Amazing Dinoworld is a 2019 NHK-produced 8K documentary mini-series exploring how recent fossil discoveries are reshaping our understanding of dinosaurs and marine reptiles. From the outset, the project presented two major challenges: capturing stable 8K aerial footage and staging action scenes on real locations without any physical dinosaurs present. To address the first, I designed and built a custom 8K aerial camera platform (described in more detail below). The second challenge was solved through close collaboration with the VFX team and extensive on-set rehearsals, with crew members standing in for the dinosaurs so that I could with the camera react to real movement. After repeated rehearsals, I've filmed the final takes without any people in frame, relying on precise timing, memory of the action, and compensation for the dinosaurs’ true scale — resulting in far more realistic and convincing VFX composites.
