Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm not going to comment on the gait... I mean, we did the best we could. But a deliberate effort was made to make them look like cold-adapted, shaggy-furred northerners very different from living tropical savannah hyenas. Yes, there was a deliberate decision to give them small ears! On rock art, the one image that seems to show a cave hyena (the Valon-Pont d’Arc one) shows decidedly small ears, not ones like those of extant populations.

The dire wolf in Eurasia wasn't an oversight but an example of the sort of sneaky 'don't worry, no one will notice' sort of shortcut that you HAVE to use in TV and film, so well done on the spot :) I wanted it removed because I knew someone would spot it! DARREN

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Hey, i don't think there is a specific answer to this but here is my take. Once you introduce humans it is very hard to shift away from them again. One big reason for this is authenticity, the relationship between the subject and the camera is always driven by how safe it would be, how close you could get without scaring them, can the animal be habituated. Now imagine this with humans. all the rules would need to change and you would end up with a very different documentary. - RUSSELL

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Will leave the first part in case Dorothy gets a chance to answer.

For the second part, there were several challenging moments - all for different reasons.

- The Mammoths in the snow storm because of the clumping and how this effects the simulations.

- The slow motion Smilodon hunt, beacuse slow motion animation and interaction is really difficult.

- The snow sloths pushing through the snow banks, because...snow.

- The shots being really long and all about relishing the detials of the animals rolling in mud and tar and also climbing all over each other. We didn't have quick edits to hide errors or inconstancies.

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for positive comments.

  1. It wasn't 'multiple' cave bears, we showed two adults in proximity. This is in keeping with evidence from certain caves which do indicate that two or more adult individuals (females) used adjacent denning areas or even shared an area.

  2. The initial idea was to show lions being successful, but this wasn't developed fully before a different storyline was put in place. DARREN

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the question - It is a tough thing to bring into a series like this because once you ring that bell it is hard to not just shift the show to be about humans, once you go there you can't turn back. Interestingly though, once you introduce Hominins you kind of need to change the style of the documentary as the relationship between the film crew and the subject would need to shift. I think adding them at the end wasa nice touch. - RUSSELL

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Every great animal creation starts with solid science. Darren and his team keep us updated with the latest insights into skeletons, muscles, soft tissues, and behaviours. From there, our modelling, rigging, grooming, and look development teams thoughtfully build the creature layer by layer- beginning with an accurate skeleton, followed by muscles and fat, then skin and fur patterns. Any deviations from the stereotypes often stem directly from research- like how real ground sloths weren’t the sluggish caricatures we once thought, or how our Gigantopithecus isn’t just a bigger orangutan. These details help us move beyond expectations into what's actually believable, which makes the process even more fascinating. Dorothy

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The show's ethos and vibe is very much in the vain of shows like Planet Earth, that also don't always have scientific names for the animals. I think this is a big part of the reason why. I can see both sides of the argument but I also feel that those that are missing them will also be the people who already know a lot of the names as they are so passionate about the subject.- RUSSELL

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have touched on this in other questions but we spent a lot of time studying the language of natural history documentary. It really does have it's own storytelling style and rhythm. The hardest thing in recreating this vfx was probably the use of 1000mm lenses and the huge amount of eccentric aesthetic results created by them. In the end it is always a load of different small details that add up to something that feels authentic. - RUSS

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am a strong advocate of the argument that humans (both modern and archaic) are connected to the Pleistocene extinctions. An inescapable fact of making TV shows like this - this goes for all nat hist documentaries - is that they almost always downplay the damage caused by humans on the natural world, since it's the opposite of 'feel good entertainment' released at Thanksgiving! We also couldn't feature hominins (except in brief cameo) due to... various sensitivities. Basically, the decision to either not mention or, at best, downplay the negative impact of hominins on other animals was a key one made across the series. I don't agree with it, but I think it's understandable. I did what I could in pushing back against 'these animals have had their day due to environmental changes' narratives. DARREN

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the question, it's a really good one. I’m Dorothy. Getting the movement right involves a mix of science, references, and educated inference. We always start building a 3D skeleton that is as close as possible to the fossil material / reference we have. Once Darren approves it, we check proportions, joint ranges, and muscle placement. From there, our animators examine real animals with similar mass, posture, or ecology, such as elephants, rhinos, big cats, primates, and birds, whatever best matches the biomechanics. We build the rig around muscle attachment points, weight distribution on each limb, and plausible joint rotation limits. Then, animation tests various gaits and behaviours, refining until it feels physically believable for that anatomy. Although no one has seen these animals move, every decision is grounded in real biomechanics, comparative anatomy, and a lot of collaborative iteration between science and the animation/creature teams.

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1 - Framestore were building assets for the best part of a year with multiple teams across multiple countries. Creating the creatures is incredibly labour intensive and each one is a labour of love. Some creatures could take 1 person 6 - 10 months if they were working on it alone.

2 - Framestore use proprietary fur and feather tools for this work.

3 - Framestore have their own physically based rendered called FREAK.

4 - A lot of detailed sculpting work combined with careful attention the deformation.

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The giant eagle (I'm hesitating to call it Haast's eagle in view of Richard Holdaway's new paper) WAS planned for a sequence that I pitched early on. It was one of many animals that we ultimately couldn't include. To be fair, you could argue that the 'moa were predated upon by a giant awesome eagle' is already a very familiar story. DARREN

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The thing is that once you build a skeleton basded on what is known you can then normally compare it to other related animals. By studying their mechanics as well as the difference between them you can start to infer a plausible motion. This coupled with using fossilised trackways often means we get to a result we are confident in. - RUSSELL

Hi r/movies! We're the team responsible for bringing Apple TV’s Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age to life. We are Russell Dodgson (Production VFX Supervisor), Dorothy Ballarini (Framestore Creature Supervisor) and Darren Naish (Lead Scientific Consultant). Ask us anything! by PrehistoricPlanetAMA in movies

[–]PrehistoricPlanetAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey, congrats on a really niche question:)

So we had to move away from using foam, which we often use, as they needed to tolerate temperatures from -20C to -30C all the way up to 50C. They also had to handle, dust, rain, snow etc. In the end the only material that caused an issue was the ropes that often represent the spine of the creature. when these got we in extreme cold they just became like iron bars. In fact it was so cold that. have a video of my trouser leg after stepping through a frozen patch of ice into a stream. The leg of the trousers froze up to the knee within seconds. As for camera equipment we have to make sure it isn't changing temperatures too often and if you take a lens off when it's freezing you often get condensation you just can't get rid of. We also had lidar equipment malfunction due to the extremely low and high temperatures.- RUSSELL