Werner Herzog-Narrated Dinotasia Heading to Blu-ray/DVD on November 6th

“The Sunday Times said it best,” says Erik Nelson, co-director and producer for the film, “when they called Dinotasia the ‘Sopranos of the Mesozoic.’”

Dintotasia is not a typical documentary or nature film, but a love letter to fans of bizarre, graphic novel-style film vignettes and classic film animation. Werner Herzog, an early fan of the project, lends his unique voice as narrator, serving as a tour guide to the strange world of Dinotasia. Here, in Dinotasia, audiences can feast their eyes on mind-blowing segments including the saga of a dinosaur family under siege from a rogue T-Rex, a post-apocalyptic narrative set after an asteroid destroys most of the earth, and a story about the mind-blowing adventures of a dinosaur after he ingests the Jurassic ancestor of a magic mushroom. Definitely not the narrative diet of most dinosaur films. In fact, not the diet of any film creation, save Dinotasia. The fact that all of these stories are based on hard science and the fossil record makes the end product even more amazing.

The animated stories are told in a purely visual style not seen since the classic era of silent filmmaking and the pioneering early work of Walt Disney Studios. Aside from brief “Herzogian” narration to introduce each sequence, the film has no character dialogue, just music and imagery. Based on current research findings from recent paleontology studies, Dinotasia uses CGI to bring to life many creatures that have been discovered in recent years. The back plates for the animated action were primarily shot in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, and in the old-growth forest of Humboldt County in Northern California.

Dinotasia was co-directed by Erik Nelson, best known for his work with Herzog on his documentary features including Grizzly Man and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, with David Krentz, the lead character designer for a number of Disney films, including John Carter and Dinosaur.