'Beasts' rocks 'Croc'
'Dino' walker Tim Haines talks of how he made science sexy
But on Dec. 9, "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts" savaged its NBC rival in the Stateside fight for eyeballs, gaining an audience of 7.1 million against "SuperCroc's" 6.8 million.
It's a relief for executive producer Tim Haines, the British brains behind "Beasts," the sequel to his "Walking With Dinosaurs."
"I can understand why others want to do the same thing because it's colorful, great telly," Haines says. "But to stick it on at the same time was lunacy because it hit both our auds."
The new spec, which covers a menagerie of extinct animals which roamed the earth after dinosaurs died out, is an international co-production that lines up British pubcaster the BBC with the U.S.'s Discovery Channel, Japan's TV Asahi & BS Asahi and ProSieben in Germany.
"Beasts" ratings success in the U.S. is impressive given that the three-hour spec ran on the Discovery Channel, which is available in only 85% of U.S. homes, while the two-hour "Croc" aired on NBC and the National Geographic Channel.
It is already the U.S.'s highest-rated doc for 2001 and is notching up impressive auds in the U.K, where it is showing in six half-hour segs. To date it has been sold to 21 countries, including Australia, Spain and Germany.
But it will have to go some to repeat the phenomenal success of "Dinosaurs," which was seen by 400 million people worldwide after its bow in 1999.
Haines, 41, was a producer working for the BBC Science department in 1996 when he came up with the ground-breaking idea that sent his career into overdrive.
"My boss Jana Bennett browbeat Alan Yentob, who was then head of production, into letting me do a pilot," he says. "It helped being a very simple idea, and the response from most people was, 'Great … if you can do it.'"
Industrial Light & Magic in the U.S. quoted $10,000 a second for the special effects that would bring the dinosaurs to life. The little-known FrameStore in the U.K. came up with the thriftier $4.3 million for the entire three-hour series.
Pilot takes off
Haines raised $140,000 from the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and together with Mike Milne, head of computer animation at FrameStore, made what Haines calls "a cranky old six-minute pilot --but it persuaded them."
The rest is ancient history. "Dinosaurs" cost $8.8 million to make, won a slew of awards worldwide and drew mammoth auds in Blighty, where the press dubbed Haines "the savior of the BBC," an epithet that makes him squirm. "I prefer 'the Toast of Krakow,' which I got in Poland," he jokes.
It also helped redefine event programming at the BBC, according to John Lynch, creative director of BBC Specialist Factual Programming
"'Dinosaurs' was a brilliant idea that made us realise you can tackle such things in a blockbuster way," he says. "Tim opened up the science to people who wouldn't normally be interested in that sort of thing.
"A landmark series is the ultimate statement. We've always done them, but now they have to be bigger and bolder to get noticed in a crowded sked. Tim did that successfully. The trick for the BBC now is to spot the next landmark."
Exex hope that will be "Beasts." It cost $10.4 million because "fur and feathers are more difficult to do in computer terms," says Haines who developed a passion for dinosaurs as a boy growing up in the East Sussex village of Duddleswell. He went on to study marine biology and entomology at Bangor University in Wales.
Going digital
"Beasts" is the first fully interactive non-sports program on British TV. Viewers can call up parallel channels showing how a scene is made, how scientists know about the animal, choose a more scientific narration or pull up fascinating facts.
"The BBC is really proud of this, because everyone is looking at the future of TV and trying to define how people will use it," Haines says.
The appeal of interactive "Beasts," which is not yet available in the U.S., proves that auds are ready for more complex ideas in docs and dramas, and the enhanced service has already won a BAFTA award.
"Dinosaurs" allowed Haines to strike out on his own as a freelance executive producer after 14 years with the Beeb. While "Beasts" was in production, he set up the Bob Hoskins starrer "Lost Worlds" for the BBC, which he describes as "Edwardians running away from an allosaurus in 1908."
He also recently started his own shingle, appropriately dubbed Impossible Pictures, with producer/partner Jasper James in London.
The pair have an $8 million slate of dinosaur projects, kicking off with "Hunt for Giant Claw" -- a rare therizinosaurus -- with the BBC and Discovery.
"We've done a straight, natural history format twice now, but we're ready to push the envelope and introduce new ideas," Haines says. "And we're keen to spread into different genres. We've a signed a co-production deal with drama indie Box TV here for a talking-animal drama I've come up with. It'll be fun."
