Soo... are your "Dinosaurs" are going to talk?

Throughout Ray's career, his creatures always had human counterparts to act off or with, none of his pictures was ever truly a human-less feature, so none of his creatures were required to talk to "describe" to audiences story details or scenes, even Bubo the Owl "dialog" was translated through Harry Hamlin.

Ray's Brontosaurus during filming of Evolution of the World

In the 1940's, Ray did begin work on a project which was going by the title "Evolution of the World" but was abandoned after seeing Disney's Fantasia. I often wondered while working on my own project what Ray had planned to do with this film had he actually completed it? Would it have been something like Fantasia with a music score and animal sounds or would it have been something more closer to a dinosaur wildlife documentary. Sadly we'll never truly know, but I do hope my own film may give a glimmer of insight on what it could have been like.

When discussing my project with people in the past, the one question which is often asked "Are the dinosaurs going to speak or is it going to be narrated?", and in this post I hope to answer that question on why I think this short film should be a "silent" film, along with video examples to bring my points across.

Over the years, I have seen various non-wildlife media where the whole program is either narrated or has voice over talent to help explain the creatures actions and thoughts. For me neither of these apply to my short film for a few reasons.

The first reason is because this isn't a documentary film, it's more of a moment in time through the imaginative eye of fantasy, to have narration over the whole film would mean developing world building dialog to explaining why my Mars is the way it is, what each animal is, what it compares to on Earth, what do they eat, and countless other questions that would end up turning a 5-6 minute animation into hours of scientists explaining things that to many audiences would find either boring or disconnected. In today's society it is harder now to suspend a persons disbelief due to the way modern media works, so trying to work out methods to allow audiences to accept what they are seeing without taking it literally is somewhat of a challenge.

One example of this was a TV series called The Future is Wild, which is based on the future evolution of animals and plants on a human-less Earth in three future time periods, 5 million years, 100 million years and 200 million years. I found that whilst the CG creatures where some what imaginative, the scientists that cut in to explain what we were seeing and why; along with archive wildlife footage of modern day animals, got quite distracting and in some cases frustrating.

The Future is Wild

The other factor that I would have to consider is to find the right voice to narrate it. It would have to be the a voice that was understanding of the project and not just reading from a script but also a voice that audiences feel "comfortable" with. Voices like David Attenborough and the late John Hurt, have certain tones in their voices that have enthusiasm and drama which keep audiences engaged in long programs over 15 minutes long.

David Attenborough, The Hunt

John Hurt, Dinosaur Planet

Going from Documentary narrator, voice over work does well on selected media, but it would not work well for my particular film. Two examples I can give for this not working is the 2013 Walking with Dinosaurs movie and 2000's Disney's Dinosaur.

In the Walking with Dinosaurs series they used a narrator to inform the viewer of what was going on, but in the film, they chose to go for a very unusual approach, by giving the main characters voices and all leaving all the other dinosaurs with animal sound effects. This felt very disjointed to me, especially when you had multiple animals of the screen that it was sometimes hard to tell who was talking to who. Not only that but I felt that the decisions to make them "talk" was a last minute decision and does not fit with the whole Walking with Dinosaurs theme.

When Disney made a similar film back in 2000, they gave the different voices to each of the main characters, leaving the remaining bulk of other animals sounding like, well, normal animals, which feels far more natural. The only issue I felt with this is that it turned the characters into cartoons rather than into "realistic" animals. I understand that in order to make a story entertaining some alterations have to be made, however, when a film is under an hour I do not see the point in "humanizing" my creatures for the sake of explaining to audiences what is happening.

Walking with Dinosaur's TV series, 1999

Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie, 2013

Disney's Dinosaur, 2000

Now, one thing I will say is that despite saying that my film will not have narration or dialog, it does not mean I think ALL films of this kind should follow my example in having a dialog free story. In some cases having no dialog works to enhance an animation or media form rather than hindering it; this depends on the length of the film, the story it's designed to tell and what goes on in said story to keep audience entertained.

For example, Disney's Fantasia is a wonderful portrayal of how music and no sound can inform viewers what the tone of the scenes are, whilst the instruments used don't always reflect the characters like "Peter and the Wolf", they do establish ambiance and atmosphere.

Whilst the opening segment to Disney's Dinosaur also informs viewers of what is going on through mime and observation, as well as body language and action.

Fantasia 1940

Disney's Dinosaur 2000

In terms of how I "see" my sort film appearing, I see it looking closer to that of the opening of Disney's Dinosaur than I do Fantasia, however, I will be incorporating a introductory narrator, in a similar vein to how Ray's films began between The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and 20 Million Miles to Earth, which will hopefully give enough information for audiences to understand what they are about to see. I do not see the film having a fast pace, but I am hoping through my studies of Ray's animation style I shall be able to recapture those important Dinosaur traits he embedded in the pop culture mindscape since the 1960's.