The Dinosaurs

As a four-episode documentary series on Netflix, The Dinosaurs reunites executive producer Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment with Silverback Films and Industrial Light & Magic — who previously collaborated on 2023’s Life on Our Planet — to bring the age of dinosaurs to life with cutting-edge visual effects. The series charts the rise and fall of the dinosaurs — where they came from, why they mattered, how they evolved, and how they met their ultimate fate. Showrunner Dan Tapster, who also worked on Life on Our Planet, saw the new series as an opportunity to go deeper and finally give the dinosaur story the space and scale it deserved.

With decades of experience working with depictions of prehistoric animals, ILM partnered with directors Nick Shoolingin-Jordan, Jolyon Sutcliffe, Amber Cherry Eames, and Darren Williams and a team of scientific research advisors to present a story that mixed realism with drama. Live action plate photography was captured at locations all over the world. A number of character assets from Life on Our Planet were brought over in addition to even more original creature development with overall updates to rigging, texturing, and feathering systems. Both the dinosaurs’ appearances and movements were closely based on the most up-to-date scientific studies, including new discoveries from recently unearthed fossils. To maintain as much accuracy as possible, animation rigs were often reverse-engineered from scientifically approved designs. Altogether, ILM created over 70 dinosaurs for the series. 

Many live action plates were augmented with CG environment extensions, often with special attention paid to ensuring that plant life was accurate to the Mesozoic era. Other sequences required fully CG environments with layers of detail, such as a memorable fight between an Ankylosaurus and a T. rex. Elaborate FX work provided crucial interactive elements between the dinosaurs and their surrounding terrain.

With work centered at the London studio, ILM’s visual effects supervisors for The Dinosaurs were Jonathan Privett and Steve Moncur.

Watch The Dinosaurs on Netflix.

Read more about The Dinosaurs here on ILM.com:

Unearthing the Past: How ILM Brought ‘The Dinosaurs’ to Life