covering every story beat from a variety of different angles. This enabled us to treat the animation like rushes and create the illusion that the scenes had been crafted from a number of filmed moments.

Minute attention to detail at every level was key to maintaining the realism. Executive Producer Jon Favreau would always push for us to add a touch of 'Wabisabi' - the Japanese art of imperfection. The camera moves were engineered to be slightly off at certain points, the framing compromised and the focus not always pin-sharp to move it away from CGI perfectionism.