Re: "Dinosaur Planet": comments from one of the staff

[timlee3005@earthlink.net]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>
To: "dinosaur" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 5:39 PM
Subject: "Dinosaur Planet": comments from one of the staff


> Greetings,
>
> The TV documentary "Dinosaur Planet" has come and gone, but I just
recently
> got a message from one of the staff who worked on it (and who worked on
> "When Dinosaurs Roamed America", which is where I met him first).  The guy
> is Mark Dubeau, and was Art Director.  He said it would be okay to post
> this.  So, without further ado, a message from the inside:
> --------------
> just wanted to let you know the only dinos i had anything to do with were
in
> these two shows of 'dinosaur planet'... 'white tip's tail' and the one
about
> the atlasaurs.  i had nothing to do with the other two.  the guys who
> designed them knew little about dinos.  i would have stuck around, but the
> line producer screwed me over and i couldn't finish the job.  hence, the
> other two shows had quite interesting mistakes... especially the
hadrosaurs.
> however, they weren't dino fans, but just techies and such.  though i art
> directed the first show in the same fashion as usual... i was denigrated
to
> something like 'creature designer'.
>
> i had to fight to get proper feathering on the velociraptors and
oviraptors.
> i think i got it close.  i really enjoyed designing the aucasaurs and
> initiating tests to get more realistic eyes.  alvarezsaurus was a
challenge
> as well.  i still do dino sculpts, and i miss designing dinos for shows (i
> also did valley of the t.rex and chasing africa's dinosaurs as well as
> mammalian stuff like 'what killed the mega-beasts?' and 'before we ruled
the
> earth)
>
> if you don't mind i would like to formally apologise for any errors in the
> other two shows... i should have stuck it out, but the writing was on the
> wall.

Apologise?!?
We should feel lucky that there are shows like this being made.There is
nothing to apologise for.

> feel free to post this where others can view it, i imagine they will
> appreciate the insight.
>
> -------------------
>
> He added in a subsequent email that the experience wasn't all bad, but
that
> he did feel that they were often just rewriting episodes of "Walking with
> Dinosaurs" or other 'dino-cliche's".  Ah, well, c'est la vie...
>
>
> Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
> Vertebrate Paleontologist
> Department of Geology Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
> University of Maryland College Park Scholars
> College Park, MD  20742
> http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
> http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
> Phone: 301-405-4084 Email: tholtz@geol.umd.edu
> Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661 Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796
>