Jenny Priestley catches up with the team at dock10 to find out how they helped create the virtual environment and creatures for award-winning factual producer Mentorn Media and Channel 5's Dinosaur with Stephen Fry
By Jenny Priestley
Published: February 9, 2023
Jenny Priestley catches up with the team at dock10 to find out how they helped create the virtual environment and creatures for award-winning factual producer Mentorn Media and Channel 5's Dinosaur with Stephen Fry
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin>
Dinosaur with Stephen Fry is a new four-part documentary series that chronologically tells the definitive story of their 180 million years on Earth from the dawn of the dinosaurs to their extinction.
The show, produced by Tinopolis Group's Mentorn Media, and broadcast by Channel 5 in the UK, employed virtual production technology to recreate the jungles of the Jurassic period and the plains of the Cretaceous period in the middle of Manchester.
Mentorn worked with dock10 on the series, which aims to give viewers an accurate representation of a prehistoric environment.
Side profile of a raptor pack Based on the latest research, dock10 designed accurate dinosaur species to populate the landscape, with each creature brought to life via CGI and animation. dock10 also used Unreal Engine to create the hair, feather and scale details for the different dinosaur skins featured on the series. Everything was brought to life in real-time with Stephen Fry in the studio, so he could see and interact with the dinosaurs.
The team at dock10 has been creating virtual studios for a number of years, particularly around sport. It's the home of Match of the Day, and the BBC's recent Olympics coverage. During the pandemic, dock10 also worked with the BBC on creating a motion capture character called Clogs for its BBC Bitesize strand. It was this that started the team on the journey to the Jurassic period, explains Jonathan Harley, head of production development at dock10. That paved the way for us starting to do animated elements within the virtual studios, says Harley. I'd been telling clients for years now what we can do with virtual studios. I met up with Chris Brogden, who's the managing director of Mentorn as well as director of content for Tinopolis, I was talking about the virtues of virtual and all the different things that we could do with it. Not long after he had a meeting with Channel 5, and they had a discussion about a dinosaur programme.
Harley says the idea of working on Dinosaur with Stephen Fry intrigued the team at dock10 a great deal as we'd never done anything in that factual entertainment world before .
The production was based in dock10's HQ3, which measures 4,500 square feet. However, with the use of virtual production, the space was able to span an impressive 36 square miles. We were able to create these environments that are kind of unlike anything we'd done before, says Harley. Using a virtual production studio made the production easier to plan for than a real location shoot.
Stephen Fry and expert, Dr Susie Maidment, looking at two Diplodocuses The production team used a multi-camera set-up, which Harley says meant time with Fry became less of an issue than it would have done with a single-camera plan. We could have five cameras, with one at tree-top level, and another at the bottom of a lake, he continues. It allowed us a lot of creativity as well in terms of what we could do. I think that was certainly really attractive. And obviously, you can't just go out and film real dinosaurs. So, it solved a creative problem.
The decision to film the series with multi cameras and with real-time graphics also helped the creative team when it came to on-set production, enabling them to move content from the camera straight to the editing bay. The camera people could see what they were working with, and because we'd pre-programmed the dinosaurs we could run those sequences again and again, explains Harley.
Also on the studio floor, we had a big monitor so that Stephen could see what we were doing. He could see on a screen what we were trying to achieve and what we were trying to do. Although it was certainly technically challenging, we were all learning during the process.
Using a 36-mile canvas caused its own challenges because all of that space needed to be filled with flora and fauna that would have been around during the time period. Harley says that a key part of the pre-production process was the dialogue between Mentorn, their experts and the team at dock10. It took quite a lot of time and a lot of back and forth, he adds. We would create things and they would get amended depending on what production was telling us was correct.
I suppose it would have been so much easier if we just said to our in-house team, go off and build your version in your head of what a dinosaur land' looks like and that's what we'll go with, agrees dock10's head of studios, Andy Waters. But quite rightly, that wasn't a valid thing to do. So, there was a lot of back and forth, a lot of cross-checking and getting things scientifically correct. A number of paleontologists were used to make sure that it was a proper documentary, as opposed to dock10's virtual team coming up with their fantasy of dinosaur land.
Stephen Fry and Dr Dean Lomax next to a raptor While having the experts on hand to help the team choose the correct colour of a plume of feathers, there were still some drawbacks, particularly as experts are still continuing to argue as to what's correct and what isn't. But, Harley says having series director David Lee on set was a huge help. David has worked with David Attenborough and is used to that world, he adds. We aren't from that world, but
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Jenny Priestley catches up with the team at dock10 to find out how they helped create the virtual environment and creatures for award-winning factual producer Mentorn Media and Channel 5's Dinosaur with Stephen Fry
