Tales from an Internship II: The Reckonning

This was not “Cowboys and Aliens”, but it WAS called “Flying Monsters 3D“.

Flying Monsters 3D is a Documentary by Sir David Attenborough (Creator of the BBC series “Planet Earth”) about Pterodons: The Prehistoric Dino-birds.  Of course the first question is: What was a BBC Documentary doing in Santa Fe? The answer to this is: I haven’t the faintest idea.  I believe they needed to interview some dinosaur experts here and decided to get some other shots out of the way.

Day One of my internship I had one my most favorite credits to date: Butterfly and Dandelion wrangler.  So for the first part of the day I wandered around a field near the Santa Fe Airport catching butterflies with a couple of coffee cups (and later a butterfly net some friendly grips put together).  Then after a nice lunch of sandwich, I wandered around the same fields looking for dandelions, which proved difficult because it was a windy day and all of the good seed pods I could find would blow away before I could get them back to set.

Day Two I had a much more traditional role of PA and intern, for as opposed to Day One which was just B-roll day two was an interview between Sir Attenborough and one of the designers of an airplane based off of the Pterodon.  I did some art direction work of arranging lab materials and printing out large photos of dinosaur bones; I was a stand-in for Sir David Attenborough; I stood guard during filming and made sure that everyone else was being quiet; and I took a tour of a mad scientists lab who is trying to make fuel out algae (He was a really great guy, and by the end of the day he was incredibly frazzled).

Flying Monsters 3D will be coming to IMAX movie theaters and I believe the BBC television network as well, so keep your eyes peeled.  Also, here’s a picture of me on set, courtesy of Nani Rivera set photographer for that day:

Note the Pterodon model in front.

Most of the other art direction pieces I made or helped with aren't visible here.

4 Responses

  1. They’re shooting it in 3D, both interviews and B-roll. I’m not sure if I can tell you what kind of camera set-up they were using, as I believe they want to be rather secretive about it. But, needless to say, it was very impressive. And by “impressive”, I mean a giant block of camera.

  2. Andrew says:

    Let me get this straight: You were an official butterfly and dandelion wrangler for an IMAX movie… AND you were a stand-in for a KNIGHT?

    AWESOME.

    Also, I must ask: They’re shooting this in 3D? The interviews too, or just select footage? What kind of a camera setup are they using?

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