The fourth installment in the beloved Jurassic Park saga is finally coming out this week and the much anticipated return of the dinosaurs promises to leave even more of an impression on audiences this time around. Not only did the movie cost somewhere between $US150 and $US180, but computer animation has also come a long way since 2001 when the third installment in the franchise came out.
On top of reviving the fearsome, awe-inspiring, long-extinct animals, scientists in the newest entry of the franchise have also messed around with DNA inside the lab in order to create man-made hybrid dinosaur, smarter and more blood thirsty than any of the species created by Mother Nature.
In honor of the premier, Colin Trevorrow, director of the fourth movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, titled Jurassic World, has been giving interviews right and left, as is the habit in Hollywood.
The director stresses that Jurassic World is not an American movie. He strongly believes that the cinematic experience belongs to the world and he felt it was very important to have characters that people from all over the world could see themselves in.
As a direct result the cast is far from being an all American cast – Indian actor Irrfan Khan, French actor Omar Sy and Chinese American actor B.D. Wong, all play significant characters in the movie. Fans of the original trilogy might remember that Wong isn’t new to the franchise.
When it comes to the making of the dinosaurs, Colin Trevorrow explains that they’re a mix of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and animatronics, set props made using latex skin in order to make the creatures look fully alive. Animatronics can be controlled remotely with the help of computers.
Trevorrow informs that these animatronics were essential tools for the scenes when the team behind the camera “needed the actors to be up close with the animals”.
He goes on to add that the team wasn’t going to use animatronics at all initially. Why would they when computer graphics have come so far and gotten to look this realistic? It was director Trevorrow who insisted on making this choice and getting the green light on the ones that ended up in the movie.
He says that they have great value for the filmmaking process on such a project and reveals that “even in scenes like the one with the apatosaurus was done with animatronics, and so was the scene with Omar Sy and Vince [D’Onofrio] talking with the raptors in the squeeze cages”. They helped the actors immensely as it provided them with physical things that they could really interact with and touch.
The shares that it’s not just the actors who find it easier to emote with theses creatures if they have physical props, but that the audiences will respond much better and connect much better with the dinosaurs as well.
Another reason he pushed for the animatronics is that they’ve also come a long way over the years. He reminds us that use of animatronics in the earlier movies was very limited. Often audiences only saw a creature’s head, maybe a neck or feet if the filmmakers felt adventurers.
But in this fourth installment Trevorrow and his crew used the animatronics to their full potential. The movie has a lot of intense action scenes where the director needed to move and to run, and the director challenges cynics to tell him what’s animatronic and what’s computer-generated imagery.
As far as what his favorite dinosaurs are, he has two (2) – the ankylosaurus, which has a hard shell, a tail and a soft underbelly, and Trevorrow says that he identifies with that for some reason, and the microsaurus, which is not in the movie but has a triceratops’ head and Trevorrow would like one as a pet.
The director does not believe that Jurassic World is a message movie, but he does admit that he touches upon the subject of human greed and profit.
Image Source: screenrelish.com
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