13 Behind-the-Scenes Stories From “Jurassic Park” That Justify The Movie Is Memorable Even After Decades

After 29 years, the main cast of Jurassic Park reunites again, this time for a participation in the new film in the franchise, Jurassic World: Dominion. The reunion sparks in fans of the series a warm feeling of nostalgia for the first film. And it reminds us of how Steven Spielberg amazed us with special effects that seemed inexplicable. They looked.

O awesome.club remembers how it was possible to bring dinosaurs so real and scary to the screen, and also tells some behind-the-scenes secrets of Jurassic Park, the original 1993 film, which enchanted so many people! Check it out!

The discoveries of paleontologists allowed us to know a lot about dinosaur organisms, but unfortunately, we had no way of knowing what sounds they made. According to the book The Making of Jurassic Park: An Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making, a mixture of animal sounds was made to create the vocalization of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. In this case, a mix of dogs, ‎penguins, growling tigers, gurgling alligators, and screeching baby elephants. If you don’t remember the result, listen here.

Information was given by sound engineer Gary Rydstrom for the book, as well as in interviews over time. He also revealed that for the Dilophosaurus vocalization, once it emerges seemingly harmless, swan trills were used. Cute, huh? Until he opens a kind of hood and throws a poison on Dennis Nedry. This time the sounds are rattlesnakes and his voice changes to that of a hawk. Remember the sounds in this video.

Knowing how sounds are recorded is fun and can be very curious, since sometimes they come from unimaginable places. The dangerous Velociraptors, for example, make an unusual sound when they seem to talk to each other. Gary explained that the sound came from turtles mating, which he recorded on a visit to a water park. The sound of their breathing is that of horses and another noise they make came from geese. If you dare, remember the sounds here.

In a memorable scene, the protagonists encounter a sick Triceratops. Gary said he used the sound of cows breathing at Skywalker Ranch — director Steven Spielberg’s farm. It’s not the pure sound of the cows, but their breath passing through a cardboard tube, which gave the unique reverberation the sound engineer was looking for. The scene makes one feel sorry for the little animal, even though it doesn’t exist, but it’s worth remembering.

Much of the sound work in a film is done by professionals called foleys or sound engineers. They introduce background noise, such as footsteps, wind, and other sounds that actors’ microphones don’t pick up or that aren’t possible to make in the recording studio. Without the work of sound engineers, we would only hear the actors’ voices, without ambient sound.

An example from Jurassic Park is in the scene where a dinosaur egg is hatched: an ice cream cone to imitate the shell of the egg breaking and the pulp of a melon for the sound of the little animal coming out. For the sound of the texture of the baby dinosaur’s scales, the sound designer ran her hand over a pineapple skin. Creative and simple, but genius, isn’t it?

Still speaking of sounds, they were added to the film by Gary and his team only after the films were shot. But during shooting, actors needed to interact with green screens, animatronic puppets, or just use their imagination. This is normal today, but in 1993 it was new. To help, Steven Spielberg was making dinosaur noises with his mouth, which was funny and had the crew behind the camera laughing their asses off. But the actors, poor people, had to hold back their laughter.

About the director, when he committed to making the film, Spielberg planned to use the stop motion technique to animate the dinosaurs. However, according to a video released by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences – the same one that awards the Oscars – two artists worked in secret to make the director change his mind. The performers were employees of Industrial Light And Magic, Steven Spielberg’s own special effects company.

They made a T-Rex model in CGI, that is, computer graphics images in English, a technology that was still taking its first steps in 1993. With the 3D model made, the artists assembled a video and presented it to the director and the production company. Kathleen Kennedy, during a tour of the studios. After seeing the video, they were convinced that the CGI would be much more convincing and with much more realistic movements, so they gave up stop motion.

However, not only CGI was made Jurassic Park. Many scenes, most of them actually, were done using animatronics. That is, life-size puppets that were programmed to make certain movements. The animatronics brought more veracity to the film, and some even claim that the 1993 effects are more convincing than those of the new franchise, Jurassic World. No wonder, as the puppets of the time were able to blink, breathe, even cry, which generated more authentic reactions from the actors.

Remember the scene where the T-Rex first appears? Children are the first to notice, because of the waves in a glass of water caused by the vibration of the dinosaur’s footsteps. Spielberg had this idea when he noticed the same effect in his car’s rear view mirror when he was listening to Earth, Wind & Fire (probably at full volume), and asked to reproduce it in his film.

Turns out the team didn’t know how to do this and wasted a lot of time racking their brains to find a way. Until Michael Lantieri realized he could do it by playing a specific note on his guitar. Then, to do the same trick in the movie, he placed the cups on a special platform connected to a guitar string.

Those who know about dinosaurs will have noticed that, in Jurassic Park, the Velociraptors are much larger than the discoveries of paleontologists indicated. They averaged half a meter tall, whereas in the film they were about six feet tall—almost four times as tall. Changing the height of the fearsome dino was a decision by Steven Spielberg, who wanted them to look scarier. It was also at the director’s suggestion that he turn his head like a chicken in a threatening manner.

Speaking of Velociraptors, the tense chase scene inside a kitchen between the dinos and the kids took two weeks to complete. Animatronics were used for some parts, and men hunched over in a ski position and wearing a costume for others. The costumes were so heavy that the actors had to be suspended from cables. CGI was only used to remove the film crew’s reflections on metallic surfaces. The result was excellent, don’t you think?

The animal world brought several inspirations to bring the film’s dinosaurs back “to life”, as we exemplified above with their sounds. But they also inspired the way prehistoric reptiles moved. The Dilophosaurus, for example, had its movements reproduced from the ostrich, after a frame-by-frame analysis of a documentary. The movements were replicated by animatronic mechanisms in the recording.

Perhaps you remember the scene where the movie’s characters come across a pile of Triceratops dung. The actors’ reaction is so believable, we can almost smell it through the screen. But the smell that the actors smelled was not at all unpleasant. The dung heap was made from a mixture of clay, mud and straw. To attract flies, the production covered everything with a mixture of honey and papaya. It worked out!

Tell the truth: Were you scared of the T-Rex when you watched the movie? Know that we are not the only ones: his animatronic weighed about five tons, that is, five thousand kilos. The production was afraid that it would fall on the workers and cause a serious accident, so they called meetings specifically to discuss safety rules when handling it. When he approached, for example, there was a system of flashing lights, so that everyone was more alert.

Jurassic Park was adapted from a book of the same name, written by Michael Crichton. James Cameron, the director of Titanic and Avatar fame, had intended to direct the film but Steven Spielberg got the rights just hours before. James, however, was not upset and, after seeing the finished film, stated that Spielberg was the right person for the job. In his conception, the film would be much more violent, as in Aliens, and more suitable for adults.

Spielberg wanted the perfect cast for Jurassic Park, and even delayed the start of filming so that actor Sir Richard Attenborough, who was filming Chaplin, could participate. But the director first thought of Harrison Ford to play Alan Grant, and even offered the role, but the actor turned it down. In the end, the role ended up going to Sam Neill.

Another actress who almost joined the cast was Robin Wright, in the role of Ellie Sattler. She had been successful in several productions, most notably playing Tara Maguire in Prohibited Romance. Like Harrison Ford, Robin politely turned down the role when Spielberg offered it. A year later, she appeared in Forrest Gump, playing Jenny Curran. As for Jurassic Park, the director chose Laura Dern for the role.

After seeing all the behind-the-scenes work, we come to understand better why Jurassic Park stirs up so many emotions, including fear. By the way, which dinosaur from the movie scared you the most?