Launched in the USA in 1991 and shown on Rede Globo between 1992 and 1995, Dinosaur family it was almost like your average family sitcom… with the difference that the characters were stegosaurs, triceratops and tyrannosaurs. But the technology that enabled this fantasy, created by the same company as the Muppets, was anything but Jurassic. See how it worked:
mechanical interpretation
The actors wore a “helmet mask” made of latex foam, with a fiberglass skull. It contained about 26 very small servomotors, responsible for moving eyes, mouth, eyebrows, forehead and other features. Combined, they allowed for various types of facial expressions.
Operant positive!
In addition, the “big head” still had space for a microphone, which captured the actor’s real voice, and an earphone, so that he could receive orders from the director. The completed costume was so complex that each one took up to 16 weeks to produce.
– (Dinosaur Family/Disney/Playback)
behind the cameras
It was up to the actor just to say the lines and walk around the set. Facial expressions were controlled remotely, with a special glove connected to a computer. Every movement the puppeteer made with the glove was interpreted by a program and sent via radio to the mask.
past and future
Every four weeks of recording, you had to take one off to do system maintenance. “It was a very innovative technology for the time”, says Peter Brooke, from Jim Henson`s Creature Shop, the company responsible. “And we were able to improve it over the four years of the series.”