A T-rex with lips? Predators with crimson eyebrows? Walking with Dinosaurs is again to problem the whole lot you understand

I’ve been beneath paintings force again and again sooner than, however not anything has ready me for this. In Alberta, Canada on a palaeontology dig being filmed for the go back of the BBC sequence Walking with Dinosaurs, I’ve been allowed to unearth a dinosaur bone.

It has now not observed the sunshine of day for roughly 73m years, and now, armed with only a hammer, axe and brush, I’m chipping away on the rock round it to deliver it to human eyes for the primary time. One faucet too exhausting within the improper position and the fossilised bone may just smash.

Fortunately, I’m guided by way of extra than simply my memories of the archaeology sequence Time Team. Overseeing me at Alberta’s Pipestone Creek Bonebed is main Canadian palaeontologist Emily Bamforth, one of the vital advisers at the revival of WWD – the hit turn-of-the-millennium sequence which recreated extinct species via CGI and animatronics.

The bones we’re excavating, Bamforth says, are concept to were brought about when a flash flood or fireplace engulfed a herd of horned, herbivore dinosaurs (discovered simplest in North America) referred to as Pachyrhinosaurus. As if the deficient creatures hadn’t suffered sufficient, they now have me seeking to unearth them.

At first it’s exhausting to tell apart between rock and stays. But Pipestone Creek Bonebed has one of the vital densest concentrations of dinosaur bones on the earth, as much as 200 bones consistent with sq. metre. The prehistoric graveyard accommodates an estimated 10,000 creatures that can take greater than a century to excavate – so it’s not lengthy sooner than the “bone salad”, as one of the vital dig staff calls it, is plain.

Fortunately, with Bamforth’s steering (and whilst buzzing the Jurassic Park theme song beneath my breath) I entire my activity with out breaking the rest. I then watch her staff expertly take away a big bone from the bottom the use of a plaster “jacket” to give protection to it all through its adventure to be wiped clean and analysed in a laboratory on the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum the place Bamforth is curator.

Her paintings, and that of greater than 200 palaeontologists world wide, has helped tell the glance of the brand new WWD, with their discoveries informing the dinosaurs’ behaviours and look on display screen.

So much has modified because the Kenneth Branagh-narrated sequence first aired in 1999, together with the truth that many of us now consider dinosaurs, like dragons, didn’t if truth be told exist. WWD showrunner Kirsty Wilson explains that speaking to other folks whilst travelling all through the 2 years of filming, she realised, “so many people … used to seeing [dinosaurs] in Jurassic Park etc … think of them as mythical animals”. One taxi driving force even requested her if dragons are genuine.

Whether our post-factual global, AI or the recognition of TV sequence comparable to House of the Dragon are responsible, who is aware of? But Wilson hopes this sequence will disabuse other folks of that perception. She says while the unique WWD “was purely visual special effects and animatronics [with] no dig sites involved at all, this time around, we’re … doing our homework for the audience to see. We wanted to feature the real science that goes on.”

Focusing on one person dinosaur in every of the six episodes – now narrated by way of actor Bertie Carvel – is any other distinction from the 1999 unique. This will, Wilson says, “bring to life really cracking stories that will keep everybody engaged. What we really hope is that people will be emotionally involved with these animals as real animals.” They vary from a unmarried dad Spinosaurus – the most important carnivorous dinosaur to stroll the earth – to a lovesick, herbivore Lusotitan.

BBC Studios govt manufacturer Helen Thomas says the genesis for reviving WWD was once its 25th anniversary plus the runaway good fortune in 2022 of a display she labored on referred to as Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough, which used a prehistoric graveyard to inform the tale of the death of the enormous reptiles.

Wilson explains: “We wanted to bring back WWD and tap into that nostalgia, legacy, and all the things that made the series so brilliant, but also completely reimagine it … bring it up to date and do something new and exciting with it.”

That contains the most recent fascinated with some dinosaurs’ look, which may turn out an enormous wonder. In the Currie Museum’s lab and assortment, Bamforth and WWD assistant manufacturer Sam Wigfield display me one of the vital fossils of leaves, pores and skin, enamel and bone that experience modified palaeontologists’ view of dinosaurs.

“In our Tyrannosaurus rex episode, the T rexes have lips, which is not a Jurassic Park feature because they want to show off all the teeth. But actually the growing consensus is they had lips, which is less Hollywood, but more scientifically accurate,” says Wigfield.

As neatly as appearing that more than a few dinosaurs have been feathered, the reptiles can be depicted in a a lot more thrilling vary of pores and skin tones than the former brown or inexperienced.

“In the natural world we see a vast array of very bright colours,” says Bamforth. “We worked with palaeontologists and experts to introduce flashes of colour … So we have Albertosaurus – terrifying predators – with pink eyebrows.”

To make the display extra sensible, the computer-generated dinosaurs were put in opposition to real-life places very similar to their very own habitat. Crew participants like Wigfield and manufacturing supervisor Emma Chapman acted out the portions of the creatures the use of cutouts, tape measures and tennis balls on poles so each and every transfer might be labored out. They even used pizza packing containers on their ft to easy over their tracks to avoid wasting having to pay VFX experts to “wipe out” their prints on display screen.

Chapman – who has been instrumental in making the display’s logistics paintings – recounts any other trick used to avoid wasting VFX cash: Three-D-printing a large blue display screen dinosaur head to get the correct ripples in water.

Getting shifting water to seem herbal is costly, so a 2-metre style of a Spinosaurus head was once made and shipped to the filming location in Portugal. But she says even that was once reasonably difficult, “because the director wanted it to sink, because a Spinosaurus swims. So we were in a swimming pool, burrowing holes in it to try to get this thing to sink!”

Due to lovers’ love for the primary sequence, there’s “added pressure”, says Chapman, however after the discharge of the trailer, pleasure is development amongst lovers of the unique – a lot of whom now have youngsters and can deliver a brand new era to what Thomas calls the “BBC’s iconic intellectual property”.

With its international enchantment (the primary sequence was once watched by way of 700 million audience globally) WWD is prone to make the Philip J Currie Museum a TV tourism hotspot, in particular as it’s providing “palaeontologist for a day” journeys to move on a dig.

Speaking after my dig, Bamforth says she is “hopeful” WWD will make dinosaurs “more real for people” who would possibly “struggle to understand that dinosaurs were real in the sense that animals today are real. It’s so long ago and they’re so alien to anything we have today.”