A documentary about the creation of the bronze Torosaurus statue now standing outside Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History will be shown on CPTV this week.
Titled "Creating the Peabody's Torosaurus: Dinosaur Science, Dinosaur Art," the documentary will air at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 28, and at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29. The film premiered on Jan. 24.
The documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges entailed in creating the scientifically accurate sculpture, which took 40 artisans a period of 36 months to make. At 7,350 pounds and 21 feet long, the bronze Torosaurus sculpture is the first full-size public work of a dinosaur in New England.
The documentary also shares the latest scientific knowledge about Torosaurus, a horned herbivorous dinosaur that lived at the end of the Cretaceous Period around 66 million years ago.
The Peabody Museum has a special connection to Torosaurus. The dinosaur was named by Othniel C. Marsh (1831-1899), a Yale professor who is widely considered the most influential American vertebrate paleontologist of the 19th century.
In one scene of "Creating the Peabody's Torosaurus," on-camera host Jacques Gauthier, Peabody curator of vertebrate paleontology and the primary scientific adviser for the project, demonstrates the skeletal structure, musculature and locomotion of Torosaurus to Michael Anderson, a sculptor who has worked at the Peabody for more than 17 years.
Anderson oversaw the project from concept to final installation, working with scientists to get the science right and with artisans to create a realistic sculpture.
New Haven-based filmmakers Ann Johnson Prum and Karyl K. Evans, who teaches documentary filmmaking at Southern Connecticut State University, produced "Creating the Peabody's Torosaurus: Dinosaur Science, Dinosaur Art."
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