How Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age Recreated Extinct Creatures with VFX

Take a behind-the-scenes look at how Framestore and Practice Creations visualized realistic sabre-toothed cats, tiny island elephants, and other extinct animals for the docuseries.

Prehistoric Planet is a wildlife docuseries about ancient wildlife, produced by the BBC Studios Natural History Unit. The series recreates dinosaurs' and other animals' behaviors based on palaeontological research with the help of powerful VFX.

The third season of the project, Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age, involved developing the VFX and animation for more than 40 scientifically accurate creatures, from sabre-toothed cats and tiny island elephants to rhino-sized wombats and the largest ape ever to live. "The core creative challenge was ensuring these animals felt as real, grounded, and emotionally compelling," the creators write.

As reported by Ian Failes from befores & afters, the VFX team, which consisted of a supervisor, wrangler, and capture TD, shot real-life locations and used puppets to plan the frame. "We began our shots with a 'puppet pass,' which was crucial for determining the timing, framing, and focus of the shots. Once we were happy with this, we repeated the shot clean, without the puppet," Framestore VFX Supervisor Gavin McKenzie shares.

Framestore

The puppets were built by Practic Creations. As explained by Puppeteer Brian Fisher, the goal was to create "dynamic assets," which needed to be compact, lightweight, easily assembled, and made of resilient materials to endure "temperatures ranging from sub-zero glaciers, to full sun reaching nearly 50 degrees on iron sand."

"From a practical standpoint, they needed to represent the physical size and shape as close to the scientific material. Most importantly, because this show is natural history, the puppets helped to create a sense of spontaneity within the filming process, imbuing the story with character and a grounded natural performance," Brian Fisher said.

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Framestore Visual Effects Supervisor Francois Dumoulin shared how a typical shoot for Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age unfolded, from spending entire days searching for the perfect location in the Mongolian steppes and Iceland to improvising on set, and the team sometimes used a jeep as a placeholder for distant creatures. "Once we arrived on location, our first priority was always finding the ideal place for the action to unfold, both logically and aesthetically," Dumoulin noted.

Framestore

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