making

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience: new slideshow

Dino

(Photo credit: Craig Sillitoe)

Today’s online Sydney Morning Herald has a slideshow of new photos by Craig Sillitoe about the making of Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience with a narration by their Head of Creature Design, Sonny Tilders.

Previously: Workshop footage, Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience: Workshop footage

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience (see previous post) has released two videos of their awesome dinosaur puppetry:

Footage from the workshop
Torosaur v. Utahraptor

And here are a couple of stills from their newsletter.

Wwd_03

Steg
in the workshop. if you want an idea of HOW BIG this shows going to be, check out the size of the person working on the BABY brachi in the background (seen through Steg’s legs) … remember, he’s the BABY!

Wwd_14

Ankylosaurus in the workshop. To the right you can see one of the utahraptors in the making. There are two now in their final makeover stage and will be ready to wreak havoc with our first utahraptor who was one of the stars or the walking with dinosaurs launch, facing off with Torosaurus. (You can see someone behind the dino’s head, as an indication of scale)

I can see how you would come to call them affectionate things like baby Brachi and Steg if you were working on the build. I dare say they would have come in for a lot of swearing too! With only about five weeks till the first show in Sydney the makers must be under a lot of pressure.

Royal de Luxe: The elephant and the small giantess


Update: I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and it’s influence since this post. Click here to go to search links to all those posts.

Update 2015 – removed and struck out some broken links

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I’m blown away by the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe’s amazing street parade, ‘The Visit of the Sultan of India Atop His Time-Travelling Elephant’, which took place in Nantes last week, in honour of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. A rocket landed just outside the cathedral in place Saint Pierre, and from it a young giantess emerged. Together with the Sultan’s huge 11 metre tall elephant with a house built into its back, she explored the streets of Nantes, taking time to eat an icecream, ride a scooter, take a shower and nap, be lifted up onto the elephant’s trunk, and eventually to return to take off in her rocket again.

Deluxe

I’ve been collecting links! If you are short on time go to the ones with asterisks. (edited Oct 2014 to remove defunct del-icio.us link).

2007:

2006:

The Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp (added 8 July 2006)

The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 21 Apr 2006)

2005:

Nantes official site (in French):

Other photo galleries:

At Flickr:

Blog entries:

  • dirty beloved: great links about the company; thanks Ajax! I’ve included most but not all of them here
  • jzw:1, 2 (include accounts by Ian Flanigan)*

Amiens:

About Royal de Luxe:About Royal de Luxe (French sites):

  • VTi: A Short Introduction
  • Royal de Luxe – not an official site, but pretty comprehensive – history, links to photos and reviews (thanks for the image above)* (updated link 2 June 2006)
  • Royal de Luxe
  • French Wikipedia entry
  • 1995-2002 – Karen Maldonado
  • Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, director (in Spanish)
  • Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, dirctor (pdf in English)
  • BBC Royal de Luxe photo gallery, from older productions (added 6 May 2006)

Royal de luxe at Wikipedia (added July 2007)

Machines of Spectacle

  • Machines of Spectacle exhibition

‘Hunters of the Giraffes’ photo galleries:

‘The Giant’

Catamini Attraction

Poster

  • Royal de Luxe poster for sale (image on the right)

Tour dates:

2005:

  • Nantes (France) – 22, 23, 24, 25 May. Debut.
  • Amiens (France) – 16, 17, 18, 19 June
  • La Havre – mid July (didn’t happen as far as I know)
  • London (UK) – 8, 9, 10, 11 September. (I think this did not happen because of the London bombings)

2006: (only London confirmed as far as I know)

  • London (UK) – 5, 6, 7, 8 May. See here for official website coverage.
  • Antwerp (Belgium) – 6, 7, 8, 9 July
  • Calais (France) – 28, 29, 30 Sept & 1 Oct
  • La Havre (France) – 26, 27, 28, 29 Oct
  • Paris, Bilbao, Marseilles, Valance possible