11:40am Thursday 18th June 2009
MILLIONS of years ago they dominated the planet until they were mysteriously wiped out.
But thanks to the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs, the tyrannosaurus rex, brachiosaurus and stegosaurus will stalk across the MEN Arena from July 29 to August 2.
And shoppers at the Arndale Centre in Manchester found out how it felt to be up close and personal with the huge beasts when a baby tyrannosaurus rex ran riot.
The show depicts the dinosaurs’ evolution, complete with the climatic and tectonic changes that took place, which led to the demise of many species. It has scenes of the interactions between dinosaurs, and the audience sees how carnivorous creatures evolved to walk on two legs and how the herbivores fended off their more agile predators.
The history of the world is played out with the splitting of the continents and the transition from the arid desert of the Triassic period is given over to the lush green prairies and forces of the later Jurassic. Oceans form, volcanoes erupt, a forest catches fire — all leading to the impact of the massive comet, which struck the Earth, and, according to most scientists, forced the extinction of the dinosaurs.
They are accompanied on the journey by narrator Huxley, an enthusiastic paleaeontologist who is on hand to guide the audience.
The dinosaurs are actually huge semi-mechanical puppets. Five of the smaller dinosaurs actually have actors inside, while the others are controlled by computer.
Designer Sonny Tilders said: “Many of the technologies we are using on Walking With Dinosaurs — The Arena Spectacular are borrowed from film. The computer software and hardware we have developed is based on the systems used to control animatronics creatures in feature films.
“To make it appear that these creatures are flesh and blood weighing six, eight or even 20 tons, we use a system called ‘muscle bags’, made from stretch mesh fabric and filled with polystyrene balls, stretched across moving points on the body. These contract and stretch in the same manner that muscle, fat and skin does on real creatures.
“The puppeteers use “voodoo rigs” to make many of the dinosaurs move. They are miniature versions of the dinosaurs with the same joints and range of movement as their life-size counterparts.
“The puppeteer manipulates the voodoo rig and these actions are interpreted by computer and transmitted by radio waves to make the hydraulic cylinders in the dinosaur replicate the action, with a driver hidden below the animal, helping to manoeuvre it around the arena.”
Resident director Alli Coyne, who will be in charge of the Manchester show, added: “The skin is a special mixture of spandex and lycra, which is stretched and then shrunk to give it the wrinkled appearance.”
Although it was inspired by the BBC series, the show originated in Australia.
Alli said: “The show was created in Australia and based on the BBC TV show Walking With Dinosaurs. They decided it would make a great live show and set about creating the characters and making the dinosaurs, which took a considerable amount of time because it’s not something that had been done before.”
The spectacular show features rainstorms, comets and impressive dinosaur fights. The dinosaurs speak to each other in their own language while Huxley explains to the audience what is going on.
Tim Haines, who created the original BBC series, said: “At its core, the Arena Spectacular manages to do what the TV series did so successfully, which is to make people imagine they are looking at real dinosaurs.”
After spending so much time around the dinosaurs, does Alli have a favourite?
“It keeps changing — it’s probably whichever one is on stage at the time,” she says. “But I think maybe for various reasons my favourite is Ankylosaurus. He’s just so ugly bless him I want to go and give him a hug.”
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