davidarmsby

"Dinosauria" Update #29: ...not technically Dinosaurs.

Added 2021-12-29 22:42:44 +0000 UTC

"Sea and Sky", the next film in my "Dinosauria Series", will actually not feature any dinosaurs.

I'm sure a lot of you already know this but pterosaurs and mosasaurs (the two groups that will feature in my next short film) do not belong to the "Dinosauria" clade and were therefore not dinosaurs. They were still large, fluffy and/or scaley reptilian contemporaries of the dinosaurs and are often lumped in with them in films, books and toy buckets.

The reason I decided to break my rules and create a film about a bunch of non-dinosaurs was because the mainstream-media depiction of pterosaurs in particular is atrocious.

The pop-culture depiction of dinosaurs you see in film and TV isn't particularly accurate, but it's nothing compared to the archaic persona pterosaurs still have. Most people have at least heard that dinosaurs are related to birds in some way but the mainstream interpretation of pterosaurs is often still the flapping and squawking sky-vermin of 1925's "The Lost World" and 1933's "King Kong".

One of the main reasons I wanted to make a film centered around a group of pterosaurs was to counter that interpretation. I wrote this film with the intention of portraying these animals as realistic, competent, noble and successful creatures that were specialised at what they did. To help get this point across, I have decided to go for a far more realistic tone for this one over the more fantastical "A More Ancient Spring" before it.

This particular film feels the most documentary-like of the whole series. The way events play out was HEAVILY inspired by modern day documentary segments and I'm very happy of the result so far! :D

I hope you all like it when it's finally finished.