Dinosaurs have long been an iconic feature of cinematic adventure, yet prior to Jurassic Park special effects had mostly consisted of practical puppetry and rear projection.
Steven Spielberg’s film marks a new era of cinematic storytelling with both animatronics and CGI to create its dinosaurs, featuring Sam Neil and Laura Dern alongside Jeff Goldblum as leading players.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex
Spielberg sought to immortalize this legendary creature by including him in his film. Thankfully, Stan Winston Studios provided life sized animatronic Jurassic dinosaurs as part of their effects services for this production.
John Rosengrant colorized Mark McCreery’s line art to construct this animatronic male T-Rex animatronic, which required fourteen puppeteers beneath it in order for its operation.
Though this T-Rex could be controlled, its mechanical arm rig was plagued with numerous issues during shooting. For one thing, the animatronic dinosaur would often get saturated due to Isla Nublar’s weather conditions during filming of Main Road scene; regardless of assurances from production staff members regarding moisture seepage into foam latex skin of animatronic dinosaur and become saturated requiring crew members to stop action and soak the T-Rex with towels overnight before returning it for shooting the next morning.
The Spinosaurus
Spinosaurus was a large fish-eating theropod dinosaur that lived in North Africa during the Cretaceous Period. It had long tail, paddle-like feet, and teeth similar to crocodiles’ for hunting in water; while its sail may have served to warn away other predators or regulate body temperature.
Animatronics were employed for close-up shots of the dinosaur and its movements, while CGI was utilized for more dynamic or distant shots. By adding real life and tension to the action on screen, animatronics brought more realism and intensity to this movie.
As this series continues to unfold, we hope that filmmakers push practical effects into new realms while at the same time, returning and animating every detail from the original Jurassic Park film fans fondly recall from its release – it would make an amazing conclusion to this epic six film saga! Let’s do this!
The Brachiosaurus
The Brachiosaurus dinosaur from Jurassic Park may be most widely-recognized as its most iconic species, yet this sauropod has actually existed for an extended period. A herd was seen during an incident on Isla Sorna.
Brachiosaurus herd was one of the earliest dino-herds to roam the gyrosphere; this ride was created as an idea by executive producer Steven Spielberg in order to simulate how dinosaurs moved naturally across an environment.
Stan Winston Studio designed and constructed the animatronic raptors seen in Jurassic Park 4 through their special effects studio, known for creating Academy Award-winning special effects like Aliens and Terminator 2. Here, special makeup artist Beth Rosengrant discusses her creation of a foam latex raptor suit worn during production of Jurassic Park 4.
The Triceratops
Lex and Grant encountering a sick Triceratops is another instance of an animatronic. Spielberg utilized both techniques for close-up shots where actors interact directly with them and wider or more dynamic shots; animatronics often create an illusion of realism onscreen.
Winston used a full-scale animatronic puppet with foam latex skin covering its internal mechanical systems, operated by eight puppeteers to give Triceratops its realistic appearance.
Gary Rydstrom, the film’s creature designer, used vocalizations from bears, bulls, horses, rhinos, elephants, tortoises and tortoises as samples to give Velociraptors their distinctive sound. Additionally, dolphins, walruses and chimpanzees provided idle and snapping bark sounds for this prehistoric beast; all together these noises make Velociraptors seem more like real animals than simply prehistoric monsters and are intended to give an authentic rather than silly tone to this film’s Velociraptors!