Walking with Beasts, marketed as Walking with Prehistoric Beasts in North America, is a 2001 six-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Impossible Pictures and produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, the Discovery Channel, ProSieben and TV Asahi. The sequel to the 1999 miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs,[4][1] Walking with Beasts explores the life in the Cenozoic era, after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, particularly focusing on the rise of the mammals to dominance. The UK version of the series is narrated by Kenneth Branagh, who also narrated Walking with Dinosaurs, and the US version is narrated by Stockard Channing.
Like Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts recreated extinct animals through a combination of computer-generated imagery and animatronics, incorporated into live action footage shot at various locations. It was more challenging to create convincing effects, both computer graphics and animatronics, depicting mammals owing both to fur and more moving bits and to audiences being more familiar with how mammals look and move than they were with dinosaurs. The visual effects of Walking with Beasts, like those of Walking with Dinosaurs, received praise. The series won numerous awards, including a BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award, a Monitor Award, a RTS Television Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.
Walking with Beasts was accompanied by a companion book, Walking with Beasts: A Prehistoric Safari, written by the executive producer Tim Haines, and a two-part behind-the-scenes companion series, The Science of Walking with Beasts. Also released were several children's books and the video game Walking with Beasts: Operation Salvage. In 2007–2011 an exhibition based on the series featuring fossils, life-sized models and behind-the-scenes information was held at different locations throughout the UK.
