The Pterodactyls

Creator: Ray Harryhausen

Film: One Million years B.C 1966

Pterodactyls Video Clip

 

As Luana and the rest of the rock tribe take a dip in the water a Pterodactyl swoops down and begins to attack them looking for the next meal for its young. In the midst of the attack the Pterodactyl grabs Luana in its claws and flies away with her. Tumak is able to follow the creature across the plains toward the sea, The creature takes Luana and is about to feed her to her young when a second Pterodactyl appears and the two dinosaurs begin their aerial fight. With all the ruckus of the fight the first Pterodactyl loses his grip on

 

 

Luana and she falls to sea, she lumbers to the shore clearly in pain and collapses. The second Pterodactyl is able to kill the first one with bites to its neck it falls from the sky behind a sea cliff, by the time Tumak arrives Luana is nowhere to be found. The Pterodactyl begins to feast on the young of the first creature and Tumak believes that this is Luana who the dinosaur is feasting on and walks away...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pterodactyls Facts

 

• To simulate the down draft created by the wings of such a flying reptile, they used a wind machine to disturb the water and dust at the edge of the pool.

 

• The nest was a miniature mounted by means of a matte on top of a real rock shot on location and projected as a rear projection plate.

 

• Ray confesses that he was not looking forward the animation of the flying Pterodactyls for a number of reasons, animating flying creatures requires an enormous amount of preparation as well as a complex system of overhead wires which were used in this scene.

 

Credit: An Animated Life

By Tony Dalton