Journey To The Beginning of Time - Production

Production

Zeman's use of unorthodox and seamless production techniques ensured that the film was free of jerky stop-motion sequences and grainy splicing of stop-motion with real-time footage that characterised Hollywood's animated films until the advent of computer-generated imagery. Filming took place on the Morava river near Bzenec town in the Czech Republic at the nature reserve named (in Czech) Osypané břehy and on studio sets.

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 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). Possibly for the sake of continuity, Zeman also used models or 2-D profiles when depicting extant species including bison, a python, flamingos, vultures, various antelopes, giraffes, and a jaguar (which was briefly spliced with footage of a real animal in one of only three instances of live species footage). In some scenes, miniature models of the actors and their boat/raft were also animated.

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). The use of 2-D profiles and 3-D models animated by concealed means had the advantage of filming in real time without the need for labour-intensive stop-motion. Two of the film's prehistoric species were not based on Burian images; the Stegosaurus and the Ceratosaurus with which it fights in a twilight scene (it remains unclear as to why Zeman did not use Burian images in these instances).

Cesta do Pravěku was made on what would be considered a small budget by western film-makers. It discussed the various time epochs as defined by palaeontologists and the types of animals typical of those periods, using information known in the 1950s. Whilst many animated feature films, particularly those in the US, used models of prehistoric animals in contrived sequences, Zeman instead depicted animals acting naturally in their own environments as if being filmed for a documentary, with the actors observing from the relative safety of the river. Such a philosophy was unusual at the time and was more typical of later TV productions that depicted prehistoric animals in an educational context (including the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts series) which became popular following the advent of computer-generated imagery that negated the need for time-consuming, highly-skilled manual animation. The original release of Zeman's film was 93 minutes, although the East German release had a slightly shorter running time.