Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience
The Sydney Morning Herald today has the first glimpse on video that I have seen of a mighty puppet production that is going on in Melbourne at the moment: Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience. The creative team, with Sonny Tilders as Head of Creature Design, is making 12 life-size animatronic/puppet dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus-Rex, Brachiosaurus and the Flying Ornithoceirus ‘the largest creature to ever take wing… with a maximum wing-span of 12 metres (40 feet) and up to 3 metres tall
when standing on all fours’. The creatures will come to life at the world premiere on 10 Jan 2007 at the Acer Arena in Sydney, and will tour nationally before taking off around the world.
One of the producers, Malcolm C Cooke, has previously been involved with other puppetry productions including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the second production of The Hobbit in 2000.
Judging by the video, the puppets are simply amazing, and I hope I get to see them. I do wonder though, if there will be more to the production than sheer spectacle. I’ve wondered this about dinosaurs and realism before! Sometimes I start to crave subtlety and symbol and story.
Update
Here are some newspaper reports today. The reports are similar, but different photos.
The Age: ‘We touched a dinosaur! Doyouthinkhesaurus’?
Sydney Morning Herald: OK, which of you kids called me fossil features?
The Australian:Kids get chance to walk back in time – best description of how the puppets are made and move
Courier Mail: For a stomping good time
Daily Telegraph: Dinosaurs roar back to life in arena – 3 photos
Update (8 Aug 06):
WireImage has a two-page listing of thumbnail images from the promotion the other day.
Update (22 Mar 07):
Workshop footage,
Walking with Dinosaurs: the Live Experience: new slideshow
Walking with Dinosaurs – The Live Experience: a review, and more links
Hey, i cant find prices or details as to how to buy the tickets to Walking With Dinosaurs would you be able to tell me how i can get tickets and prices? Am i able to book them over the phone or internet?
Thanx, Amanda
Hi Amanda, yeah, I have been looking myself, wondering if I can get up to Sydney. You have to click right through Tickertek as if you were buying the tix online, and then they give the prices. But I’ll copy them here:
Vip seats (the closest ones): $96.50 for everyone
Then there are other sections termed jurassic and triassic:
Pensioners / Senior Card Holder’s: $79.50 or $65.50 respectively
Children 3-15 / Students: $49.50 or $39.50 respectively
hey when is it coming in united states?
I don’t think they have set international tour dates yet. I’me sure the US would be in their sites, though.
I’m building a haunted house, and I’m building a werewolf puppet suit similar to your raptor suits and I’m stumped on how you rigged you animatronic puppets to open their mouths and such. Well if you can help me I’d be much appreciative and thank you for your time.
Um…hi again it’s been 5 months and I still would like to know how you built your raptors so if you can tell me please contact me, thanks
Miranda, I’m sorry, I can’t help you because these are not puppets that I built. As I said in the post, they were made by a huge team of people in Melbourne, and their animatronic controls would be sophisticated and hi-tech. If you look through some of the later links listed in my post you might find some information about how its done, but none of it is very detailed.
what is age appropriate for this show, i have a 5 year old grandson, would he be to young?
thanks
Hi Susan, the bulk of the audience when I saw the show was families with children ages about 4 to 12,and I think that is the audience they were targeting. There would have been children younger than 4, too. I also think that kids often get really interested in dinosaurs at about age 4 or 5, so the interest is usually there at that age.
There were squeals when the t-rex roared directly at the audience a few times, and the bronosaurus takes a close up look at the audience, but most of the time it’s more of a spectacle that you are watching from a distance.
It also depends on your grandchild’s disposition – I think the majority of five year olds would love it, but some kids are more impressionable. Maybe it would be easier to judge if you take a look at some of the videos on You Tube here:
http://tinyurl.com/24chh6
Hope he enjoys it!