How do you build a dinosaur?
Yes, you heard that right, DINOSAURS! But how do you build something which died 60 million
years ago?
When we see a paleontologist digging up dinosaurs or see them in the museum, we see bones...but
when we see Velociraptors running or T-Rexs roaring in movies like Jurassic Park, how
exactly do we transform bones into scary living, breathing, roaring creatures?
We’re supported by our rockstar paleontologist Professor Stuart Sumida who worked *on* the
actual Jurassic World film and helps us answer the question - how do you build an on-screen
Dino?
Dinosaurs have captured our imagination throughout history. Many ancient cultures created myths
from dinosaur fossils when they did not know what they actually were. The myth about dragons
were probably imagined looking at enormous fossilized bones like this one.
In the 1800s we started discovering and studying a lot of large fossils using the then brand
new and fast growing branch of science, “paleontology”. Early paleontologists started calling these
beasts ‘dinosaur’ - meaning terrible or fearfully great lizard. Though we know now
- they are not necessarily terrible and they are not even true lizards.
England in the late 1800s was mesmerized by these enigmatic beasts. It was quite a sensation
when humongous life size dinosaurs were built in Crystal Palace in London in the 1850s - it
was almost like the first ‘Jurassic Park’ movie...before movies were even a thing. Of
course, today we know most of these depictions were wrong but you have to give it to them,
they worked really hard on creating the details.
One of the coolest things about dinosaurs is how big a role they played in the history
of film and animation. Possibly the earliest animated character ever was actually Gertie
the dinosaur - created in 1914 by artist Winsor McCay. Windsor was an artistic prodigy from
a very young age, starting off by creating little portraits he would sell for 25 cents
and then later drawing sunday art and comics on newspapers.
Winsor came up with this hugely innovative idea of moving characters on the screen - and
when he revealed Gertie the Dinosaur audiences were stunned and the positive reviews from
critics kept coming in. So much so that McCay kept releasing new animations instead of working
his newspaper comics job - until his boss the famous newspaper publisher William Hearst
stopped all reviews of his animation work being released on his newspapers and making
McCay sign a contract forbidding him from working in animation while being employed
by Hearst.
Fast forward 25 years, we went from Gertie to the iconic “The Rite of Spring” sequence
in Disney's Fantasia. We just need to compare the two side by side and see the enormous
advancement and leap in technology.
At the same time famous paleoartist Charles R. Knight’s dinosaurs sketches inspired
many scientists and movie makers - they weren’t perfect but his new style, color and grace
made them look more realistic than Gertie. It was his depiction of triceratops fighting
t-rex that made them the “mortal enemies” we think of today. He was a pioneer of using
his knowledge of modern animal anatomy in his paintings - and he did all this while
being legally blind - using special glasses to see. A real bad-ass.
But wait! How did on-screen dinosaurs change from lumbering “Gertie-like” animals to
today’s lean mean intelligent killing machines...or of course, peaceful lumbering herbivores?
We can see this evolution if you watch the Jurassic Park films - the dinosaurs are obviously
much more agile and faster compared to previous dinosaur depictions. That’s not an accident
- we used to think that dinosaurs were much too big to be agile, but discoveries over
the last few decades showed that this wasn’t true.
In the late 1960s the famous John Ostrom and his student Rob Bakker started pushing the
idea that birds came from actual flying dinosaurs an dinosaurs must have shared a lot of traits
to birds. One aspect about birds is that they are agile while another is that they’re
quite intelligent. This has meant over the years how we think about dinosaurs has gone
from slow, lumbering creatures to creatives with bright displays, moving quickly and in
many cases with a lot of intelligence. This had an impact on films, where dinosaurs are
now presented as intelligent enough to hunt in packs like in the original Jurassic park.
Sure - these films are still basically monster movies. But there’s a lot of science in
them - and this relationship and tension between the science and the need to entertain is where
the real movie magic happens.
But someone has to sit and create these animals, how to visualise them, how to build them in
on a computer so we can see them on our screens. What does the process of creating each starring
dinosaur look like?
It all starts with shape - we’re not just talking about how it looks but how it was
shaped so it can move on screen in a way that makes sense. At this stage a concept artist
works with a scientist like Stuart Sumida to figure the shape out. They then hands it
over to someone called a “rigor”.
The rigor takes the shape, and sticks a computerised skeleton into our shapely Dinosaur. Here Stuart
would help the rigor understand where the joints would be, and where the central pivot
is if the dinosaur needs to move a certain way.
The final stage brings our dino to life - when this “puppet” gets given to an animator.
An animator has to understand movement very well, and their job is to make the dinosaur
act on screen. An animator is actually an actor - just one that sits behind the camera.
The animator’s job isn’t easy, they have to move through every single scene bit by
bit to figure out how our Dinosaur will move. This stage is critical - you have to get the
audience to suspect their disbelief. To do that, scientists work hand in hand with the
animator to figure out how the dinosaurs move through both prehistoric as well as modern-day
environments.
Just like Charles R. Knight did - today’s animators take a lot from our existing animal
world. This sound *roar* still sends chills down my spine - the sound of a roaring T-Rex
from Jurassic Park. Believe it or not, that’s actually the sound of a tiger, an alligator
and a...baby elephant...all mixed together. The T-Rex’s breath is the sound of a whale’s
blow - when it comes up for air.
When it comes to dinosaurs, what we see on the movie screen coincides with the time the
film was made. In many ways its a snapshot of the Scientific knowledge and animation
technologies available at the time. Perhaps in the 22nd century, people will look at Jurassic
World and feel the same way we feel about Gertie today. But one thing seems certain,
these majestic prehistoric creatures will continue to influence artists, film makers,
scientists, and people like you and me forever.
Let’s hear dino expert professor Sumida…
If you want to know more about how to make a dinosaur, click on this link to hear straight
from Professor Stuart Sumida.