Jurassic Park (1993 film) Steven Spielberg

Development

Michael Crichton originally conceived a screenplay about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur. He continued to wrestle with his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the novel Jurassic Park.[8] Before its publication, Steven Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989, while he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton that would become the television series ER.[9] Spielberg recognized what really fascinated him about Jurassic Park was it was "a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind", going beyond a simple monster movie.[10]

Before the book was published, Crichton had demanded $1.5 million for the film rights and a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante bid for the rights,[9] but Universal Pictures acquired them in May 1990 for Spielberg.[11] James Cameron revealed in 2012 he tried to get the rights only to discover that Spielberg acquired them a few hours prior.[12] After completing Hook, Spielberg wanted to film Schindler's List. Sid Sheinberg, president of Music Corporation of America (Universal's parent company at the time) gave the green light to Schindler's List on the condition Spielberg make Jurassic Park first.[9] He said later by choosing a creature-driven thriller, he wanted to try to make a good sequel to Jaws, on land.[13] Spielberg also cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park, specifically Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he grew up watching.[14] During production, Spielberg described Godzilla as the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made him and viewers believe it was really happening.[15]

To create the dinosaurs, Spielberg thought of hiring Bob Gurr, who designed a giant mechanical King Kong for Universal Studios Hollywood's King Kong Encounter. Upon reflection, he felt life-size dinosaurs would be too expensive and unconvincing. Instead Spielberg sought the best effects supervisors in Hollywood. He brought in Stan Winston to create the animatronic dinosaurs; Phil Tippett (credited as Dinosaur Supervisor) to create go motion dinosaurs for long shots; Michael Lantieri to supervise the on-set effects; and Dennis Muren of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to do the digital compositing. Paleontologist Jack Horner supervised the designs,[16] to help fulfill Spielberg's desire to portray the dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters. Certain concepts about dinosaurs, like the theory they evolved into birds and had very little in common with lizards, were followed. This prompted the removal of the raptors' flicking tongues in Tippett's early animatics,[17] as Horner complained it was implausible.[18] Winston's department created fully detailed models of the dinosaurs before molding latex skins, which were fitted over complex robotics. Tippett created stop-motion animatics of the raptors in the kitchen and the Tyrannosaurus attacking the car. Despite go motion's attempts at motion blurs, Spielberg found the end results unsatisfactory for a live-action feature film. Muren told Spielberg he thought the dinosaurs could be built using computer-generated imagery; Spielberg asked him to prove it.[17] ILM animators Mark Dippé and Steve Williams developed a computer-generated walk cycle for the T. rex skeleton and were approved to do more.[19] When Spielberg and Tippett saw an animatic of the T. rex chasing a herd of Gallimimus, Spielberg said, "You're out of a job", to which Tippett replied, "Don't you mean extinct?"[17] Spielberg put this exchange into the script as a conversation between Malcolm and Grant.[20] Although no go motion was used, the production still used Tippett and his animators to supervise dinosaur movement. Tippett acted as a consultant for dinosaur anatomy, and his stop motion animators were retrained as computer animators.[17] The animatics Tippett's team made were also used, along with the storyboards, as a reference for what would be shot during the action sequences.[21] ILM's artists were sent on private tours to the local animal park, so they could study large animals – rhinos, elephants, alligators, and giraffes – up close. They also took mime classes to aid in understanding movements.[22]

Writing

Universal paid Crichton a further $500,000 to adapt his own novel,[24] which he had finished by the time Spielberg was filming Hook. Crichton noted that because the book was "fairly long", his script had about 10 to 20 percent of the novel's content; scenes were dropped for budgetary and practical reasons, and the violence was toned down.[25] Malia Scotch Marmo began a script rewrite in October 1991 over a five-month period, merging Ian Malcolm with Alan Grant.[26]

Spielberg wanted another writer to rework the script, so Universal president Casey Silver recommended David Koepp, co-writer of Death Becomes Her.[27] Koepp started afresh from Marmo's draft, and used Spielberg's idea of a cartoon shown to the visitors to remove much of the exposition that fills Crichton's novel.[28] While Koepp tried to avoid excessive character detail "because whenever they started talking about their personal lives, you couldn't care less",[29] he tried to flesh out the characters and make for a more colorful cast, with moments such as Malcolm flirting with Sattler leading to Grant's jealousy.[10] Some characterizations were changed from the novel. Hammond went from a ruthless businessman to a kindly old man, because Spielberg identified with Hammond's obsession with showmanship.[30] He also switched the characters of Tim and Lex; in the book, Tim is 11 and interested in computers, and Lex is only seven or eight and interested in sports. Spielberg did this because he wanted to work with the younger Joseph Mazzello, and it allowed him to introduce the subplot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant.[31] Koepp changed Grant's relationship with the children, making him hostile to them initially to allow for more character development.[9]

Two scenes from the book were ultimately excised. Spielberg removed the opening sequence with Procompsognathus attacking a young child as he found it too horrific.[32] For budgetary reasons Koepp cut the T. rex chasing Grant and the children down a river before being tranquilized by Muldoon. Both parts were included in film sequels.[28] Spielberg suggested adding the scene where the T. rex pursues a jeep, which at first only had the characters driving away after hearing the dinosaur's footsteps.[33]

Casting

William Hurt was initially offered the role of Alan Grant, but turned it down without reading the script.[34] Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were also considered for the role, but they were deemed too expensive.[35] Harrison Ford and Tim Robbins were also offered the role[36][37] before Sam Neill was cast three or four weeks before filming began. Neill said "it all happened real quick. I hadn't read the book, knew nothing about it, hadn't heard anything about it, and in a matter of weeks I'm working with Spielberg".[38] Janet Hirshenson, the film's casting director, felt Jeff Goldblum was right to play Ian Malcolm after reading the novel. Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role.[39] According to Hirshenson, Carrey "was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Jeff".[38]

Laura Dern was Spielberg's first choice for the role of Ellie Sattler,[38] but was not the only actress offered the part. Robin Wright and Juliette Binoche turned it down.[40][41] Stacy Haiduk,[42] Gwyneth Paltrow and Helen Hunt auditioned for the role.[43] Spielberg chose to cast Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry after seeing his performance in Basic Instinct.[44][45]

Ariana Richards, who plays Lex Murphy, said: "I was called into a casting office, and they just wanted me to scream. I heard later on that Steven had watched a few girls on tape that day, and I was the only one who ended up waking his sleeping wife on the couch, and she came running through the hallway to see if the kids were all right".[38] Christina Ricci also auditioned for the role.[46] Joseph Mazzello had screen-tested for a role in Hook, but was deemed too young. Spielberg promised him they would work together on a future film.[38] Sean Connery was considered for the role of John Hammond before Richard Attenborough was chosen.[47] It was Attenborough's first screen appearance as an actor in 13 years.[48]

Cameron Thor had worked with Spielberg on Hook, and auditioned for the role of Malcolm, before trying out for the role of Dodgson. In the film, Dodgson gives Nedry a container disguised as a can of shaving cream that is used to transport the embryos. Thor said: "It just said 'shaving-cream can' in the script, so I spent endless time in a drug store to find the most photogenic. I went with Barbasol, which ended up in the movie. I was so broke that I took the can home after the audition to use it".[49]

Filming

After 25 months of pre-production, filming began on August 24, 1992, on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi.[50] While the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, the novel's settings, were considered as locations, Spielberg's concerns over infrastructure and accessibility made him choose a place he had already worked.[10] The three-week shoot involved various daytime exteriors for Isla Nublar's forests.[11] On September 11, Hurricane Iniki passed directly over Kauaʻi, costing a day of shooting.[51] Several of the storm scenes from the film are of actual footage shot during the hurricane. The scheduled shoot of the Gallimimus chase was moved to Kualoa Ranch on the island of Oahu. One of the early scenes had to be created by digitally animating a still shot of scenery.[20] The opening scene was shot in Haiku, on Maui,[52] with additional scenes filmed on the "forbidden island" of Niihau.[53] The exterior of the Visitor Center was a large façade constructed on the grounds of the Valley House Plantation Estate in Kauai.[54] Samuel L. Jackson was to film a lengthy death scene where his character is chased and killed by raptors, but the set was destroyed by Hurricane Iniki.[49]

By mid-September, the crew moved to California[17] to shoot the raptors in the kitchen at Stage 24 of the Universal studio lot.[11] Given the kitchen set was filled with reflective surfaces, cinematographer Dean Cundey had to carefully plan the illumination while also using black cloths to hide the light reflections.[21] The crew also shot the scenes involving the power supply on Stage 23 before going to Red Rock Canyon for the Montana dig scenes.[55] The crew returned to Universal to shoot Grant's rescue of Tim, using a 50-foot prop with hydraulic wheels for the car fall and the Brachiosaurus encounter. The crew filmed scenes for the Park's labs and control room, which used animations for the computers lent by Silicon Graphics and Apple.[56] Crichton's book has electric-powered Toyota Land Cruisers as the tour cars in Jurassic Park, but Spielberg made a deal with the Ford Motor Company, who provided seven Ford Explorers.[57][58] ILM's crew and veteran customizer George Barris modified the Explorers to create the illusion that they are autonomous cars by hiding the driver in the car's trunk.[59] Barris also customized the Jeep Wranglers featured in the production.[60]

The crew moved to Warner Bros. Studios' Stage 16 to shoot the T. rex's attack on the LSX powered SUVs.[56] Shooting proved frustrating because when water soaked the animatronic dinosaur's foam rubber skin, it caused the T. rex to shake and quiver from the extra weight when the foam absorbed it. This forced Stan Winston's crew to dry the model with shammys between takes.[61] During the scene where the T. rex attack the SUV, the animatronic got close to the glass and it broke its tooth off.[62][63] On set, Malcolm distracting the dinosaur with a flare was included at Goldblum's suggestion. He felt a heroic action was better than going by the script, where like Gennaro, Malcolm was scared and ran away.[21] The ripples in the glass of water caused by the T. rex's footsteps were inspired by Spielberg listening to Earth, Wind and Fire in his car, and the vibrations the bass rhythm caused. Lantieri was unsure how to create the shot until the night before filming when he put a glass of water on a guitar he was playing, which achieved the concentric circles in the water Spielberg wanted. The next morning, guitar strings were put inside the car and a man on the floor plucked them to achieve the effect.[64] Back at Universal, the crew filmed scenes with the Dilophosaurus on Stage 27. The shoot finished on Stage 12 with the climactic chases with the raptors in the Park's computer rooms and Visitor's Center.[65] Spielberg changed the climax to bring back the T. rex, abandoning the original ending where Grant uses a platform machine to maneuver a raptor into a fossil tyrannosaur's jaws.[66] The scene, which already included the juxtaposition of live dinosaurs in a museum filled with fossils, while also destroying the bones, now had an ending where the T. rex saved the protagonists, and afterward made what Spielberg described as a "King Kong roar" while an ironic banner reading "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" flew.[21] The film wrapped 12 days ahead of schedule on November 30,[67] and within days, editor Michael Kahn had a rough cut ready, allowing Spielberg to start filming Schindler's List.[68]

Dinosaurs on screen

Despite the film title's referencing the Jurassic period, Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus are the only dinosaurs featured that lived during that time; the other species featured did not exist until the Cretaceous period.[70] This is acknowledged in the film during a scene where Dr. Grant describes the ferocity of the Velociraptor to a young boy, saying: "Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period".[71]

• Alamosaurus appears as a skeleton in the Jurassic Park visitor center.[72]
• Brachiosaurus is the first dinosaur the park's visitors see. It is inaccurately depicted as chewing its food and standing up on its hind legs to browse among the high tree branches.[73] According to artist Andy Schoneberg, the chewing was done to make the animal seem docile, resembling a cow chewing its cud. The dinosaur's head and upper neck was the largest puppet without hydraulics built for the film.[74] Despite scientific evidence of their having limited vocal capabilities, sound designer Gary Rydstrom decided to represent them with whale songs and donkey calls to give them a melodic sense of wonder. Penguins were also recorded to be used in the noises of the dinosaurs.[73]
• Dilophosaurus was also very different from its real-life counterpart, made significantly smaller to ensure audiences did not confuse it with the raptors.[75] Its neck frill and its ability to spit venom are fictitious. Its vocal sounds were made by combining a swan, a hawk, a howler monkey, and a rattlesnake.[17] The animatronic model, nicknamed "Spitter" by Stan Winston's team, was animated by the puppeteers sitting on a trench in the set floor, using a paintball mechanism to spit the mixture of methyl cellulose and K-Y Jelly that served as venom.[76]
• Gallimimus are featured in a stampede scene in which the Tyrannosaurus eats one of them. The Gallimimus was the first dinosaur to be digitized, featured in two ILM tests, first as a herd of skeletons and then fully skinned while pursued by the T. rex.[17] Its design was based on ostriches, and to emphasize the birdlike qualities, the animation focused mostly on the herd rather than individual animals.[77] As reference for the dinosaurs' run, the animators were filmed running at the ILM parking lot, with plastic pipes standing in as the tree that the Gallimimus jump over.[78] The footage inspired the incorporation of an animal falling as one of the artists did trying to make the jump.[22] Horse squeals became the Gallimimus's sounds.[79]
• Parasaurolophus appear in the background during the first encounter with the Brachiosaurus.[80]
• Triceratops has an extended cameo, depicted as sick from eating a toxic plant. Its appearance was a logistical nightmare for Winston when Spielberg asked to shoot the animatronic of the sick creature earlier than expected.[81] The model, operated by eight puppeteers in the Kaua'i set, was the first dinosaur filmed during production.[10] Winston also created a baby Triceratops for Ariana Richards to ride, a scene cut from the film for pacing reasons.[82] Gary Rydstrom combined the sound of himself breathing into a cardboard tube with the cows near his workplace at Skywalker Ranch to create the Triceratops vocals.[79]
• Tyrannosaurus was acknowledged by Spielberg as "the star of the movie", and he rewrote the ending to feature the T. rex for fear of disappointing the audience.[17] Winston's animatronic T. rex stood 6.1 metres (20 ft), weighed 17,500 pounds (7,900 kg),[56] and was 12 metres (40 ft) long.[83] Jack Horner called it "the closest I've ever been to a live dinosaur".[83] While the consulting paleontologists did not agree on the dinosaur's movement, particularly its running capabilities, animator Steve Williams decided to "throw physics out the window and create a T. rex that moved at sixty miles per hour even though its hollow bones would have busted if it ran that fast".[84] The major reason was the T. rex chasing a Jeep, a scene that took two months to finish.[73] The dinosaur is depicted with a vision system based on movement, though later studies indicate the T. rex had binocular vision comparable to a bird of prey.[85] Its roar is a baby elephant's squeal combined with alligator and crocodile noises as well as a tiger's snarl and a lion's roar,[73][86][87] its grunts those of a male koala,[88] and its breath a whale's blow.[73] A dog attacking a rope toy was used for the sounds of the T. rex tearing a Gallimimus apart,[17] while cut sequoias crashing to the ground became the sound of its footsteps.[21]
• Velociraptor plays a major role in the film. The creature's depiction is ultimately not based on the actual dinosaur genus, which was also significantly smaller. Shortly before Jurassic Park's theatrical release,[89] the similar Utahraptor was discovered, although it proved even bigger than the film's raptors. This prompted Winston to joke, "We made it, then they discovered it".[83] For the attack on Muldoon and some parts of the kitchen scene, the raptors were played by men in suits.[65] Dolphin screams, walruses bellowing, geese hissing,[17] an African crane's mating call, tortoises mating, and human rasps were mixed to formulate various raptor sounds.[73][88][79] Following discoveries made after the film's release, most paleontologists theorize that dromaeosaurs like Velociraptor and Deinonychus were covered with feathers like modern birds. This feature is included in Jurassic Park III for the male raptors, which have a row of small quills on their heads.[90]

Post-production

Special effects work continued on the film, with Tippett's unit adjusting to new technology with Dinosaur Input Devices:[91] models that fed information into computers to allow them to animate the characters like stop-motion puppets. In addition, they acted out scenes with the raptors and Gallimimus. As well as the computer-generated dinosaurs, ILM also created elements such as water splashing and digital face replacement for Ariana Richards's stunt double.[17] Compositing the dinosaurs onto the live action scenes took around an hour. Rendering the dinosaurs often took two to four hours per frame, and rendering the T. rex in the rain took six hours per frame.[92]

Spielberg monitored their progress from Poland during the filming of Schindler's List,[93] and had teleconferences four times a week with ILM's crew. He called working simultaneously on two vastly different productions "a bipolar experience", where he used "every ounce of intuition on Schindler's List and every ounce of craft on Jurassic Park".[78] Some of the software used to create dinosaurs and other visual effects was Pixar's RenderMan and Softimage 3D.[94][95] Industrial Light & Magic also used the program Viewpaint, which allowed the visual effects artists to paint color and texture directly onto the surface of the computer models.[96]

Along with the digital effects, Spielberg wanted the film to be the first with digital sound. He funded the creation of DTS (Digital Theater Systems) to allow audiences to "really hear the movie the way it was intended to be heard".[78] The sound effects crew, supervised by George Lucas,[97] finished by the end of April.[73] Sound designer Gary Rydstrom considered it a fun process, given the film had all kinds of noise—animal sounds, rain, gunshots, car crashes—and at times no music. During the process, Spielberg flew on weekends from Poland to Paris, where he met Rydstrom to see the sound progress.[78] Former ILM CG Animator Steve "Spaz" Williams said it took nearly a year for the shots that involved computer-generated dinosaurs to be completed.[98] Jurassic Park was completed on May 28, 1993.[73]