64,000,000 Years Ago
1981 · 11m · Canada
Directed by Bill Maylone
Genres: animation, documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic
Lifelike scale models recreate the late Cretaceous — pre-CGI stop-motion that treats extinction with gravity.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
1981 pre-CGI stop-motion dinosaurs for kids — a nostalgia object and a craft document, but at the end of the day it's a children's edutainment short. Charming, limited.
Pre-CGI stop-motion Late Cretaceous treated with NFB gravity is the kind of children's-film craft that aged into accidental uncanniness twelve years before Jurassic Park. A modest curiosity rather than a discovery.
Pre-CGI scale models from 1981 NFB at 11:31 — Bill Maylone's stop-motion treats extinction with documentary gravity, which is rare for children's-content dinosaur material. The model work holding up as 'uncanny' is the craft win.