Editing Walking with Dinosaurs (section)

=== Pre-production and filming ===
{{multiple image
| caption_align     = center
| header_align      = center
<!-- Essential parameters -->| align             = right
| direction         = vertical<!-- Images -->
| width             = 220
<!--image 1-->| image1            = Araucaria araucana - Parque Nacional Conguillío por lautaroj - 001.jpg
| width1            = 
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = <!--image 2-->
| image2            = 0 Araucaria columnaris New Caledonia.jpg
| width2            = 
| alt2              = 
| caption2          = <!-- Footer -->
| footer_background = 
| footer_align      = <!-- left (default), center, right -->
| footer            = [[Conguillío National Park]] in Chile (top) and the [[Isle of Pines (New Caledonia)|Isle of Pines]] in [[New Caledonia]] (bottom) were among the filming locations for ''Walking with Dinosaurs''
}}
Haines spent two years speaking with scientists and reading both primary and secondary palaeontological sources to create the stories for ''Walking with Dinosaurs''.<ref name=":11">Haines, T., 1999, ''"Walking with Dinosaurs": A Natural History'', BBC Books, "Introduction"</ref> Though the goal was to make the programme feel as if it was just relaying natural events without intervention, as actual nature documentaries, ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' required Haines to plot out narratives and create storyboards.<ref name=":14">{{Cite web |title=BEN BARTLETT: Music For Walking With Dinosaurs |url=https://www.soundonsound.com/people/ben-bartlett-music-walking-dinosaurs |access-date=2022-05-01 |website=www.soundonsound.com}}</ref>

Production of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' took 18 months.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last=Benton |first=Michael J. |author-link=Michael Benton |date=2001 |title=The Science of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' |url=https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.bristol.ac.uk/dist/5/537/files/2019/08/2003scienceWWD.pdf |journal=Teaching Earth Sciences |volume=24 |pages=371–400}}</ref> It was essential to the vision of ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' that the age of the dinosaurs be represented as accurately as possible based on current scientific understanding. In addition to Haines's own research, the production team for the first six months devoted all their time to research and carefully chose particular moments during the Mesozoic that were most well-studied and well-understood by scientists<ref name=":0" /> and which would be representative of the era and showcase interesting animals.<ref name=":4" /> In addition to the producers doing their own research, over a hundred experts were consulted for every aspect of the series.<ref name=":7" />

Slowly, the production team focused in on animals about whom sufficient information was known to create larger narratives. As an example, ''Coelophysis'' was selected for ''New Blood'' (the first episode) because it was a typical early dinosaur which scientists knew a lot about. Since the series also aimed to showcase the environment and other animals around the "star" dinosaurs, ''Coelophysis'' also presented an opportunity since it had been found at [[Ghost Ranch]], [[New Mexico]], one of the world's richest fossil beds.<ref name=":11" /> The behaviour of the animals depicted was primarily based on fossil evidence when possible (such as bite marks and fossil gut contents) and on behaviours in modern animals. Sometimes, behaviour was just reasoned guesses. For instance, the small [[pterosaur]] ''[[Anurognathus]]'' is shown in ''Time of the Titans'' (the second episode) to use the massive [[Sauropoda|sauropod]] ''[[Diplodocus]]'' as a feeding platform to hunt insects. This was based on certain modern birds; there is no evidence of such behaviour in pterosaurs and it would be difficult to prove with fossil evidence.<ref name=":11" />

In the summer of 1997 and in the winter of 1998, Haines and fellow producer Jasper James took a small crew<ref name=":0" /> of eight people<ref name=":12">{{Cite web |last=Mike |title=The People Behind Prehistoric Animal Animatronics and Puppetry |url=https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2010/10/25/4664347.html |access-date=2022-04-30 |website=Everything Dinosaur Blog |date=25 October 2010 |language=en-US}}</ref> to travel around the world to places where ancient plant life reminiscent of plants during the Mesozoic still existed; locations that could be used as backdrops for the series. Of particular importance was an absence of [[grass]], which at the time was believed to not have existed during the Mesozoic. Filming took several weeks and locations included the Labyrinth in [[Tasmania]], the [[Beech–maple forest|beech gap]] in the [[South Island]], the [[redwood]] forests of California, the [[araucaria]] forests in [[New Caledonia]] and southern Chile<ref name=":0" /> and the Bahamas.<ref name=":4" /> Shooting at a single location usually lasted for about four weeks.<ref name=":12" /> New Caledonia was particularly difficult to shoot in since the [[French Army]] were doing exercises there simultaneously and the film crew kept bumping into soldiers and tanks.<ref name=":12" />