Greetings from TV land!

[Nik]

Hi All,

thought i'd say hey to everyone and introduce myself after being a lurker for while at this wonderful forum.

I work for a TV company in London and i'm currently working on a TV series for the BBC and Discovery which in a very loose sense follows on from some of the earlier documentaries we made, like Walking with Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters but this time looks at the deep sea in present day, especially all the things biologists and geologists would love to see first hand but haven't managed to. So this means we're going to give a few cephs the full computer graphics treatment as well as a few whales, jellies and other assorted deep sea lovelies.

I'm going to be pleading for help pretty soon because you know this subject WAAAAY better than me and we want to get our squid as accurate as possible, but i'll try not to hassle or ask too many stupid questions

Anyway, hello all and thanks for reading.

Nik

 

[joel_ang]

to TONMO.com Nik!!

We'll be glad to help in anyway possible

 

[Melissa]

Welcome to TONMO!

We're all eager to see the finished production - especially if TONMO members contribute! It sounds marvelous.

Melissa

 

[Phil]

Welcome Nik,

Very much look forward to this programme. I've been hoping for years someone would make a programme like this. If we are talking of a Tim Haines/Alastair Fothergill co-production we are in for a treat indeed.

As I'm sure you will have noticed there is some unique information and images available no-where else on the web in the "Science and Biology" section so I hope you find them useful and interesting.

If there is anything we can do to help you, we will all be more than happy to help!



Phil

 

[cthulhu77]

Wecome to Tonmo, from the other side of the pond!
greg

 

[Colin]

Hi Nik,
welcome to TONMO.com

sounds interesting...

what firm is it that you work for?

I have done some work with John Downer at BBC Bristol in the past and some others like Survival TV before it died.

Cheers
Colin

 

[Nik]

Hi All,

what a warm welcome! I wasn't sure how people here would react to the idea of a series on a subject close to their hearts as a few in the science community haven't been too keen on the kind of thing we produce so it's great to hear that you're looking forward to it - I hope we come up with the goods!

Tonmo has already been fantastically useful for the initial research I’ve been doing, especially the photos (our graphics people have an insatiable appetite for reference photos!) and the juicy details from Steve O, and it’s good to hear that people are willing to help me.

At the mo I don't want to say toooo much about the series as we're at early days yet and much is yet to be decided upon but it is indeed by roughly the same team as produced Dinos, Beasts, Sea Monsters etc (yes Phil, that includes Tim Haines here at Impossible Pictures) but will hopefully be even bigger and better!

Anyway, thanks for the welcome and I’m looking forward to extensive chats on squid feeding behaviour etc etc to come,

Nik

 

[Steve O'Shea]

BBC/Discovery co-pro you say. By hokey, that sounds interesting!

indeedy. CarlS is busy reconstructing Architeuthis online, and there's a thread on Phys & Bio that deals with this (latest images being those of the buccal bulb, oral face and transverse section of the arm and tentacle morphology. I've a number of animatics and graphic stills prepared by Meteor studios (Canada; not sure if still Discovery owned; they were when I was there last a few years ago), but you should have access to all of this anyway.

There have been a number of great reconstructions of squid to date, various companies, Architeuthis and Mesonychoteuthis (although nobody has tackled Galiteuthis yet), but there are other, slightly smaller yet equally fantastic squid out there that warrant some animation (Lepidoteuthis is a must .... especially if you were to look at reconstructing its life cycle/mating behaviour).

I've just bought a wee digital video camera, and will soon be making movie clips of growing squid here (the first hatched yesterday), and had it not been for a whale stranding yesterday then we'd certainly have SQUIDCAM going live tomorrow, but the present day ahead is a nightmare, so SQUIDCAM might have to be bumped a day or 2. Pity.

Hopefully we can help out a little more. I reckon BBC should do an entire doco on the weird, wonderful and often inconceivably bizarre ammonites; reconstruct them, all manner of anatomical possibilities. Pure academic show would be to my liking, but not really the target demographic, so you could pit Neale Monks, Phil and all those brainy fossil ceph types, against the Recent folk, and when things get heated we'll hurl coprolites and other obscenities at each other.

 

[cthulhu77]

"when things get heated we'll hurl coprolites and other obscenities at each other"
Isn't that Tonmocon?

 

[WhiteKiboko]

will we have to change the phrase to 'ive seen coprolite fights at TONMOcon more organized than this'?

 

[cthulhu77]

Just wait 'till you, Tony,Dr. sos, Um and i all get a bunch of beers in us...oh my.

 

[Steve O'Shea]

....and when things get heated we'll hurl coprolites and other obscenities at each other.

It could be worse; they could hurl coprolites, but we could hurl the less-fossilised Recent equivalent! Imagine if we developed cannons to hurl the stuff!

I fear we're digressing a little; sorry Nik.

 

[WhiteKiboko]

"let he who has not digressed cast the first coprolite..."

 

[cthulhu77]

"then, let slip the coprolites of war..."

 

[tonmo]

Welcome aboard, Nik!!

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with coprolites."
--Albert Einstein