Dec 13, 2006

Training for Success

Though I've made you wait a little while for my next video upload I assure you the wait has been worthwhile (can't believe how long it takes on youtube... 30 mins for this one part!!!). Today you are being treated to what has occasionally been called Prehistoric Insanities best movie of all time.

That's right. Today you get the first part of the Unofficial Royal Tyrrell Museum Staff Training Video... You also get the first part of it's production history...

It's origins go back to the X-mas break of 2003. I visited Dan up in Edmonton drop off the completed 03 summer video. After watching the 03 movie we both were kinda primed by our success, and started thinking about future projects. One of us mentioned a training video for the new staff of the upcoming summer.

Before we knew it we had some great ideas for such a project. Quickly the story behind how Traumador the Tyrannosaur got his staff uniform was envisioned as the perfect platform for such a video. It provided the necessary elements to easily incorporate the educational components while still having a fun setting and cast to keep it entertaining.

Where this went from ideal brain storming about such a project to an actual serious idea for a pitch was the development of a central reoccurring joke.

Now the irony is today this joke didn't survive into the final edition for the most part. Through the editing and censoring phase of this production (a story for the next post) the rent joke was nearly all but lost from the movie (I posted the Phil Currie contribution, and Traumador still asks Craig for rent in this clip).

With this one central joke though the rough skeleton of this movie would be laid out. Known at that point as Rent a Training Video, I returned to Calgary, and for the next few weeks hammered out a vague script, and simultaneously pitched the idea to Brad in Drumheller.

Towards the end of Jan not only were me and Dan rehired, but also given the green light to film the training video with the intention of it's being used for training. We also recruited our good friend Will (who at that stage looked like he was returning to the museum as well), and set for production during the Feburary 2004 reading week... What followed next waits for telling in another post along with part 2!

So please enjoy the first installment:

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