Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your show tonight. With luck it will be a success and have a few seasons. Fantastic job. God bless!

Well I'm interested to know what people thought of it. It was certainly "different", and seems to have polarised people's opinions more than most "natural history" shows. Personally I think it's a bit of fun that helps get people interested in science.

I saw a program last night called "Shark Battlefield", which attempted a different strategy - educate people about natural history by fabricating a fictional story and using library footage of sharks to piece together parts of the story. That went down like a lead balloon in the local paper! In a world where most people are turning off natural history shows, there's a lot of experimentation going on by film-makers to make them turn back on again. Nobody really knows where the boundaries lie... or whether they can change people's "expectations".

Adam

Well, from the purely entertaining point of view I thought the show was very fun to watch. I had a couple of my buddies watch it also and thier opinion is very much the same. I was wondering how you determined the amount of pressure your jaws could produce was very realistic compared to the real deal? It is my understanding that hydralics can pretty much produce as much pressure as you like provided the pump driving them is big enough. How does using this compare to actually getting a realistic comparison with muscle tissue? The reason I bring this up is because the shark expert had no idea how much pressure could be produced by shark bite. It left the impression that the same amount of hydralic force used to close the croc jaws was applied to the shark and just the mechanical advantage of each was getting measured. Probably a very small point, but I think it doesn't really give that portion of the show much credibility. Am I off in this thinking?? Thanks alot.
Chris

This is an interesting point. The engineers were complaining that with more time and a greater budget, they'd have been able to place the pistons more realistically and exert greater forces... although by doing so they seriously risked cracking the aluminum casts. This led to several comments about how artificial materials still couldn't match natural designs, despite our best efforts.

Each animal model applied different force to the pressure gauge because the jaw mechanics differed, even though the pistons were similar each time. This helped get the point across that different jaw shapes are designed for different roles. With the shark, the jaws were short and stubby and not designed to create enormous pressure, yet the razor-sharp teeth made up for it to create a slicing mechanism. The croc on the other hand had jaws designed for both grabbing and crushing - blunt teeth with great pressure applied.

The point of crushing objects with the mechanical skulls was more to show how much pressure was needed to burst, split, crack and slice different items that were analogous to flesh and bone. The problem here is that this point didn't come across clearly in the program. There was no relation between the real animal bite forces, and the ones generated by the skulls, but they did demonstrate how those skulls worked.

Adam

>>Well, from the purely entertaining point of view I thought the show was very fun to watch. I had a couple of my buddies watch it also and thier opinion is very much the same. I was wondering how you determined the amount of pressure your jaws could produce was very realistic compared to the real deal? It is my understanding that hydralics can pretty much produce as much pressure as you like provided the pump driving them is big enough. How does using this compare to actually getting a realistic comparison with muscle tissue? The reason I bring this up is because the shark expert had no idea how much pressure could be produced by shark bite. It left the impression that the same amount of hydralic force used to close the croc jaws was applied to the shark and just the mechanical advantage of each was getting measured. Probably a very small point, but I think it doesn't really give that portion of the show much credibility. Am I off in this thinking?? Thanks alot.
>>Chris

I had been waiting all month for that to air ever since seeing the first advertisment for it. Unfortunately I must say that I was a little disappointed by it. Don't take this as any form of criticism towards you or what you do. It isn't. I just think that the show (concept) has a lot more potential than how it turned out. First of all let me say that I was indeed fascinated by how you guys made the aluminum skull and mechanical works. That was great. But I was disapointed in two things mainly. 1. How long it was all dragged out until we got to "The fight". and 2. I seriously don't think that a lot was put into the fight itself. I have never owned or kept either animal, but I feel it is safe to say that I am familiar with crocodilians as a whole and quite frankly that fight didn't seem at all realistic. I have known from day one that the shark would probably win. I was not surprised about that outcome. I base this on the sheer cutting ability of the shark's teeth. But the fight itself,.. I think it would be more of a chaotic bite fest than a bite and release and jockey for position thing like what was shown. Plus,.. even in that limited scenario,.. couldn't the croc hold it's breath for a LOT longer than a couple of minutes? I know that under great physical stress that they use a lot more oxygen,.. but wouldn't the period of time it could hold its breath still be considerable?

Anyhow,.. all things considered,... not a bad show and I am glad that you guys are making programs like this. Keep it up if you can.

(by the way,.. I think the elephant will prevail due to sheer weight, strength, and downward force by pushing down on the rhino)

>>Well I'm interested to know what people thought of it. It was certainly "different", and seems to have polarised people's opinions more than most "natural history" shows. Personally I think it's a bit of fun that helps get people interested in science.
>>
>>I saw a program last night called "Shark Battlefield", which attempted a different strategy - educate people about natural history by fabricating a fictional story and using library footage of sharks to piece together parts of the story. That went down like a lead balloon in the local paper! In a world where most people are turning off natural history shows, there's a lot of experimentation going on by film-makers to make them turn back on again. Nobody really knows where the boundaries lie... or whether they can change people's "expectations".
>>
>>Adam
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Believe in yourself and your abilities and you can accomplish anything.

All valid points, Brian. Quite a bit of what we did was cut from the final version, some of it I can understand, some of it would have helped flesh out the animals a bit more - not sure why they didn't include it.

Dan and I reviewed the script for the final CGI fight, and in its early state it was pretty unrealistic. Of course, a real fight would have lasted only a few seconds, but the producers needed to extend it to a minute. We tried hard to find a compromise between what looked good, what was easy to animate, and what was realistic. We did not entirely succeed!

The croc shouldn't have ripped the entire pectoral fin off like that (something that would have sent the shark into an uncontrolled spin), nor should it have taken such a great bite of its nose, and the comatose sinking was definitely not our idea! But the guy doing the CGI had very little time to get it right, and I'm amazed he got it looking as good as he did in the short time available. It's very easy to criticise the final version, but it's a lot better than the original scripted version!

No, the croc wouldn't have needed to rush up for air like that, but then it wouldn't have been chasing the shark down in the first place. Dan and I both agreed that the shark had to hit hard and fast to surprise and disable the croc. If the croc seriously damaged the shark (highly unlikely) the shark would almost certainly back off. But this is television, and it's not intended to be taken as gospel - frustrating perhaps for us, because we think a realistic fight would have had a greater impact than something viewers could easily pick apart, even if it lasted significantly longer.

I was involved in four episodes in total, and definitely noticed a change in emphasis as the series went on. I think you'll find the later episodes place more emphasis on realism and science, but ultimately it's entertainment. I've worked on a lot of television, so I've learned to expect a certain degree of "information loss" between what is filmed and what is aired, but it's hard to predict.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the later episodes.

Adam