As dinosaur fanatics, we’re huge followers of Apple TV+’s Prehistoric Planet (each seasons).
We don’t know if or when there can be a Prehistoric Planet 3 (we hope there can be)! Within the meantime, we are able to re-watch the primary two seasons.
We additionally had been in a position to get early entry to Prehistoric Planet 2 earlier than it got here out, and had been so excited to listen to the within scoop and interview quite a few individuals who labored on the present. So if you’d like your repair of Prehistoric Planet (whereas we look ahead to information of Prehistoric Planet 3), right here’s a breakdown of every thing Prehistoric Planet 2.
We kicked it off with an interview with Anže Rozman and Kara Talve, who together with Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer created the soundscape for Prehistoric Planet.
They even made customized devices for the sequence, out of fossilized rock, reproduction fossils, and extra. And so they gave their devices becoming names, such because the Fats Rex they used for his or her Velociraptor theme.
After watching the second season, we did a deep dive of every episode, beginning with “Islands.”
Why had been there islands within the Mesozoic in the midst of what at the moment are continents? On the time, sea ranges had been very excessive, and the oceans stuffed in low mendacity areas, so plenty of hills and plateaus had been islands.
There are numerous causes for why sea ranges rise. This will embrace hotter temperatures, sediment slowly working off continents into the ocean (over thousands and thousands of years), and ocean ground volcanism, the place big mountain ranges fill the center of oceans and displace ocean water. This most likely had the largest influence within the Cretaceous, in line with a paper in Geological Society, London, Particular Publications.
That is the world of the dinosaurs within the episode “Islands.” The main target right here is on Hateg, Madagascar, and Antarctica and options dinosaurs together with the highest predator Majungasaurus and the Antarctic theropod Imperobator.
Filming places for this episode had been everywhere in the world: England, Australia, Zambia, Canada, and extra. These places generally got here with their very own units of challenges.
For instance, the Decrease Zambesi Nationwide Park is dwelling to lions and many elephants. Whereas the crew was filming there, it was arduous to not embrace the animals within the shot (and naturally, there have been no lions or elephants round when the dinosaurs roamed the planet).
In response to assistant producer Rebecca Bangay:
“Probably the most memorable of those visits was from an elephant mom and calf. Only a few ft from our vans the mom dug a deep gap within the dry riverbed to succeed in the water beneath, tenderly offering her calf with a much-needed drink. It was behaviour Paul Stewart, a extremely skilled wildlife cameraman, as soon as spent weeks looking for to movie, and but right here he may solely watch, beguiled however pissed off. (Fortunately, I may at the least seize it with my iPhone!) Paul was gutted that his digital camera was out of attain, prepared for the following plate shot. It might be the proper backdrop for our Madagascan prehistoric animals, however essentially away from the fantastic wildlife that surrounded us on location.”
The second episode is all concerning the Deccan Traps and Nemegt Formation. And we acquired to interview Mike Gunton, Govt Producer and Director of the BBC’s Pure Historical past Unit, and Tim Walker, the showrunner and producer of Prehistoric Planet.
The Deccan Traps had been shaped by volcanic eruptions that lasted for a whole lot of 1000’s of years. On this case, a “entice” refers to a darkish volcanic rock formation. And it’s an enormouse one. The Deccan Traps are over a mile thick, and present estimates are that the eruptions most likely began simply earlier than the dinosaurs went extinct and ended someplace between 65 and 66 million years in the past.
(There may be nonetheless some debate concerning the function the Deccan Traps performed within the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Nevertheless, dinosaurs survived many different massive volcanic eruptions.)
The Nemegt Formation is positioned in what’s now the Gobi Desert, and plenty of, many dinosaurs have been discovered there.
Filming places for this episode included Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.
Within the scene the place the sauropod Isisaurus infants are hatching, the crew dug a trench beneath the nest. Then one individual laid within the trench and pushed a 3D mannequin of the hatchling by the volcanic sand, to simulate them hatching.
The third episode is all about swamps, and consists of pachycephalosaurs head butting, Austroraptor fishing, and T. rex searching at evening.
The animals within the episode are from 5 totally different areas; Songliao Basin, Allen Formation, Maevarano Formation, Scollard Formation, and Hell Creek Formation.
What’s a swamp? A helpful definition is it’s a “wetland that’s forested.”
Swamps may be at any transition between land and water, and that water may be freshwater or saltwater. For dinosaurs that loved fishing, swamps had been an incredible place to be.
Filming places for this episode included the U.S., Australia, and Zambia. To movie the dinosaurs gathering within the swamp lands, assistant producer Leah Arnold mentioned:
“Every day we loaded two flat bottomed fishing boats and several other kayaks and crossed a small lake. The transition between water and land was not very outlined so we constructed a brief platform on the lavatory as a base to tie up boats and hold tools dry. However out on the lavatory there have been extra challenges. If the crew stayed put too lengthy, we discovered we’d slowly sink. So, by sporting snowshoes we had been in a position to unfold our weight and forestall “getting sucked in”. Whereas the digital camera was rolling the entire crew needed to maintain very nonetheless or the bottom would jiggle like an enormous waterbed making the shot unstable. At occasions what seemed like a secure route was a skinny layer of lavatory crops hiding waist deep water. Director Tom Brainard fell in at the least as soon as, however being nicely over six ft tall it was not too deep for him!”
The fourth episode had extra dinosaur-era animals than dinosaurs in it, although there are scenes with Hesperornis and Pyroraptor. We acquired to interview Darren Naish, paleontologist and scientific marketing consultant and advisor for Prehistoric Planet.
5 areas are featured in “Oceans”: La Boucharde locality in what’s now France, Western Inside Seaway within the U.S., Lopez de Bertodano Formation, Hakobuchi Formation, and Tethys Sea.
A number of the filming was completed underwater. And in line with the press notes, this episode was “voted the unluckiest episode to shoot.”
That’s as a result of underwater shoots are affected by floor climate, underwater currents, and sea swell. Filming places included Grand Cayman, The Underwater Studio in England, Australia, Portugal, and Spain.
Whereas filming, the crew needed to take care of Hurricane Ida. In response to producer Amber Eames:
“It left us all hiding out on the bottom ground of our lodging with out meals or working water for a number of days. Thankfully, all of us rode out the lethal hurricane safely, however the whole crew will always remember this shoot!”
Within the fifth and remaining episode of Prehistoric Planet 2, we journey to North America, the place we get to see plenty of actually huge dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Alamosaurus (and different huge animals like Quetzalcoatlus).
Areas featured on this episode embrace Javelina Formation, Western Inside Seaway, Hell Creek Formation, Denver Formation (perhaps), Lance Formation, and Prince Creek Formation.
One of many greatest scenes is when Tyrannosaurus and Quetzalcoatlus go face to face (and the outcome could also be a bit shocking).
Filming places for this episode included the U.S. and the UK. Apparently, flies had been an enormous drawback had been one of many sequences depicting the prehistoric hen ’Styginetta’ (which hasn’t but been formally named. There have been billions of flies within the space, and they’d generally clog up the tools, together with the digital camera.
We’re trying ahead to a different season of Prehistoric Planet (fingers crossed there’s one) and might’t wait to see which dinosaurs are featured subsequent. What would you hope to see? Share within the feedback!
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