X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Journey to the Beginning of Time


Bill Cayton

He also released a partly re-filmed a version of the Czech animated feature Cesta do pravěku (Karel Zeman, 1955), replacing the opening and closing scenes with new footage and marketing it as Journey to the Beginning of Time.

Journey to the Beginning of Time

Zeman was heavily influenced by the palaeo-art of the celebrated Czech artist Zdeněk Burian (1905-1981), and much of the film's imagery was inspired by Burian reconstructions that had been painted under the guidance of Czech palaeontologist Josef Augusta (1903-1968).

In addition to numerous miniature animal models and 2-D 'profiles', Zeman also used larger models of heads and bodies of animals (including a full-size 'dead' Stegosaurus and swimming woolly rhino, Brontosaurus and Trachodon models), as well as life-sized model plants (as in the Carboniferous forest sequence, and the encounter with the Styracosaurus).

In some scenes, 2-D 'profile' images of animals originally depicted by Burian were filmed in real time (as in the Styracosaurus sequences), whilst other well-known Burian scenes were recreated in stop-motion using a combination of 2-and 3-D models (as in the Deinotherium and Uintatherium sequences).



see also