Dinamation
Encyclopedia
Dinamation International Corporation was a robotics effects company based in San Juan Capistrano
, Santa Ana
, and Tustin
, California
, USA. It was founded in 1986 by former airline pilot Chris Mays and some neighbors and dropped in March 2001. (A 2001 Wall Street Journal article describes the rise and fall and disappearance of its founder, Chris Mays.) Originally begun as a way to lease hand-made, one-of-a-kind, Japanese-produced robot dinosaurs to North American shopping malls, in time Dinamation defied its original mandate and came to produce its own production-line models for exhibit in science museum
s and zoo
s worldwide. Dinamation was a rare example of an American company following, improving upon, and then outpacing its Japanese rivals.
Dinamation started out with a dozen movie special effects technicians, sculptors, painters, and engineers housed in third-tier industrial spaces in Santa Ana, California, where municipal, safety and corporate oversight was minimal and creative freedom maximal. Given vague guidelines and a selection of consumer-grade dinosaur books for reference, they produced one "beta" show (which was sold, not leased) for a museum in Boston and also sold a display to the Mesa Southwest Museum in Phoenix, AZ, US (D.I.C. creatures are still on active exhibit there). Techniques improved (and so did scientific fidelity, up to a point, under the guidance of paleontologists Dr.s Robert Bakker and George Callison and given the contributions made by many skilled engineers, inventor/sculptors such as public artist Raymond Persinger
, movie effects artists Steve Koch (also designed paint schemes), Brian Sipe and Matt Croteau. By 1988, Dinamation had grown to 150 employees embedded in a complex corporate structure and operating out of a 39000 square feet (3,623.2 m²) facility in Tustin, California.
Museum attendances soared with every visit by the "Dinosaurs Alive!" shows and remained fairly high afterwards, boosting the revenues (and often the survival) of almost every venue. Dinamation was for a time quite successful, with exhibits around the world in important museums including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Geographic Museum, and the British Museum of Natural History.
At the end, under a cloud of financial mystery, over 700 American-made 'creatures' were left in limbo, scattered in science museums, trucks, and shipping containers across the United States and abroad. Some of the orphaned robots have become permanent parts of the displays in the museums that had shows running when the company folded. Other dinos were sold, lost, disassembled, disposed of, or recycled as spare parts for other dinos in better shape. Other final vestiges of Dinamation can be seen as ubiquitous uncredited photographs of the dinosaur robots and preproduction art, scattered in children's books, toy art, video backgrounds, and recycled magazine illustrations, as well as appearances in cinema, for example, Woody Allen's film, Alice. For viewing some of Dinamation's sculptures view www.DinosaurSculpture.com. This website shows several of the sculptures in process as well as completed sculptures in museum displays.
Some examples of Dinamation's sculptures can still be seen at the Otway Fly in Victoria, Australia. They can also be viewed at the Museum of Western Colorado's Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, Colorado. These include a Dilophosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Utahraptor, and Apatosaurus robots, along with Tyrannosaurus sculptures.
A (very) partial list of the Dinamation robot creatures:
and various neotonous 'baby' dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, whales, an 8-limbed "giant squid," giant insects, and versions of some animals from Dougal Dixon
's "Future Zoo."
San Juan Capistrano, California
San Juan Capistrano is a city in southern Orange County, California, located approximately southeast of Downtown Santa Ana. The current OMB metropolitan designation for San Juan Capistrano and the Orange County Area is “Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, CA.” The population was 34,593 at the 2010 census,...
, Santa Ana
Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana is the county seat and second most populous city in Orange County, California, and with a population of 324,528 at the 2010 census, Santa Ana is the 57th-most populous city in the United States....
, and Tustin
Tustin, California
-Top employers:According to the City's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Tustin had a population of 75,540. The population density was 6,816.7 people per square mile...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, USA. It was founded in 1986 by former airline pilot Chris Mays and some neighbors and dropped in March 2001. (A 2001 Wall Street Journal article describes the rise and fall and disappearance of its founder, Chris Mays.) Originally begun as a way to lease hand-made, one-of-a-kind, Japanese-produced robot dinosaurs to North American shopping malls, in time Dinamation defied its original mandate and came to produce its own production-line models for exhibit in science museum
Science museum
A science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...
s and zoo
Zoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
s worldwide. Dinamation was a rare example of an American company following, improving upon, and then outpacing its Japanese rivals.
Dinamation started out with a dozen movie special effects technicians, sculptors, painters, and engineers housed in third-tier industrial spaces in Santa Ana, California, where municipal, safety and corporate oversight was minimal and creative freedom maximal. Given vague guidelines and a selection of consumer-grade dinosaur books for reference, they produced one "beta" show (which was sold, not leased) for a museum in Boston and also sold a display to the Mesa Southwest Museum in Phoenix, AZ, US (D.I.C. creatures are still on active exhibit there). Techniques improved (and so did scientific fidelity, up to a point, under the guidance of paleontologists Dr.s Robert Bakker and George Callison and given the contributions made by many skilled engineers, inventor/sculptors such as public artist Raymond Persinger
Raymond Persinger
Artist Raymond Persinger has created sculptures for many public and private collections including the City of Brea, California, Chapman University and the National Geographic Museum. His work has been selected by prominent curators such as Dr...
, movie effects artists Steve Koch (also designed paint schemes), Brian Sipe and Matt Croteau. By 1988, Dinamation had grown to 150 employees embedded in a complex corporate structure and operating out of a 39000 square feet (3,623.2 m²) facility in Tustin, California.
Museum attendances soared with every visit by the "Dinosaurs Alive!" shows and remained fairly high afterwards, boosting the revenues (and often the survival) of almost every venue. Dinamation was for a time quite successful, with exhibits around the world in important museums including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Geographic Museum, and the British Museum of Natural History.
At the end, under a cloud of financial mystery, over 700 American-made 'creatures' were left in limbo, scattered in science museums, trucks, and shipping containers across the United States and abroad. Some of the orphaned robots have become permanent parts of the displays in the museums that had shows running when the company folded. Other dinos were sold, lost, disassembled, disposed of, or recycled as spare parts for other dinos in better shape. Other final vestiges of Dinamation can be seen as ubiquitous uncredited photographs of the dinosaur robots and preproduction art, scattered in children's books, toy art, video backgrounds, and recycled magazine illustrations, as well as appearances in cinema, for example, Woody Allen's film, Alice. For viewing some of Dinamation's sculptures view www.DinosaurSculpture.com. This website shows several of the sculptures in process as well as completed sculptures in museum displays.
Some examples of Dinamation's sculptures can still be seen at the Otway Fly in Victoria, Australia. They can also be viewed at the Museum of Western Colorado's Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, Colorado. These include a Dilophosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Utahraptor, and Apatosaurus robots, along with Tyrannosaurus sculptures.
A (very) partial list of the Dinamation robot creatures:
- Tyrannosaurus rexTyrannosaurusTyrannosaurus meaning "tyrant," and sauros meaning "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex , commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other...
, 1/2-size - Tyrannosaurus rexTyrannosaurusTyrannosaurus meaning "tyrant," and sauros meaning "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex , commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other...
, full-size - ApatosaurusApatosaurusApatosaurus , also known by the popular but scientifically deprecated synonym Brontosaurus, is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived from about 154 to 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period . It was one of the largest land animals that ever existed, with an average length of and a...
, 1/2-size - Stegosaurus stenopsStegosaurusStegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...
, 1/2-size - Allosaurus fragilisAllosaurusAllosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...
, full-size - TriceratopsTriceratopsTriceratops is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur which lived during the late Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period, around 68 to 65 million years ago in what is now North America. It was one of the last dinosaur genera to appear before the great Cretaceous–Paleogene...
sp., 1/2-size - ElasmosaurusElasmosaurusElasmosaurus + σαυρος sauros 'lizard') is a genus of plesiosaur with an extremely long neck that lived in the Late Cretaceous period , 80.5 million years ago.-Description:...
sp., full-size - DeinonychusDeinonychusDeinonychus was a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur. There is one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This 3.4 meter long dinosaur lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115–108 million years ago . Fossils have been recovered from the U.S...
sp., full-size - ParasaurolophusParasaurolophusParasaurolophus is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 76.5–73 million years ago. It was an herbivore that walked both as a biped and a quadruped. Three species are recognized: P. walkeri , P. tubicen, and the...
sp., 1/2-size - PachycephalosaurusPachycephalosaurusPachycephalosaurus is a genus of pachycephalosaurid dinosaur. It lived during the Late Cretaceous Period of what is now North America. Remains have been excavated in Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. It was an herbivorous or omnivorous creature which is only known from a single skull and a few...
sp., 1/2-size - DimetrodonDimetrodonDimetrodon was a predatory synapsid genus that flourished during the Permian period, living between 280–265 million years ago ....
sp., full-size - TenontosaurusTenontosaurusTenontosaurus is a genus of medium- to large-sized ornithopod dinosaur. The genus is known from the late Aptian to Albian ages of the middle Cretaceous period sediments of western North America, dating between 115 to 108 million years ago...
, full-size, dead - PterygotusPterygotusPterygotus is the second-largest known eurypterid, or sea scorpion and one of the largest arthropods of all time.-Description:...
sp., full-size - UtahraptorUtahraptorUtahraptor is a genus of theropod dinosaurs, including the largest known members of the family Dromaeosauridae. Fossil specimens date to the upper Barremian stage of the early Cretaceous period...
sp., full-size
and various neotonous 'baby' dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, whales, an 8-limbed "giant squid," giant insects, and versions of some animals from Dougal Dixon
Dougal Dixon
-Biography:Dixon studied geology and palaeontology at the University of St. Andrews and is best known for his illustrated works of speculative fiction, which largely concern "zoologies of the future": his own visions of how human beings and animals might evolve in millions of years' time...
's "Future Zoo."