Walking with...

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Walking with...
Cover of the Australian 2008 DVD box set of the franchise
Created byTim Haines & Jasper James[a]
Original workWalking with Dinosaurs
OwnerBBC
Print publications
Book(s)See below
Films and television
Television series
Television special(s)
Theatrical presentations
Play(s)
BBC Studios Science Unit.[11] The franchise began with the series Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), created by Tim Haines. By far the most watched science programme in British television during the 20th century,[12] Walking with Dinosaurs spawned companion material and four sequel series: Walking with Beasts (2001), Walking with Cavemen (2003), Sea Monsters (2003) and Walking with Monsters (2005). Each series uses a combination of computer-generated imagery and animatronics, incorporated with live action footage shot at various locations, to portray prehistoric animals in the style of a traditional nature documentary
.

The Walking with... programmes were praised for their special effects and for their science communication. Though largely praised by scientists for the effort to adhere to science and for portraying prehistoric life as animals rather than movie monsters, some academic criticism has been leveled at the series for not making clear through their narration what is speculative and what is based in fact.[13]

In addition to the five main series, the success of Walking with... also led to the production of the Walking with Dinosaurs special episodes The Ballad of Big Al, The Giant Claw and Land of Giants. The franchise has also been accompanied by several books, merchandise, video games and the live theatrical show Walking with Dinosaurs − The Arena Spectacular. In 2013, a movie based on Walking with Dinosaurs, with the same name, was directed by Neil Nightingale and Barry Cook.[14]

Development

Puppet head of the dinosaur Eustreptospondylus, used in Walking with Dinosaurs

Walking with Dinosaurs was devised by the then BBC-employed science television producer Tim Haines in 1996. Inspired by the 1993 film Jurassic Park, Haines envisioned a more science-based documentary programme using the same techniques as Jurassic Park to bring dinosaurs to life. Though such a series was initially feared to be far too expensive to produce, particularly considering the production costs of Jurassic Park, Haines managed to bring down the costs through working with the award-winning UK-based graphics company Framestore. It was only after the production of a six-minute pilot episode in 1997 that Haines managed to secure funding for the series; Walking with Dinosaurs was funded by the BBC, BBC Worldwide and the Discovery Channel, alongside major investments from TV Asahi in Japan and ProSieben in Germany.[3] At a cost of £6.1 million ($9.9 million), Walking with Dinosaurs cost over £37,654 ($61,112) per minute to produce, making it the most expensive documentary series per minute ever made.[15] The visual effects of Walking with Dinosaurs were done by Framestore and the puppets and animatronics were done by the special effects company Crawley Creatures.[13]

The success of Walking with Dinosaurs led to the rapid creation of Walking with... as a brand of documentary series.[16] In the aftermath of Walking with Dinosaurs, Haines founded the production company Impossible Pictures together with Jasper James,[17] one of the producers on Walking with Dinosaurs.[3]

2000 saw the release of a special episode of Dinosaurs, The Ballad of Big Al, focusing on a single Allosaurus specimen.[18] The first entire sequel series released in 2001: Walking with Beasts, which explored the life of the Cenozoic, after the age of the dinosaurs. Like Walking with Dinosaurs before it, Beasts was the idea of Haines. Haines wished to introduce the general public to the assortment of animals of the Cenozoic, typically less represented in popular culture than the dinosaurs.[2] Haines served as executive producer on the series, with James and Nigel Paterson producing and directing.[19] Beasts was in terms of effects more challenging to produce than Dinosaurs, owing to mammals having features such as fur, whiskers, eyebrows and various floppy parts absent in dinosaurs, and to audiences being more familiar with how mammals move and act and thus better at spotting mistakes.[20]

Initial cover for the companion book of the 2004 BBC series Space Odyssey, initially intended to be part of the Walking with... franchise as "Walking with Spacemen"

In late 2002 and early 2003, further special episodes of Dinosaurs were broadcast: Land of Giants and The Giant Claw. These specials starred wildlife presenter Nigel Marven as a "time-traveling zoologist". Marven's inclusion was mainly so that audiences would have a better understanding of the scale of the animals shown.[21] While Haines, James and Impossible Pictures worked on Land of Giants and The Giant Claw, the BBC produced a further series without their involvement: Walking with Cavemen, also broadcast in 2003.[22] Cavemen acted as a sequel to Beasts, exploring human evolution. The series was created by Richard Dale and Peter Georgi, both of whom had previously worked together on documentaries such as The Human Body, and starred Robert Winston as a presenter.[23] The success of Land of Giants and The Giant Claw led to the creation of Sea Monsters, broadcast in 2003, a miniseries exploring the "seven deadliest seas of all time", once again starring Marven.[24]

The series Space Odyssey (2004), produced by Haines and James at Impossible Pictures together with BBC Worldwide, the Discovery Channel and ProSieben, was originally going to be titled Walking with Spacemen. Both executives of the BBC and ProSieben heralded Walking with Spacemen as the logical next step in the series, following on from the journey began with Walking with Dinosaurs, Beasts and Cavemen.[7][25] Space Odyssey used special effects and techniques from the Walking with... documentaries[25] to speculate how astronauts may explore the various planets in the Solar System on crewed missions.[7][26] Despite the title change, Space Odyssey has at times been referred to as Walking with Spacemen also after its release[16] and the old title was used in some of the companion material, including as the title of the earliest editions of the companion book, co-authored by Haines and Christopher Riley.[27]

Instead of a futuristic series, Haines and Impossible Pictures decided to round off the Walking with... series by making a programme on the before then largely underutilized Paleozoic era, set before the dinosaurs. Walking with Monsters, broadcast in 2005, utilized the most sophisticated effects of the entire franchise, owing to advancements in technology by the time of its production.[28]

Framestore and Crawley Creatures returned to do the computer graphics and animatronics, respectively, for every successor series,[20][29][30][31][28][32] with the sole exception of Walking with Cavemen, which involved Framestore but not Crawley Creatures.[23] The practical effects of Walking with Cavemen were done by several companies, including Altered States FX, Animated Extras and BGFX.[33] After the release of Monsters, Impossible Pictures, Framestore and the others involved were effectively forced to move on from documentary filmmaking and produce other series like Primeval (2007–2011) due to companies and executives losing interest in funding fact-based documentaries on prehistoric life.[34]

Television series

Walking with... series
Series Release date (UK) Director(s) Producer(s) Episodes Narrator (UK) Composer
Walking with Dinosaurs 4 October – 8 November 1999 Tim Haines & Jasper James John Lynch, Tim Haines & Jasper James 6[c] Kenneth Branagh Ben Bartlett
Walking with Beasts 15 November – 20 December 2001 Jasper James & Nigel Paterson Tim Haines, Jasper James & Nigel Paterson 6
Walking with Cavemen 27 March – 23 April 2003 Richard Dale Richard Dale, Nick Green, Mark Hedgecoe & Peter Oxley 4
Robert Winston[d]
Alan Parker
Sea Monsters 9–23 November 2003 Jasper James Tim Haines, Adam Kemp & Jasper James 3 Karen Hayley[e] Ben Bartlett
Walking with Monsters 5 November 2005[f] Chloe Leland & Tim Haines Tim Haines & Chloe Leland 3 Kenneth Branagh
Release timeline
Series in bold
1999Walking with Dinosaurs
2000The Ballad of Big Al
2001Walking with Beasts
2002The Giant Claw
2003Land of Giants
Walking with Cavemen
Sea Monsters
2004
2005Walking with Monsters

Walking with Dinosaurs (1999)

Envisioned as the first "Natural History of Dinosaurs" and a series that would provide viewers with "a window into a lost world",[12] Walking with Dinosaurs explores life in the Mesozoic era, particularly dinosaurs, in the format of a traditional nature documentary.

Specials (2000–2003)

The first special episode of Walking with Dinosaurs to be released was The Ballad of Big Al (2000). Big Al follows a single Allosaurus specimen nicknamed "Big Al" whose life story has been reconstructed based on a well-preserved fossil of the same name. The two later specials, The Giant Claw (2002) and Land of Giants (2003), star "time-travelling zoologist" Nigel Marven as he travels back in time to encounter and interact with prehistoric life.

Walking with Beasts (2001)