Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure (2007)

Director:

Sean MacLeod Phillips

Writer:

Mose Richards

Release Date:

5 October 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Animation | Short | Adventure

Tagline:

82 million years in the making

Plot:

Brings to life some of the most bizarre, ferocious and fascinating creatures to ever inhabit the ocean...

Plot Keywords:

Sea Monster | North Dakota | Year 1995 | Cretaceous Period | Fossil

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Jerry Hoffman	...	Charles Sternberg
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jennifer Aguilar	...	Female Grad Student
Michael Ashcraft	...	South Dakota Scientist 2
Michael Ashcroft	...	South Dakota Scientist 2
Paul Burmaster	...	North Dakota Collector #1
Paul W. Burmaster	...	North Dakota Collector
Albert J. Burnes	...	Male Grad Student (as Albert Burnes)
Daniel Coldham	...	Worker - Phosphate Mine
Toni Dodd	...	Pamela Everhart
Derek Gamble	...	Worker - Phosphate Mine
Chris Glaze	...	Michael J. Everhart
Curtis Hawkins	...	Worker - Phosphate Mine
Cheryl Hunter	...	Dr. Betsy Richards
C.J. Johnson	...	Road Worker
Efi Kamara	...	Worker - Phosphate Mine
Doug Kisgen	...	Levi Sternberg
Chris Koeberl	...	Netherlands Scientist
Kathleen Leighton	...	Texas Collector 1
Brian Lemmons	...	Worker - Phosphate Mine
Michael McConnohie	...	George Sternberg (voice)
Nissam Mina	...	Forman - Phosphate Mine
Casey Myers	...	Texas Collector 2 (as Casey Meyers)
Dan Nichols	...	Martin
Frank Novak	...	George Sternberg (60s)
Liam Owen	...	Photographer
Shari Phillips	...	Camping Mother Voice
Thea Phillips	...	Camping Daughter (voice)
James Rudnick	...	Australian Scientist 1
Charlotte Salem	...	Camping Daughter
Joe Salem	...	Camping Father
Liev Schreiber	...	Himself - Narrator (voice)
Michael Sorich	...	South Dakota Scientist 1 (voice)
Jeffrey Staab	...	George Sternberg (as Jeff Staab)
Kevin Stidham	...	Australian Scientist 2
Walley Thornton	...	Reporter
Jack van Dijk	...	Netherlands Scientist
Caroline Vinciguerra	...	Mom
Christopher Wheatley	...	North Dakota Collector (as Chris Wheatley)

Directed by
Sean MacLeod Phillips

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Mose Richards

Produced by
Neal Allen	....	line producer
Jenn Bastian	....	coordinating producer
Jini Durr	....	producer
Tony Hewett	....	coordinating producer
Tim Kelly	....	executive producer
Erica Meehan	....	associate producer
Lisa Truitt	....	producer

Original Music by
Richard Evans
Peter Gabriel
David Rhodes

Cinematography by
T.C. Christensen

Film Editing by
Jonathan P. Shaw

Casting by
Heather Laird

Production Design by
Chas. Butcher

Art Direction by
Diana Goodwin

Makeup Department
Angel Radefeld	....	makeup department head

Production Management
Kaylene Carlson	....	unit production manager
Angela Carroll	....	production supervisor: Bahamas
Rick Gordon	....	post-production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
David Bryant	....	second assistant director

Art Department
James Barr	....	art department pa
Mark Dubeau	....	creature designer
Rebekah Heath	....	art department pa
Charles Ratteray	....	storyboard artist
Natalie Richards	....	illustrator
Phillip Walter	....	art laborer

Sound Department
Keith Bilderbeck	....	sound designer
Cory Mandel	....	sound re-recording mixer
Greg Mauer	....	foley mixer
Rick Owens	....	foley artist
Miguel Rivera	....	supervising sound editor
Ron Sunsinger	....	foley supervisor

Visual Effects by
Romulo Adriano Jr.	....	visual effects coordinator
Santo Alex M.	....	software engineer: research & development
Sylvain Allard	....	modeller
Robin Aristorenas	....	visual effects supervisor: Cinevision Visual Effects
Rodrigo Armendariz	....	digital artist
Johnathan R. Banta	....	visual effects supervisor
Suzette Barnett	....	digital artist
Nestor Benito	....	digital compositor
Beth Block	....	compositor
Karl Armen Boudjikanian	....	layout artist
Paul Brannan	....	lead digital artist
Dany Brouillette	....	senior systems administrator
Eloi Brunelle	....	digital compositor
Patrick Coiteux	....	lead texture artist
Patrick Comtois	....	layout
Mathew Cooling	....	Paleo anatomist
Marc Cote	....	visual effects exective producer
Marc-Andre Dostie	....	texture artist
Rodney Dowers	....	system administrator: Damnfx
Mark Dubeau	....	artistic supervisor
Mark Dubeau	....	creative supervisor: Creature Design
Amélie Dubois	....	compositor
Maxime Ducharme	....	matchmover
Antoine Durr	....	CGI supervisor: Floq FX, Culver City, CA
Moritz Eiche	....	digital stereoscopic 3D compositor: Scanline VFX
Colin Feist	....	compositing supervisor
Jean-François Ferland	....	digital compositor
Bernat Ferragut	....	lead layout artist
Richard Flores	....	lead character animator
Jean François Fontaine	....	texture artist
Thomas Ganshorn	....	Flowline research & development: Scanline VFX
Daniel Gaudreau	....	digital compositor
Jack Geist	....	visual effects producer
James M. Goodman	....	tools developer
Dominic Guilmette	....	lead lighting technical director
Dean Gula	....	visual effects coordinator
Fouad Hafiz	....	layout artist
Simon Halpern	....	previs artist: Proof, Inc.
Paul Haman	....	digital artist
David Harrisson	....	digital compositor
Chris Harvey	....	rigging technical director
Craig Hayes	....	visual effects consultant
Konstantin Hristozov	....	lead compositor
Gabrielle Jochym	....	texture artist
Jason Jue	....	digital compositor
Olivier Junquet	....	senior effects technical director
Kelly Rae Kenan Green	....	visual effects coordinator (as Kelly Rae Kenan)
Ivo Klaus	....	3D artist: Scanline VFX
Cesar Kounkou	....	visual effects coordinator
Bartek Kujbida	....	lead character animator
Eric Lalumiere	....	visual effects executive producer
Josee Lalumiere	....	visual effects executive producer: DamnFX (2007)
Nancy Lamontagne	....	visual effects coordinator
Nadine Lavoie	....	character animator
Sang Ho Lee	....	character animator
Jesse Lehrman	....	software developer
Xavier Lestourneaud	....	digital effects artist
Eric Leven	....	visual effects consultant
Danny Levesque	....	digital effects artist
Dan Levitan	....	pre-visualization
Natalija Lomakina	....	digital effects artist
Doug Luberts	....	assistant visual effects editor: previz
Julian Mann	....	flocking animation
Christian Menard	....	texture artist: DamnFx
Stephen Menzies	....	visual effects line producer: DamnFx
Michel Mielke	....	visual effects producer
Taylor Moll	....	texture artist
Martin Mousseau	....	character animator
C. Michael Neely	....	pre-visualization supervisor: Proof Inc
Vissal Ong Nguon	....	digital compositor
Jeremy Nicolaides	....	stereoscopic supervisor: Sassoon Film Design
Robert Pellerin	....	character animator
Martin Perron	....	systems administrator
Sean MacLeod Phillips	....	visual effects supervisor
Dominic Piché	....	layout artist
Tom Piedmont	....	dustbuster
John Pierce	....	stereoscopic compositor
Oliver Pilarski	....	Flowline research & development: Scanline VFX
Raminta Poskute	....	visual effects coordinator
Darryl Purdy	....	lead character animator
Yves Rainville	....	lead modeler
Michael Ralla	....	digital stereoscopic 3D compositor: Scanline VFX
Jun Ren	....	animator
Vincent Reumont	....	character animator
Patrick J. Rodriguez	....	previz artist
David Roussel	....	render wrangler
Denis Sabourin	....	character animator
Christina Schmidlin	....	visual effects producer
Roman Schmidt	....	visual effects
Peter Skovsbo	....	visual effects executive producer
Laurent Solignac	....	lighting technical director
Anthony Sparapani	....	animation director
Pascale St-Pierre	....	digital artist
Jubinville Steve	....	digital sculptor
Jubinville Steve	....	modeler
Laurent Taillefer	....	lead artist
Laurent Taillefer	....	lead technical director
Marco Trandafilov	....	modeler
Lauren van Houten	....	animator
Kym Watts	....	rendering
Jerry Weil	....	digital artist
Derek Wentworth	....	visual effects supervisor
Cedric Wincke	....	modeler
David J. Witters	....	supervisor
Rachel Wyn Dunn	....	compositing supervisor
Yan Xin	....	render wrangler
Kim Yong-Kyun	....	visual effects compositing supervisor: DAMNfx
Bob Froehlig	....	technology consultant: Floq FX, Culver City, CA (uncredited)

Camera and Electrical Department
Bobby Adams	....	key grip
Bryan Ashford	....	dolly grip
Spencer Blessman	....	grip
Dwight Campbell	....	gaffer
Karen Foglesong	....	electrician
Mike L. Germaine	....	best boy grip: Bahamas
Tom Jedrzejcyk	....	best boy grip (as Tanqueray)
Brian Lataille	....	gyron camera operator
Sean MacLeod Phillips	....	director of photography: second unit
Michael Stoecker	....	grip

Animation Department
Matteo Ceccotti	....	animator
Ben Folkman	....	lead animator: Cinevision Visual Effects
Chris Ilvento	....	character animator
Dan Kessler	....	animator
Floyd Raymer	....	animator
Mark Reisch	....	animation supervisor
Anthony Sparapani	....	animation director
Lauren van Houten	....	animator

Casting Department
Jen Dobnikar	....	casting assistant
Joshua Orr	....	casting assistant (as Josh Orr)
Chrystal Grondin	....	extras casting assistant (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Martina Betz	....	post-production assistant
Jason Fabbro	....	digital intermediate colorist: Digital 3D
Damon Fecht	....	associate editor
Vinod Gundapaneni	....	post-production assistant
Miya Lau	....	post-production coordinator
Dan Muscarella	....	color timer

Music Department
David Beal	....	music supervisor
Peter Gabriel	....	executive music producer
Tamas Kurina	....	music recording engineer
Cory Mandel	....	music editor

Other crew
Rodrigo Armendariz	....	digital artistry
Kirk Aulin	....	location manager
Deborah Bacquel	....	production accountant
Martina Betz	....	production assistant
Billy Braithwaite	....	marine coordinator
Robert T. Curry	....	production assistant
Lucas De La Torre	....	digital artistry
Edwin Escalante	....	post production (as Ed Escalante)
Linda Henry	....	composition
C.J. Johnson	....	production office assistant
Michael J. Kinney	....	on-set coordinator
Andrew Leggett	....	marine
Christopher Liu	....	data management
James Manke	....	post-production manager
Cameron McCoy	....	assistant production coordinator
Terrence McDaniel	....	office production assistant
Stuart McFarlane	....	additional first assistant
Tom Piedmont	....	digital artistry
Dave Quittman	....	production intern
Christopher Romano	....	digital artistry
Andy Romero	....	key set production assistant
Michael Scheffler	....	systems administrator
Jen Stirling	....	assistant location manager
Stephan Trojansky	....	cgi effects supervisor
Jerry Weil	....	digital artistry
Chris Weller	....	digital artistry
Bjoern Wortmann	....	project manager
Chie Yoshii	....	composition
Anne-Marie Zarrelli	....	production coordinator

Thanks
Valentine Kass	....	special thanks
Hunt Martin	....	special thanks

Production Companies

• Day's End Pictures
• National Geographic Giant Screen Films

Distributors

• Fantasia-Film & Company Verleih (2008) (Germany) (theatrical)
• National Geographic Giant Screen Films (2007) (worldwide) (theatrical)
• Omniversum, Den Haag (200?) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Pan Vision Oy (2009) (Finland) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Fake Studio (VFX)
• Proof
• Sassoon Film Design (3D stereo conversion)
• ScanlineVFX

Other Companies

• Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment  cranes
• Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment  dollies
• Gemini 3D Camera  3D camera systems
• MacLeod Productions  3D camera systems

Also Known As:

Runtime:

40 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Hebrew

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:Unrated | Finland:K-3 | Netherlands:6

Company:

Day's End Pictures

Almost "Walking With Dinosaurs" quality

This short documentary was a bit of a mixed bag. First the 3-D and CG: the director obviously was more at ease with the the extensive CG then the live action elements, because the 3-D work was jarring and uneven during then. Part of the problem occurs when the live-action segments are shot too closely to the target. There is a sequence in a car and it took me ten seconds at least to get adjusted to the 3-D. These are not problems that occurred in vista shots.

The CG work was fantastic and the 3-D involving it was equally as impressive. I saw Meet the Robinsons in 3-D this spring and am eagerly awaiting whatever other 3-D offers there are in store like Beowolf and Avatar.

I hate to keep ragging on the live-action elements, but the acting was wretched too. Apparently it is difficult finding somebody who will have all of 30 seconds of screen time and maybe 20 words of dialogue to not sound like they're reading off of a teleprompter. It is nice to see and having a 5-year it is nice to be able to show and explain to him how we can and do know these things about creatures that died out millions of years ago, but with such wooden acting it makes me just sit and wait until the CG behemoths come tearing across the screen again.