Getting Personal - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 60

TD - I had a long period of fascination with dinosaurs. Strangely, I was never drawn to animate them.
I was more intrigued with the Canadian National Film Board animation.
RH - I loved dinosaurs since collecting models of them after visiting the Natural History Museum in
London. As a Cub I got a 'Collecting' badge for my collection of dinosaurs. I loved them in the original
King Kong and Fantasia . I'm still thrilled by them today, although I've never animated one.
JC - I had no dinosaurs and wasn't interested in them (though my little brother knew all the names
before he could read).
FL - I always loved natural history museums, but never thought about dinosaurs as characters for
movies. Recently I did my fi rst 'artistic' approach to a dinosaur, trying to follow a tutorial on making a
T-rex armature.
DS - I don't recall being a dinosaur freak or having any model dinosaurs or being insistent on seeing
them in a museum, but I loved the schools radio programme where they took you back in time, especially
those that went back to prehistory and the dinosaur age. Pete (Lord) and I might have animated the odd
scaly dinosaur.
Paul Berry animating Arnold.
King Kong and dinosaurs
In a way, even dinosaurs are about animating inanimate objects, giving life to that which has
no life - now. What put me of dinosaurs is the presentation of them as munching machines.
Very few stop motion dinosaurs exhibit much psychology or motivation beyond
eating and surviving, and while the animation challenge and endless possibilities
of bringing these creatures to life must be hugely exciting, there wasn't much
chance of acting, and it's acting that drives me. We've seen dinosaurs full of detail,
but I am more satisi ed when dealing with complex emotions. We were all looking
forward to Paul Berry's Arnold; A Million Sequins BC , a i lm that would have shown
dinosaurs in a very dif erent light.