Author – Don Shay & Jody Duncan
A review of The Making
of Jurassic Park
I’ve never wanted to know more about a movie than Jurassic Park but that’s because it’s my
favorite film. Yes, I’ve seen the movie
countless times, read the novel it’s based on time after time but I never came
around to reading this book. I’ve owned
it for years dating back to my teenage years which feel as ancient as CRT
monitors. True I scanned through the
book several times, mostly fixing my eyes upon the pictures over that time, but
now that I’ve actually read it I wonder what took me so long. It has plenty of behind the scenes detail
that shows how much was put into this movie.
It’s broken down into four parts so I’ll skim over those now.
Preproduction
In a stage like this we learn how the author of the novel,
Michael Crichton, eventually grew tired of writing anything more to do with
Jurassic Park. It shifted hands to
others a few times to get down a plausible screenplay idea. It also introduces the magnificent Stan
Winston and his astounding team as he builds the robotic dinosaurs step by
step. The process is long and some of
his work goes to the wayside. There is
plenty to learn and if you’re a fan of Jurassic Park than you’ll enjoy it very
much. I’ll leave you with these few
trickles of knowledge so you have no choice but to read the book for further
information.
Production
The cast enters now and I liked the point of view Sam Neill
offered when he was quoted in the book.
I became a fan of his because of this movie so that’s a cool bonus for
me. It also has the likes of Richard
Attenborough, who played John Hammond; discuss how he felt about being in the
movie. If you like hearing the actor’s
thoughts then this section will satisfy in that regard. The genius of Spielberg is shown in more
depth as he cuts costs, shortens shootings and makes the movie saving decision
to go CG with some of the best dinosaur scenes ever seen on the big screen to
date. Again if you like Spielberg this
book showcases what makes him such an extraordinary director, he’s not perfect
but the job he does is almost unbelievable.
I would have liked to get some insight from Bob Peck, he played Muldoon,
but sadly there is none. This section
also covers photography and the rigorous efforts of making sets but instead of
getting into that I’ll let you read for yourself. It’s rather interesting how they went about
some of those challenges and the results are yet again mind boggling.
Postproduction
This would be the area when CG gets put on the spot to
finish up those memorable dinosaur scenes including the epic finale when the
T-Rex saves the day. This was
groundbreaking territory and brand new to ILM, the company who did the CG. It was the same company that worked on T2
making the liquid metal Robert Patrick.
Spielberg really took a big chance that ILM would come through since
there was basically no history of this type of work to draw from. It ended up being possibly one of the best
decisions he’s ever made. John Williams
also came aboard to do the score which is again probably one of the best ever
in a movie. Every team from sound,
concept artists, music, writing, cast, crew, creature effects and anything else
I can’t name was pretty much the best Hollywood had to offer. In the end it would have been a shame if this
movie was anything less than what it turned out to be. What excuse would they have to come up short? Spielberg was aware of this and thus knew he
couldn’t be lacking in anyway. It’s an
amazing experience where everyone involved might possibly have had their career
year. Anyway if you would like to know
more about the unsung heroes in the movie industry you’ll find them all here in
this section.
Storyboards
Describing pictures isn’t easy so I don’t have much to add
here except it’s really neat to see the early ideas behind some of the scenes
in the movie. Some of the characters
were removed or switched from scene to scene which I found interesting but
other than gazing over the sketches there isn’t much here to see. It’s neat to visualize what could have been
but never was.
Closing
It’s
an easy read with plenty of pictures to support the writing. I recommend all Jurassic Park fans to spend
an afternoon reading this as you won’t be disappointed. It’s probably even fun for a movie fan in
general to read it since it breaks down the creation of the film extremely
well.
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