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Ultimate Dino Remix 2005 is a short film about lesbians, dinosaurs, breakfast cereal, and the power of rock.
To catch the eye of the cheerleader of her dreams, geeky high schooler Wendy enlists the help of her friends in a scheme to collect enough cereal box tops to send away for a pet dinosaur. But when tragedy strikes in a back alley, Wendy learns that sometimes, all you need to do is rock.
Sponsored by production grants from Studio 22 Productions, the Northwestern University School of Communication Dean's Advisory Council, and the Northwestern University Women's Center; product donations from Kodak, Elmer's, and The Cheerleading Company of Dallas; Ultimate Dino Remix 2005 was filmed over 5 days in the towns of Skokie and Evanston, Illinois. Our cast consisted of six Northwestern University undergraduates from the Theatre Department, one undergraduate from the Department of Radio/Television/Film, and two actors from the Chicago area. Our crew boasted over 60 students from five schools within Northwestern University at both the undergraduate and graduate level. For more details about our cast and crew, click here.
One of the assumptions made in this film is that rock music has saved the dinosaurs from extinction. Like any species that exists for millions of years, dinosaurs have adapted and evolved over time, and while they maintain most of the qualities of their ancestors, changes have happened. In the United States, most of the larger species were hunted into oblivion. The ones that remain live primarily in cities, living off garbage - much like rats. There are some species of dinosaur that are more commonly tamed and kept as pets, much like the dinosaurs sent by the Atomic Monster-O's company to cereal lovers across the country. But our ecosystem in and of itself is not enough to maintain the awesomeness of the dinosaurs, which is why they almost died out in the first place. Being the inventors of rock music and therefore species responsible for the continuing existence of the dinosaurs, most humans see it as their obligation to provide them with enough rock to keep them going.
We know that in real life there aren't actually any dinosaurs anymore, but we really wanted to have some in the movie. The solution? Puppets. Designed and constructed by Puppet Master Vanessa Soberanis and her crew over the course of roughly four months, the twenty-four dinosaur puppets featured in Ultimate Dino Remix 2005 ranged in size from eighteen inches to over six feet tall.
The papier-mache dinosaurs were made from chicken wire, toilet paper, newspaper, glue, and tempera paint. Rigging Master Paul Kruse and the puppet crew used everything from rope and pulleys to very large sticks to bring these dinosaurs to life.
But the puppets were not the only dinosaurs featured in Ultimate Dino Remix 2005. The dinosaur sent by the Atomic Monster-O's Cereal Company was Northwestern student (and our Music Director) Brock Wilbur, inside a dinosaur suit hand-made by Costume Designer Micah Stanek. The suit was made from a variety of materials, building the structure out of chicken wire, padding materials, a bicycle helmet, and a plastic sled, and covering it with a combination of fabric and papier-mache.
Finally, once we hit post-production, our Sound Designer John Pappas went to work creating noises for our dinosaurs to make. After experimenting with different processing techniques and working with everything up to and including the roars of young children, John's final result consisted of a combination of various animal sounds, primarily those of jungle cats and birds of prey.
Studio 22 Productions is the primary funder of student films at Northwestern University. They give out grants of various sizes in competetive cycles throughout the academic year, with a mission to provide students of all backgrounds and levels of study with the opportunity to learn about film production through hands-on experience. Ultimate Dino Remix 2005 is the first film funded by Studio 22 that features an openly homosexual protagonist, and by winning a grant from Studio 22 in the fall of 2005, Jackie Doherty became the first woman to direct for the student group in two years.
While we were early in stages of pre-production, Northwestern Radio/Television/Film student Stacy Peterson came to us with the idea for a documentary that would address the issues surrounding the production of our film. Commanding her own camera crew and editing team, Stacy made a fifteen-minute film, Dinos and Lesbians, which is available here as a special feature on the Ultimate Dino Remix 2005 DVD.