Jurassic Graphics with Matthew Clark (Lead Graphic Designer for ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’)

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Today I am joined by the Lead Graphic Designer of ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’, Matthew Clark, as we discuss the visual world building in the original 1993 movie. 

The conversation has made me see this film I love and have watched multiple times in a new light.

If you want to follow Matthew and see some behind the scenes pictures from the new film then you can find him on Instagram here: 

@clarksworth

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think he's obviously remembered for the clever girl online which is fantastic as well. Fantastic cavalce, like the best candles in the business.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome back to Rebirth on Remus 1. As much of the world of a film is created on the page, Cinnamon is ultimately a visual medium. The matter the film, the look and feel of that world needs to be really lived in, textured, and believable. When we talk about Jurassic Palm, its graphic design work has become instantly recognizable, from the 10,000 volt sign on the T-Rex paddock to the bold colours of these Ford Explorers. And of course, the now iconic logo for the film, a logo inspired in part by Chipkid's book jacket design for Michael Crichton's original novel. To help me unpack the visual language of Jurassic, I'm joined today by someone with a unique perspective, the lead graphic designer for Jurassic World Rebirth. Please welcome to the podcast, Matthew Clark. Hi Matthew, thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Thank you for having me. Looking forward to seeing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

To start us off, I was wondering whether you could give listeners a bit of an introduction to your work. And for people who may not be familiar, what is the role of a lead graphic designer on a film?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Uh crying mostly. No, um lead graphic designer is um well a graphic designer on a TV show or movie essentially does everything a real graphic designer in the real world would do. So if you are looking at the room you're in now, anything that's kind of a printed page or poster, screen, signage, uh wallpapers, signs on cars, liveries, that sort of thing, anything graphic designer would do in the real world, we do all of that. And the con the term lead graphic designer essentially means I run a team of graphic designers on a show. So I'll do the budgeting and breakdown and the key design elements and kind of farm the work out to other people. And usually on a big film, there's three or four of us doing graphics.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Lovely. And were you already a Jurassic fan, got the call to work on Rebirth?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yes, I was a huge Jurassic fan. Um about 10 years ago, I wrote a bunch of posts about the design of the first movie for an online art blog. So it's been part of my life for such a long time, and it's kind of always been one of my the cornerstones I come back to when I talk about design of movies. Jurassic's one of my go-to examples of how well it can be done. So yeah, it's a huge fan of the first film, um, and getting to do rebirth. It's not a spoiler to say we're leaning into the look and feel of that first movie a lot, particularly in terms of colour, like brute force colour, which is great. Um, so that was just the dream, you know, getting to kind of chuck up those kind of sticky reds and yellows and greens again after the the trend for desaturated film being the way forward the last kind of 15 years. So yeah, that was fantastic. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Um, so yeah, today we're going to talk about Jurassic Park and that original aesthetic. What are your thoughts on John Bell and Rick Carter and kind of what they were doing visually with that first film?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Well, I think when people think of Rick Carter, so Rick Carter's a production designer on Jurassic. Um, and obviously he's got a huge career. I mean, he he's he's done some of the new Star Wars movies. So he's he's his work, like Spielberg, treads the kind of blockbuster and serious movie. Like so he's on sort of Lincoln, he's on Back to the Future. He's yeah, he he's a huge amount of the and did the Fabron ones as his last movie, so very serious, kind of realistic, rounded movie. And so when people talk about his design work, they don't talk about Jurassic because when people think of Jurassic's visual output, they talk about the animatronics and the CGI, which which makes sense because they were groundbreaking at the time. But I actually think in terms of blockbusters, Jurassic is really maybe one of the best design ones. And it's not because it's complicated and it's not because it's particularly deep, it just takes some very clear core themes, illustrates them very clearly, and uses them to support the world that we're seeing. And at the same time, for a for in the sense of the the adult side of things, the the the art of movies, it's a very technically well-produced movie. Um, and as a nine-year-old seeing it for the first time when it came out, a lot of those things are designed to bore straight into a child's head and never leave. So, I mean, you mentioned the explorers, the explorers are great because they are just this kind of really acidic colour that almost burns on the film, and and kids respond to that, you know. Yeah, you you can when they try to make the toys of those, like you can taste that neon green. I can still remember how that it's and those are very bold colours to put in a I've I've seen them on trainers.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I think they did a special design of trainers with them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, that that that look is kind of it's it's it's quite rare. Like if you look at Lost World by comparison, which is three years later, it really starts leaning into that desaturated look that would become the hallmark of the early 2000s. But Jurassic is just really punchy and it's fantastic. And it and and now it kind of operates almost as a period piece, like it looks like yeah, how the first Super Slocus used to look. And if you're in my age, you remember the toys of the 90s all being kind of so bright you had to wear sunglasses to pick them up. What I was getting at that really is it's it's not one people pick up on as kind of being a great example of the craft. But I think it's actually underrated in terms of just how how well they put together this idea of a living breathing park.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

And it has to sell so much because you know, we talk about the CGI, that was almost an un it wasn't untested, but to the extent of Jurassic Park, it wasn't known. So everything else about the film needed to really work and pop. Yeah. Absolutely. Audibly everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Well, one thing you realize is that we we don't really see much of the park in that movie. It's constrained to a number of quite small sets. What what it's doing there is it's the park, the production design is building up a believable world. So when the dinosaurs finally break free, you know, you're fully invested in this world. Yeah. And so obviously, the concrete architecture is a big part of that. Like they are showing you these huge buttressed fences that are dug into the ground, the moats. Because I mean, obviously, you get Malcolm commenting on that, kind of saying, What have they got in there? But the idea is that you're seeing this kind of this structure. And then the other way they kind of really showcase the animals, and I think this is the genius of it, is it's the use of colour. The explorers, which were you know largely John Bell's work, they have this fantastic kind of artificial animal print on them. Um and what that is, is is this is the artificial kind of plasticized toil like animal print is telling you this is a safe environment. We have controlled the animals, we can give you all this artificial nature because we have complete dominion over the animals inside. So when the animals finally, when when nature finally breaks free, it trashes all of these elements, it trashes all of the the heavy concrete, the steel cabling, it destroys this kind of flimsy plastic artificial, you know, dinosaur coloured car. You know, you are seeing something deliberately touristy and sort of cheap and and and safe and sterile as a deliberate contrast to when the chaos starts.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, that's fab. And I yeah, I think because he uh John Bell had done work on Back to the Future, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

He had, yeah. He was did a lot of a lot of the part two 2015 work is his. And if you go on his website, he has just got the most amazing watercolor pen sketches. I mean, he the work he puts out is is stunning. And on his Jurassic page, he he kind of goes through many iterations of of what things look like. But he has designs for I mean he's a graphic designer slash artwriterslash concept artist. Like he's crushingly proficient in a lot of fields. Um but he you know the night mission goggles, um, some of the ideas for the fences, obviously the logo he worked on, vehicles, he did some storyboarding, so I think some work on the visitor centre, so the facades and that sort of thing. So he really, in a lot of ways, he's he's responsible for the look that has kind of essentially launched 30 years of movies.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

What was something that uh reading James Motram's book and looking at how Bell incorporated egg motifs throughout the entrance to the visitor centre door creates an egg that you're walking into, the in-gen badges that uh the kind of employee badges, they all have a big egg motif. Yeah. And it's that it's just that level of detail that you know is is going to be on screen so fleetingly, but the amount of care and work that goes into creating that that all-encompassing story to allow, you know, because if it wasn't there, it would be glaringly obvious.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's kind of you do in this line of work, you do try to look for themes that kind of tie things together because sometimes things are seen in for a second, but you just try to try and build that build that world up. And again, with the branding and the signage, these are all suggesting that the park is bigger than it's going to be. So in the in the lunch scene in the start, you have all those slides in the background suggesting future rides, other you know, other locations. You the vehicles come out, they're numbered, sort of say four and five and six. So you are immediately assuming there are more vehicles elsewhere. Yeah, you have all the paddock signage, which kind of creates a consistent look around it. So even though we only really see the T-Rex paddock from the outside, uh the Delovsal paddock, which is essentially a piece of fence, the UCN of it. Yeah, yeah. You are sort of believing that this world is kind of physical and complete. Obviously, the gates are a huge part of that look. Um, but everything is designed to tie together to say this is one functioning complete system, which is harder than it sounds to achieve sometimes. And the great thing is there's that really nice, there are there are two distinct looks in that moody, which is the the tourist-facing side of the park and the operation side of the park. So they're very different looks. And again, with the operation side of things, it's all kind of heavy concrete, it's all honkered down, dark. And then when you get to the tourist side of things, it's extremely splashy and bright, and kind of even even the food they're eating at the buffet is sort of like green jelly. Like it's it's kind of like e-numbers through the roof design. So it's this it's presented as this kind of very playful, happy uh environment, which which obviously is a deliberate contrast to the reality of it, which is you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

And I think that works, that split that you talk about the kind of operational side and the in-gen logo feels very different to the actual logo for the park. And it's so you see it, and then you think this it's like the corporate facade of Jurassic Park. It speaks to what Crichton's going uh talking about.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, and then the idea is that when those worlds collide and they kind of come off the tour and they're kind of hunkering down, that's the Art of Is the Park that's gone now. Yeah, and it's quite interesting that when you if you read the novel, Crichton described the park almost borderline steampunk. So the vehicles were towed to land cruisers, which in the vehicle world, land cruisers are are considered a much more capable off-roader than a full explorer, but they're a real exploration vehicle. And he does mention lots of concrete there, but he talks about sort of steam and and that sort of thing. I think the only mention of the visual graphic side of the vehicles is the red stripe on the Jeeps, which helps the operation jeeps to stop the animals charging them. So there's there's a very deliberate thing there going from a land cruiser, which is a genuine capable vehicle, to a Ford Explorer, which is essentially a giant toy. Like they weren't made to be, they were suburban uh people carriers. So it's a very specific sort of direction there. It says we're not going to do something like engineered and serious, it's gonna be shiny and plastic and cheap. It's gonna be sort of Florida on steroids. And it's all weird talking about Jurassic in that sense because obviously it then became a theme park ride in its own in its own right. Yeah, and it also had a huge impact on zoos around the world. I I was in London Zoo last year, and they've still got signs in the Jurassic Park font. Um, because to some of you now, that is that is what a a zoo now looks like is that kind of layout. That safari sort of element. Yeah, yeah. New new land inline, I think the font is again, it's that kind of real nice, sort of sparkly artifice. Again, but like Tim's night machine goggles, you know, that they're kind of all the covered in stripes, they're neon yellow. Like in the real world, night machine goggles are discrete, you know. So it's it's it's really sort of emphasizing this kind of playful aesthetic. And it's kind of bizarre because you're gonna you're sitting in this kind of striped neon coloured jeep wearing these striped neon colour head goggles to to to do what? To watch a a dinosaur tear a goat to pieces. Yeah. That's kind of what that part of the tour was. So it's again, it's that kind of real contrast between sort of sterility and violence, which is implied there in that.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

And it f and that feeds into the story elements of it as well, because you know, the idea that they are just so naive that they've got everything under control that they can that you know, you can essentially just drive round in a in a little family car.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And on an unmanned car, yeah. Yeah. And I think there's there's interesting stuff there with the T-Rex paddock. Like so I've had this conversation with someone else the other day, and they said, Well, how would how would this have worked with a car have just gone past the T-Rex paddock and that'd be it? I think the fact that the toy the toilet booth is there outside the paddock suggests that you were supposed to get out at some point maybe and stand there and maybe be so yeah, I mean obviously the idea was that they had not planned for every eventuality, but it but there's a complacency shown. The design of the park shows some complacency in terms of how this sort of worked, and it's really fun to kind of workshop what they were trying to show through the the bits of the world that you see but aren't necessarily expanded upon.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And talking about like vehicles are a big part of all Jurassic films, you know. We've got the talking about the Ford Explorers, but also the gyrospheres in in the world films. In your opinion, what do you think makes a really cool Jurassic vehicle?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Well, I mean, uh I I would say whatever's coming in me, but they were great, they were great to work on. It's colour, it has to be colour. I if if I think about Jurassic Park, for me, it is colour. I don't believe the explorers were product placements, but I know that the Mercedes and The Lost World were. I'm sure they were in Jurassic World. Yeah. And I think what's really interesting is Jurassic World, the first one, it's really cleverly designed. However, in a way that's not particularly satisfying for someone to watch. So the idea that Jurassic World presents is what if Jurassic Park, which was this kind of exotic, exclusive, mysterious, shady, sticky adventure, Safari Park, became a sterilized, mass kind of appeal, yeah. Um yeah, holiday style resort. And so that's where you get these kind of more corporate colours and you get the kind of and the touch is like, you know, the innovation center sponsored by Samsung. It's yeah, it's slow to sponsorships. It's yeah, yeah. And and Jurassic World, as a 41-year-old man from England, presents as like a vision of hell, because I don't want to go on a ferry surrounded by American teenagers and and screaming kids who are like chucking ice cream on things. You know, I don't want to go on the big monorails, I don't want to sit in a in a huge bleach as though by lagoons and watch what I'm seeing. So it's it very cleverly sort of shows you that, well, actually, that if when the mystery goes away, you are left with a hollowed-out experience. Although the colour palette of that movie is is of the time with the 2000s, the kind of very cooler colours, it does it does also work pretty well as a contrast to the kind of experience you had in Jurassic, because Jurassic Park, the first one, you have to be by verge of being kind of relatively, relatively low budget or the budget being assigned to the visual effects or special effects, you don't see much of that movie. So you're left to kind of really build in your head from what you're shown. And what you're shown is actually a very select, small park. So even though John has that line saying everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals, what do you actually see? You're seeing a visitor center that can maybe the cafeteria that can hold maybe 20 families, 30 families. Yeah. Uh a park tour that has a single track road, and and we know it's single track because there's a tunnel that comes out of us this one with. So even if you factor in the river ride or however it's going to work, this was going to be a very exclusive environment. And they clearly hadn't got the animals, the the pens designed to where people could see them. So you have to assume that the car is going to stop and you're going to have a chance to watch it. Much more like a safari than a zoo, which is a different thing. So with safari, you can drive around, you may not see anything for a while, but you will see something because you've you've paid to be there. Yeah. So Jurassic Park was a very select, very exclusive experience. Again, you can infer that the helicopter road at the start wasn't necessarily how they would do things, because otherwise the helicopter would be branded in Jurassic colours. But that's the world's presented. What you're seeing is through you don't see a hotel, you don't see any of the other buildings, you just see a small visitor center, which you can get the geography of quite quickly from the uh from the exterior facade and built in Hawaii, and then the shape, so this is the interior set still on the sound stages that gives you a rough sense of where everything fits together. So you get a sense of the the size of this building. And yeah, there would have been a hotel and maybe you know some other support, so if a a smaller shop or something, I'm not sure, but it was it was minimal. Whereas the Jurassic World is that kind of logical next step where the people who were going to pay to experience this pay the huge money to experience it, 10,000 a day, they've done that now. So now you have to sort of spread the experience out to make it cheaper, the kind of scaling cost of production. By doing that, you make it much less special. So all these little touches like the Margaritaville um and the Starbucks on Main Street, you know, the idea that I and again, I think it's kind of it's great because it really bothers me. The idea that you're all clamoring at a piece of glass to try and catch the the T-Rex feeding. Yeah. And you might and you could very f feasibly go and just not see anything because people will be in the way and people being selfish and there's crowds of people.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Versus what you have in Jurassic Park where you have that intimate explore, what they were hoping for.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Tremendous experience, yeah. I mean, even the first the thing with the brachiosaur, that's that would be a life-changing experience. Even if even if you knew you were going to see dinosaurs in the context you were visiting a year later, that's still a profound experience to be that close to a living creature of that scale. Whereas Jurassic World, again, glass barriers, gyrospheres, the animals have got electric shock colours to stop them from going to it's it's really sterilized and it's and it's taken back a bit from there. So, yeah, as as someone who loved the first Jurassic Park as a child, like the concept of the park world is not something I want I want to see, but as a design choice, what they've done there is it's actually really clever. I think the only thing that that would have made that movie better is to spend more time in the ruins of the old park to really bring about that kind of contrast.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, yeah. I think everybody would like that.

unknown 17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

That's why I I'm desperate for survival to come out. I think I'm um Yeah, just just just to explore it. Absolutely. But I think that's what's brilliant. That that those that film, the first film, tantalised you with so much and you and you want to see how it works. Again, that's the design giving you the mystery. So when you're at the T-Rex Paddock for the first time and you've got a 40-foot fence, yeah, you just want to know what's behind there. And as a kid who didn't know any better, I was pausing the VHS to see if there were some shots of the Rex in the jungle you couldn't see because you just believe that it could be there because it's a convincing facade. Yeah. But and if you look at the elements of it, it's a very simple, it's a concrete, concrete moat with some posts and some wires, but it's it's scale. It's scale that kind of gives you that that kind of impending like what could be behind here.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah. And again, that 10,000 volts sign that we keep seeing then plays into the story, of course, with Grant and the kids. We know just through that seeding through that T-Rex paddock, not just the T-Rex attack sequence, but also when they get on that wire. Therefore, we know exactly what's going to happen when Eddie's turning on the switches.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah, which is a lot of great, a really great little tent scene. And again, that scene's great because you've got that checklist of all the all the signs and it's big chevrons, which is a fantastic. It's a very simple piece of design work, but it's a big glowing red chevron really does sell the business. Like it's and it's Jurassic is kind of it is quite broad strokes, but it's it's delivered in a very exciting, kind of punchy way. Yeah. And again, it's kind of colour. And another thing that that's not my field, but adds a lot and isn't talking so much. Sound design in that movie, it's very tactile, it's very sort of kinetic, and as she's sort of punching through those things, you've got kind of like machine click sounds of the switches going. Like the I mean, if you were to watch that that footage roar out of the camera, it would be like that so much is being built into that scene. You've sort of the structure of that, which is yeah, it's a mix of kind of visual sound directions.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

It's the idea that she has to flip open each one, so adding that tiny millisecond of time, so it's not just pushing buttons, somebody go across, it's that stop moment exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

It is I'm one of the things I tend to do in my life at work, I just do a lot of control panels, which is not a complaint, that's fantastic. And Jurassic, I always come back to that in terms of how does if you make to make a good control panel, you want to make it believable in the world, you have to give something good for the actor to do and also show the audience exactly what that panel is supposed to be doing. And Jurassic is a really great example of kind of like here's a physical prop covered in colour and and lettering, and it's telling you exactly what's going to happen. Same same way with um when Dennis takes the embryos out of the thing. Yeah, yes, they have typos on them, um, which is a which is a pre-internet uh problem. But it's great, like you just break big chunky text. And realistically, that would have said it would have it would have had small codes and and and tag labels, but you're telling the audience straight away, this is the thing, this is what he's doing, he's taking it away.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, it has to work, everything has to work on that big scale in the film, doesn't it? Nothing is yeah, not nothing is small, everything has heft and weight to it, and that again just plays into the the dinosaurs, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah, because the the nice thing is about that scene is that because as Dennis is conducting a solo heist, there's no exposition given to you about what he's doing. So you really have to like all of that set has to sell to you what's going on. So you have those really great chunky door locks, kind of they come open, everything slides open. So as he kind of moves through, uh and you know, one of the things Wayne Knight tended to be cast for back in those days was his his his physical build. Like he was a big guy, yeah. So this isn't really nice about the way he kind of essentially slides through that set unopposed as everything kind of opens up for him, like cameras go off, doors unlock and slide open. That unlatches it like it there's there's a smoothness with his progression, yeah, which is kind of choreographed through the use of props asets, which kind of shows how definitely he's able to move through it. Because even because at that point in the operation, things are going exactly as you planned.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, yeah, I love that, and particularly his part. So I'd never watched, obviously, when I was a child, I'd never watched Seinfeld until I was much older and never got to love Newman.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And so now that I see him, he's a fantastic physical actor, like he really like, yeah, he can he can certainly move his body. But so I I think the T-Rex stepping out of the fence is almost to the second the middle point of the movie. Like if you pause it, it's is the So there's a so that is still the kind of the pre everything, even the heist is still going. According to everyone's plans. Everyone has plans. Everyone has this world they think they're in control of. John thinks he's in control of the world. Dennis thinks he's in control of the world beyond John. Yeah. And the world is shown as there are cracks appearing, like the vehicles aren't working properly with the programming. But it's still the people are still in charge. And it's a second the Rex breaks out that things start breaking down. And those scenes of chaos are really well choreographed as well. So one of the things, again, people don't talk how much is the screen design in Jurassic is fantastic. And if you look at any computer-based movie from the 90s, they are all abysmal because people didn't have computers. And so they needed to be shown exactly handheld for what screens are doing. The net is a great example. The first mission impossible, where someone sends an email and the and the male literally sort of does that and flies. But Jurassic screens are actually really quite real. I don't there's a few bit of like artificial codey, blah blah blah, the corners, but they're very graphic and they choreograph exactly what you're seeing. So they're showing you a working park, they're tracking the vehicles moving. When the fences start to go down, they start cascading in a really fantastically urgent way. And yeah, they kind of lean into the kind of big flashing red text a bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

I wonder whether that's because it's tying into ILM and the fact that Steven Spielberg has seen what because George Lucas was very much involved in the progression of computers used in films. So whether he'd been he was more used to seeing that sort of thing or the the that design team used to seeing that.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

I think so. I think I think there's a clear level of sophistication in terms of what they're showing. And again, this is obstensibly it's a kid's movie, like it's a family movie, but it's trying to talk to kids. I as a kid I understood what I was looking at. I didn't use a computer. And so I think there's there's really great use of and it's like close-ups of showing Dennis kind of like coding and setting things going. So it's it's it it it tell tells you that this room is controlled from this one desk essentially. He has that control and that power. And and the site, the kind of the maps, the the the 3D topographical maps spinning around, kind of showing the storms coming in. There are all these kind of little key things showing things you know starting to close in. Yeah. A lot of these days you can't escape screens or a set. We put screens in a set just to fill space, which we didn't in rebirth. Rebirth is very minimal screens, which is fantastic, but generally you can't do a tech a tech-based set without a whole wall of screens. We tend to propagate that with just filler or repeated elements or kind of code or movie. But Jurassic is very direct. It's kind of like here is information, here is the action. Yeah, when it goes wrong, it's bright red. Like it again, it's it's not it's not particularly deep, but it's really great at conveying what's going on because it people, the the the characters are reacting post things happening. They're not saying the system is they're saying the system's going out a bit, but but generally speaking, you're watching them see it happen. Yeah. So the computer is telling you at the same time, it's telling them what's happening. So to be able to convey that language visually is is really important.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah, it's fascinating. So the logo for Jurassic Park, as I said, takes the kind of chipkid uh design elements. What are your thoughts on its design and sort of legacy of that logo?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Well, I mean it's it's iconic. I mean, it's got to be up there now with the Coke logo in terms of global recognition. Yeah. And again, it's quite interesting, is it that they opt to show a skeleton as the representation of this sort of living breathing system? I think again, it kind of shows some element of of feeling they have control over this because a skeleton can be studied, an assumption can be made, and you have control over an animate object. Obviously, that these animals aren't inanimate, they are alive and potentially angry. So it's again, it's that kind of contrast. Like it's it's it's very graphic. And the obviously the the use of colours, and because that logo exists within the movie and also is the face of the movie externally, it's it does kind of double duty. But colours involved in that are always you know really heavy reds, yeah, really sticky, sunset, sweaty, artificial, doesn't appear in nature generally reds. Those colours screw it again at kind of saying, well, this is our this is our brand. Like here's an animal, we've branded the animal. Well, we got it, we're in complete control of it. Yeah. And if you look at the the Lost World novel, which has the kind of chameleon dinosaurs, that no one expected that. So that's great. It's kind of like, you know, here's our here's our version of the animal. Oh, we have actually no idea what it's doing, but fake surprise to us. So yeah, it's a wonderful bit of of of kind of contrast. And the logo looks great on everything it's applied to. Um, and they and again in the both in the movie and in the world sporting it, they weren't shy about slapping it on everything. No, I think even Kenna used the kind of it doesn't have the JP logo, yeah, it's extinct or whatever. Yeah, obviously, as I've become an adult, um, I kind of glance askew a bit more at kind of capitalist things, but as a kid growing up, being bombarded with this kind of aesthetic and obviously the the look of the first Jurassic, the the the key thing to me is that kind of sunset photo with Turbo because and that's representation that was is the logo with the trees at the bottom. Because you look at that sunset photo and you can imagine there are animals in those trees, anything could be happening in those trees in that kind of hazy, sticky, sunny red, you could be walking through a dog forest, there could be a T-Rex, just like it it evokes such intense, or at least in me, such intense kind of mystery and nostalgia and kind of intrigue. I just want to go in there, I want to see what's in there. Yeah, so having that kind of all over the kind of the vehicles, the polo shirt, see the merchandise in the movie, you don't need to show it because Malcolm says it with the plastic lunchbox line, which is a great piece of writing, but they do show you they are doing that, like they they have kind of leaned fully into it. You can buy any form of anything you would like from the gift shop with the Jurassic logo on it. So they're fully commercialised.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

And it's all real stuff, it's it's strange because it's all real stuff as well. A lot of that stuff was actually for sale after the film came out. It you've got the making of book and it says the making of Jurassic Park. I think that's a very nice little Easter egg that is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, yeah, and it's it's it's fully commercialized. And it's sort of interesting because there's um there's that meme going around saying my toxic trait is I would go to Jurassic Park. If you could go to Jurassic Park, because if you were you know, I was born in a not very nice town in England with not much money to our name. But I'm seeing a movie where kids get to fly in helicopters, yeah, they get to ride around in jeeps without any adults, they have unlimited buffets, night vision goggles, and yes, there are dinosaurs and there is death and mutilation, but like they are experiencing a world sort of beyond my comprehension. Um, so it presents this kind of really wonderful place to be, like you know, and you can imagine walking around. And I I'm sure I'm not even close to being alone doing this. I play Jurassic World Evo quite a lot, and I just make the original park and I used to walk around it at sunset because it's it's such an evocative environment. So it's shown us somewhere that you would really love to be. Yeah. And I and they could have they could have done something like showing the hotel rooms or something like that, which are described in the novel, but but they've and it is cut down to the barest possible bones of what they show. So much so that there are huge numbers of continuity issues in the middle of the film when they cut between sound stage and location. But uh Spielberg's genius is he knows what to show you and how to show you it, that you don't even look at that. I don't know. Have you have you seen the really bad cut in the T-Rex chase? I'm trying to think of the Do you have a copy of the film on your computer?

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah, I probably do.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

I carry the the UHD with me everywhere because it's just it's my ultimate. So there is when the Rex is chasing Ellie and Muldoon and the Jeep.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Immediately the amount of times I've watched this film, it's playing in my head now.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

I don't want to tell you this, I don't want to ruin it. But the thing is, I always forget it's there. Every time I forget it's there, I'm like, Spillberg, you got me again, because you're so good at what you do. So yeah, the exact bit where Muldoon says, get down, that is just a cut for the camera's in the bonnet of the Jeep, and then it jumps four inches to the left, and everyone just changes frame. There's nothing, it's just a it's one of the least professional cuts ever seen history, but you don't see it because Robert screams down and you don't see it. Again, this is absolutely not me saying this is a bad one because of it. I think it's it's just that he can he can do this and no one notices. So I thought I didn't notice this for about sort of well, 20 years, whatever. It's really something.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I love that scene. I love his line, um, get off the stick, bloody move.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, I say so. That's exactly it. So the scene, get off the stick, bloody move.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah, okay. I'm watching it now.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

And the next thing it cuts to is a direct cut to just Malcolm having that doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't do that, but you've never noticed that because the scene is so intense that you just don't pick up on that. And he could have inserted like a two-second shot of the Jeep going past to break that that cut up. Because that's obviously Malcolm just disappears into the back of the Jeep in that one split-second shot. It's a bad, it's a bad cut, is what it is. But he Spielberg has looked at that and weighed up what he wants to show you, what you're feeling, where he thinks you're looking, and and no one picks up on that. I didn't even pick up it. It was a director of photography showed it to me, and that's that's why that film is so magical, because it just reaches in and like swivels your eyeballs where it wants you to look at all times. Movie magic and all sorts of things. Yeah, it's and it's it's such a it's such like an old school kind of I you got me again. And I and I I really love that. Yeah, all the kind of little continues, and again, on in those scenes, you know, one second the Jeep is on a electrified park route, then it's on a mud track. And obviously, if the Jeep had gone in the direct if the explorers there, the Jeep on that way, the Jeep would have gone into the tunnel. There was clearly showed, and the Rex wouldn't have been doesn't matter, like no one questions that because it's such an intense moment.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Plus, I think he comes from that film-making world of once it's out there and in the cinemas, it's you know, the the idea of pouring over something has no interest to Spielberg at all, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I have a lot of respect for that. And it's wonderful that that's that's them saying, you know, just it just experience this in its in its most raw way. And I yeah, I love that. I thought that it continues to fool me because I get so engrossed in it. Even though I've probably watched this film probably 200 times now, yeah, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I love the bit where Nedri bag disappears when he's when he's laughing, and you're just like, I can't believe until somebody told me about that. But it's because I wasn't looking, I wasn't thinking about that at all.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Well, again at that moment. Wayne Knight, fantastic like very watchable, fantastic end. And obviously, you know, the cuts, the the takes are chosen for the performance and not for the Yeah, exactly. You know, uh this will sound like someone trying to cover his own mistakes, but I do sort of feel like you should really focus on the emotive side of things rather than the technical side. And unfortunately, one of the downsides to the internet being kind of full of goofs and trivia pages is that this stuff is picked up and um a lot more. But all these old films are as rough around the edges as you like. Yeah, because they weren't meant to be scrutinized, but they they work in such a kind of really great kind of visceral way. Yeah, they they they they never sacrifice a good take for uh the booming shot. Yeah. And that sort of stuff to just go, well, that's that's how that is now, which is something we need back, I think.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, no, I I I I like that. I like I like that.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

I hope you don't now see that cut every time you watch the movie and I haven't rendered for you.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

No, definitely not. I'll I'll still forget and I'll be just engrossed in that scene. Um and Bob Peck's performance.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Uh Bob, I mean, the much missed Bob Peck, who if people want to see more Bob Peck, Edge of Darkness, yeah, it's fantastic, yeah. Fantastic. And and again, this is a design thing. In that he gets what, six, seven minutes screen time in that movie. He brings so much to that. And my favourite Bob Peck, Bob Peck bit in the movie is that little smirk to himself when he gets away from the wrecks of the Jeep because that's a man who lives on the edge for a living and for fun. Yeah. And he's just like, yeah, he's got a job to keep people safe and doesn't want to get eaten. But when he wins that one, he's like, Yeah, I won that.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, I think that he's it adds to his backstory of who he is, without even needing any lines or anything about what what he did previously. There's a drop line by Hammond about oh, he's from a from a park somewhere. Yeah. One of his parks in Kenya or something, I think.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

That's a guy who you know is has has lived on the edge and and lives for that moment, that kind of life or death little thing. And such a great little kind of character twitched by him. And and yeah, he's not really. I think he's obviously remembered for the clever girl line, which is fantastic. Long socks as well. Yeah. Fantastic calves, like the best calves in business. But yeah, just a really nice little layer of detail. Again, sometimes in modern movies, actors don't get to bring that no that little bit of character to them. One of the many reasons I love this movie so much. I'm just going through John Bell's work now. A lot of the a lot of the early versions of the the visitor center and the gates were much more grand, much bigger, very, very sculptural, very tall, kind of almost sort of verging into the kind of King Kong yes, yeah, aspect. And so the fact that these are stripped down somewhat for the build, for the actual set, again, I think works really well because they aren't overshadowing the animals. And one of the things that I was kind of told in rebirth is that Spielberg's edict is that nothing can be bigger than the dinosaurs. So they they they keep that kind of structure down because you want the biggest thing in the world to be the T-Rex and the and the Brachiosaur, like you you really want to fill that scale. So there is kind of there is a kind of paired back look to that to that geography. It's kind of and you can assume that kind of the thatched roofs and stuff are fake and there's really a structural roof underneath it. It it is supposed to feel quite small and intimate because you want the scale of the animals and the scale of the jungle as well to be the big selling point, really.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yeah, yeah. And also to talk talking about scale and that chase sequence, the fact that they're all in that tiny Jeep, like they're all squished in, so everything is reduced down in size for everybody. Both the cars are full of people, uh everything like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah, and there's some great camera work there in terms of of kind of really extreme up and downs, and and to to work in those enclosed spaces with a camera and kind of be engaging is is not an easy thing to do. And so when they're in the control room being chased for raptors, again, there's there's a very tight kind of hemmed-in feeling. Yeah. So you go from these kind of man-made spaces which are kind of small and enclosed, and you feel like you should be safe when you have roofs and doors and and glass around you at all times. Like they're they're pretty much always in a box or a structure. They fly in an helicopter, they're in the little spin-round park tour in the in the labs. They are in the explorers, they're in the emergency bunker, they're always hunkered in. Yeah. But that counts for nothing because life will break through as berries. So it's just a really lovely kind of like there's there are there are much as there's kind of the corporate side and the tourist side, there's the kind of hunkered in safe side, and there's the exploded huge outside.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

I think that's the contrast between also Jurassic Park and then uh Fallen Kingdom and Dominion is losing that kind of penned in quality to to those two stories. I mean, Fallen Kingdom probably not because of the the the house that that we get, you know, you move from an island to a house essentially. But Dominion especially feels quite big.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

The the what's interesting about um the Fallen Kingdom is it really feels like a I'm not saying this to impugn it, it's like it's designed like a video game, like because the house is so contained and you have such an obvious sense of of where everything is relative to everything else, and especially without the secret lab underneath, like that's such a video gamey thing to do. So it and obviously the indirect result smaller, but it really shrinks everything right down. Whether or not the movie was successful in kind of delivering that kind of Resident Evil-esque survival horror aspect. When I think of Jurassic, what I think of is this kind of huge, dense jungle, and anything could be there. Yeah, and you know, when I was on set for rebirth and we were kind of just chucking in millions of palms everywhere, I was just like, this is where I want to be. Like this is this is I could be in any second, and that's great. Like I'm really happy that there's and it's just it's a m it's such a simple thing. Like, I and again, I don't know if it's just me look or up with it, but you stick a big dense thing of palm trees there and say danger, like I'm instantly like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

I mean, that's what I did. That's what that's what that film that I think that's why I was so engrossed in that film and why I've loved it so much, is the fact that it could be on an island somewhere, and I could go and visit this lost lost land and makes you think about when you're out and about across there, you see a wooded area. You know, I'm I may keep it I may keep it in my head now, but I I grew up in Devon. So I grew up in woods of Dartmoor and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

Couldn't tell your accent. There's a where I was, there was a NATO base nearby, and it and it had 12 foot fences with barbed wire on and loads of trees and so and the primitive fence if that was like a mile long or whatever. We would drive past that in my head that there dinosaurs wasn't there. I know perfectly definitely dinus wasn't there because it's and it's it's it's not showing you like it's just teasing you. Like, imagine what's behind you, imagine what you're gonna see. You're hearing noises, and again, the sound design of Jurassic, one of the great noise one of the great things, the sound of the jungle, the insect noises, the bird noises, the rustling, the kind of sense of heat delivered through the lighting, the atmosphere, the haze. It's really primal, and it's it's different to the book. The book really operates on this kind of almost like a land before time sort of vibe. It's kind of steamy and sort of stuff like that. But but Jurassic is kind of it's it's alive. Like it's it's yes, you've got the clean, shiny, sterile human side, but behind that, like it is buzzing and it's it's it's dirty and it's muddy and it's full of insect life, and anything can be rustling there. Yeah. And for given how little dinosaurs you see in that movie, you believe all the time something could be anywhere there, which is kind of what was a s a shame about The Lost World in a way is that they bring the animals to them. Yeah, true. Yeah. So even though it's this big adventure movie, really the set pieces are designed in such a way to speed things up because the animals come to us here, they are in almost in almost all instances though, they're they're just bringing the rey don't go around a corner and stumble across something. Yeah, they bring the rex to them, the rexes to them by taking the infant. They're obviously all collected at the harvester's camp as well. So despite the name, there's actually not much sense of exploration within that last world. And I and I wonder if that's because they they chose to cut something short to put the San Diego sequence into the end, I'm not sure. Whereas even though the second novel clearly hasn't got the magic of the first, it really does have that sense of exploration.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Yeah, and that's why quite I I quite like that. There's you know, Jurassic Part 3 has that as well. Like then traveling across the island, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

For all of its you know, unfortunate faults. I was saying to is it Daniel who runs Stuck on Sauna? Yeah. So although that movie is sadly tainted with that slight Y2K cheapness that was coming in, there are elements of that movie which are actually Jurassic. Like when the when they when they first run it, but I think it's Alan's hiding from the Raptors, yeah. And it's just milling about doing its thing. Yeah, that's fantastic. And in a way, that's I think that's what a lot of us want from Jurassic. It's kind of this is a world that functions on its own, and we just wanted the chance to kind of dip in and and and see what it is, which again is why Jurassic World is quite good in that it shows you what you don't particularly want to see, even though you are allegedly getting to roam the plains with these dinosaurs, they're being beeped out of the way as you go past. Like you're it you're you're robbed of the kind of the natural element of that. And I know that kind of for my sins, I do spend a bit of time on the Jurassic Park Reddit. And and I some people have really taken the line in Jurassic Park 3 about they're just theme park monsters and run with it. And some people like me just still have the belief in the romance that yes, they're artificial, but they're alive, they're real, they're and I think that's more what Cryon was getting at, and more what the first that yeah, you made them, but they're gonna make their own way of life.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Yeah, so I really want to see them plus the dinosaurs, you know, the it's the first I think I said when I spoke to Connor, you know, it's the first time that dinosaurs were put in put on screen really and trying to get the science right, you know, aside from maybe the Dilophosaurus, but everything's like I I know it's wrong, and he's my favourite.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

She, she's my favourite, yeah. I was working on Pinewood on Red Dwarf and they're doing Dominion, and my friend was on Dominion, and she let me into the creature shop and they let me pull the lever, which made the thrill come up. And honestly, that was up until working rewirife, that was probably one of the best days of my life. That was fantastic. Again, well, the movie, the look of the movie meets the commercial aspect in the real world because that summer of just like, oh, it's coming, it's coming, and you would and they would bring you out bits and pieces of material. The two things transport me back to being a seven, eight, nine-year-old, whatever it was. The McDonald's Dilophosaur cup, because they're those cups that had those really great tableaus on them around the side, and each one kind of represented a take on the scene and the Dilophosaur one because the Dilophosaur colouring is so fantastic, the kind of stripes, streaks, kind of chemical bubbling, flowing. Don't want to touch that, it's definitely gonna give you problems, kind of look. The threat implied in that and the kind of the night, the nighttime element of it, the torrential storm, the really harsh downlighting from the Jeep's hot lamps. There's a real like, and even in the sort of sanitized kid versions of that, it's a real implied danger. There's a kind of like a it's like you know, you're out of uh comfort zone here. Like, yeah, you've got the lights on your Jeep, but they're not gonna do anything. All your machinery is now useless. So when the Dolophysor popped up in the rebirth trailer, I was very happy because the little they had those little badges that came out that kind of lets that just have the dinosaur heads on them, the spitter one just with that crack of lightning in the background. And again, the natural weather system is such an important part of Digerastic aesthetic. The the the rain pouring over the placid gas domes on the explorers, you know, hitting the the leaves, pooling water, like it's storms are although technically not really a production design element, they're a visual element that really have so much power in that movie because the storm is almost part of why the animals are able to sort of roam through. There's so many kind of, and again, this the the rainstorm is this is a real natural and the lightning. This is a very real natural, what would you call it, happening? I don't know, yeah, interacting with these kind of plastic and concrete and painted that that can't withstand what they're bringing. Yeah. So it's again, it's it's that kind of really the the the the the natural impacting the artificial is okay, it's a very basic motif, but it's communicated as often as possible.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

It's like an act of God, isn't it? Like Malcolm always talks about in in the books, Crichton's always got him going up against God and what's God's relationship in all of this, and then you have God's reckoning with the with the storm. And again, that also opens up the world as well, because we all know what a thunderstorm's like or a trench or rain. And so again, that makes us think, well, they can't be on a set because can't be doing stuff like this on a set.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Yeah, it's I I mean having done a few rainy sets in my time, that's not much fun to work in. But um, I look at I look at behind the scenes picture, I would love to have been there. So, in terms of spillberg things that scare the hell out of you, I saw a close. Encounters quite young. And that centered the brooding storm before the the alien deduct the kid from the small house. Yeah. Just that vista shot of the storm clouds. Yeah. And you can you can feel the static in the air, and there's like the fate rumbles, and there's that kind of the self-control to use the kind of, you know, you get the distant flash of lightning, not the big cinematic cracks, just like that. Like there's such a heavily weighted scene. Like you know something's brewing, you know something's coming. Did the same in jaws when the boat they're singing along, you've got those kind of sticky skies, and you can kind of feel like an oppressive heat kick.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Oppressive nature, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

You know something very large is coming. And Jurassic and the T-Vax breakout is kind of like the is lucky many over the years refined how that works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

And almost not to make it about you've forget that it's a constructed story, that the tension is coming from nature rather than anything that he's manipulating. It's it's it's the storm, it's everything else that's culminating in this moment, this climactic moment.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, like it it's a brilliant decision not to use any score during during that. And the entire T-Rex attack scene, I often have Jurassic playing in the background when I'm working, and so I don't watch it, but I listen to it. And the T-Rex attack scene is it's a cacophony of grunts and squelches and and metal crunching and hitting concrete and grinding. Like it's it's just such a powerful, chaotic, and it's and but it's slow, it's but and that's the thing, like it's it's it's drawn out, and this is an animal that's not threatened. It's kind of like, well, this is my park now, and it's just knocking shit over because it can, and it's fun to do that. So it's there's no sort of jump scares or there's no kind of like tumbling. It's just a really drawn-out, traumatic experience for people going through it, which was what makes it real. Yeah, and obviously that kind of the the shot of them kind of the thunder cracks, they look up, there's the rex, like it's it's wonderful, and it's holding on to the sign. Yeah, which that is from the book, isn't it? Yeah, I think. Yeah, because someone was saying the day, and it uh and this goes back to saying about that cut with the Jeep, someone on Reddit was saying this shot's impossible because there's no way the T-Rex's arm could be there and you wouldn't see the rest of it. It's like, yes, that's correct, but what else are you gonna do? If you try and show the tail, the the obvious thing to show hitting the fence would be the tail. Yeah, but if you show the tail and you cut to the head, what you've done is you've shown the entire scale of animal before it steps out. So you rub your child, you ru yourself of that majestic side. So Spielberg kind of balances up, but what's what's gonna make you feel the most and even the movement of the arm probably isn't really that great, but it's slithering and a bit weird. I'm sure there's some saying to him, Well actually wouldn't actually do that.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

You're like, Yeah, but but this will look good, which yeah, it plus it it it does the tension thing of oh shit, it's holding onto the fence before you see it break down. So you knew it's the thing of us knowing something before we see it happen, showing that somebody's got a bomb, yeah, you know, all the all the time.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

I yeah, I get it's very simple, it's not complicated, but there's the same time, there's no one yelling exposition out like you would you arriving at the idea that they are in trouble the same time they are, yeah. And it's and it's a really and again the there's the physical sound of the fence cables under tension, tension, tension, tension, snap. Everything is just kind of going up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And almost when the T-Rex breaks out, it there's almost a sense of release, like, oh, it's here. And obviously that was the point at which I said we have to leave the cinema now, please take me home. Yeah. And again, these these kind of really when you saw the explorers prior to the the storm, they're kind of bright and sunny and and and nice on the inside. When the wreck steps out for the first time, they are they're off, the lights are off, they are dark, the colours are gone. Whatever safety is afforded to you by feeling like you're in a man-made, sterile environment has been robbed by nature because the sun is gone and these and these little vehicles they have no power. Like that you're suddenly aware of, like, uh, it's just a plastic cage. Yeah. Oh, dear. Yeah, and it's and it's it's lovely. And it's again sort of slightly, you didn't really get that from the lost world because they leaned into this kind of quasi-militarized equipment, and it still broke down in the same way, but it was it was you lose that sense of kind of being naked, I guess. Because you're like, Oh, I have no defenses here whatsoever. Yeah, and yes, realistically, they probably would have traveled with wardens with shotguns in a working park or something. So the idea that you are frail against these things you've created is again lovely, simple, simple, but really brilliantly communicated.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

And that's what I really like the idea of in rebirth with the taking the Michael Crichton moment of the river raft sequence.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

I um I read the first day I read that script and I was just uh I saw I saw the word like oh they can't say what I saw the word Ralph Shed, and I was like, Ralph Shed. And I kind of started reading it like I could not believe we were doing it because as a kid who absorbed all the making of materials, I would play out the sequences with my toys and like the concert up, I think it's Crash from Kerry did it. A great thing of the wrecks and that swirling river. I mean, obviously that's that's that's so evocative for kids. So I just dreamed of seeing that scene when to realize I was kind of working on it. Yeah, I would that love that shot on vacation, which they didn't send me to Thailand. So the first I really saw of it in any meaningful way was the trailer, the second trailer. Wow, and have and having seen how good that looks, and that's the magic Gareth brings the things right, like though because the the in the novel it says um Grant notes unhappily, it's the biggest crocodile in the world. It swims like a crocodile, the biggest crocodile in the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

And that and just the few seconds they put in the trailer of really the water breaking over the And again the the speed of like it's that thing that you were just talking about with the T-Rex, and it's not in any hurry.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

You're in you're in his turf. Yeah. Like he has all the advantages, and it I there's that kind of almost a bemused look on its face, it waits into the water slowly. That's the threat, isn't it? Like it's not there's no cut, jump, cut, or tumbling caress is like, you know, you get you get to experience a full like uh messed up. Yeah, it's just yeah, this is how I this is how I end by doing something stupid. And it's wonderful, really, and even though the I think it's pretty clear now from the trailers, it's a different look to Jurassic's prior, you know. I think it still really nails that kind of like here is the artificial, here is the natural, and it's it's not it's not gonna save you. It really it harkens back to that kind of feel. And I think what we really wanted was was to see the kind of abandoned ruins. And it's it's a shame in the way Fallen Kingdom is only on new bar for sort of 30 seconds, because yeah, even though I personally wasn't enthralled with what world was showing in the first world, but even though I'd said it was the right thing to show, see it in ruins and taking back by the end was I do want to see that. Yeah, and and you know, the the start with T-Rex and the Dark and the Storm just stalking around. It's great. Like that's such a I mean, it's probably one of the at the outside of the first movie, the two best scenes in the in the I hate the word franchise, but in the franchise, the focus pole in Jurassic 3 when you're tracking Billy going down the river and you go past us around Tremodon head, but you don't realise it until it pulls focus, it turns around. That's masterful. That's one of the best shots in the in the in all of the movies. And then the other one would be the T-Rex just in the bushes during the lightning, because that's what we want. That's what we want to see. We want to we we know the animal's there and we just want to see it breathe and live and and and I just love that one.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

And the Gaquino's music, it replicates his footsteps as it's coming towards him. We know what's we know what's happening, it just feels pure Jurassic that that whole sequence.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

I would say the the seed in Jurassic World where Claire lights the flare and the first thing you see in the Rex's eyes, that was lovely as well. And I think it's really nice when they really lean into the animals being real. I think it's kind of like I think my view on these movies is has matured a bit since I've had a dog because all these animal behaviors suddenly make much sense if you've got a dog. But we have like a little, we have a couple of cameras in the house, check where he is, and sometimes you turn the camera on if the lights are off, and all you just get is a pair of glowing eyes under the bed, and they're like, that's proper horror. And then and to see the the the Rex you that as well, it's like it's great because it it gives these animals reality and a bit of life. Yeah, and in the way that the Deloph saw in the first movie was kind of a bit playful and kind of again toying with its food. It there's kind of like a it doesn't just jump out and go blah, like it it builds like he's scoping you out, yeah, and you are failing. Yeah, and it's a sex that you don't really have the wherewithal to take it on, so it's gonna meet you. And I just and I kind of I love that kind of interaction where the human assumption of confidence starts to sort of fall apart a little bit, and you kind of like we aren't the masters of this domain. Yeah. And it's and it's great that they're kind of like, you know, Dennis, Dennis meets his end because his glasses steamed up because no one, you know, and as a fairly hefty guy like myself who wears glasses, steaming up glasses in cars is like the bait of my life. So it's just like one of those things you didn't think through, like you didn't have control over the weather. So the weather's what did you mean? Essentially in the end. Yeah, and it's it's just this kind of cascading. Obviously, the the novel discusses this, but also literally illustrates it with the iterations on the yeah, chapter pages. But that's that kind of cascading failure. Yeah, and cascading chaos is is kind of a uh recurring theme visually in the first movie. So if you think about it, you have when you land, you have the waterfall, you have the cray computers with the kind of cascading data, when the fences start to fail, the visual representation that is kind of like a cascading series of like yeah, so there's kind of this constant sense of being there's like a kinetic danger. You're buried where things go wrong. The barbers hell can there's a lot of this kind of like weight of things coming down on you, and to some degree, the great POV shot of the wrecks coming down at them on the Jeep as well, yeah, when they're escaping it. So there's there's kind of this constant kind of sense of of you are small, everything is really big. Yeah. And and again, very simple. It's not you know, you can't write a book book on it, but how you convey that visually is really is really great.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Well, brilliant. Um, we'll have to we'll have to reconvene later in the year and we can discuss uh rebirth spoilery detail.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

How many how many hours do you have for that?

SPEAKER_00 53:44

I'd I'd just like to say thank you so much for um joining me today. Um I was wondering whether where people can find you online, if indeed you want the want them to.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I'd say don't find me. Um I've I think I'm really just an Instagram now. So I think my username there is yeah, Clarksworth. I do post quite a bit behind the scenes stuff. Um, I'll definitely do some making of bits for Jurassic and kind of the bits you do see and don't see. There are endless, because I'm a tremendous nerd, there are endless um Easter eggs in there, which probably won't ever make it onto the final cut. So I'll probably try and show them on the Instagram at some point.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

Definitely, but we can chat about that next time. But yeah, I'd just like to say thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

No worries, always very happy to discuss that first movie, always.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

My huge thanks to Matthew for that conversation. I honestly don't think I've ever talked that in depth about the design of a film as I have done in this episode. There were so many light bulb moments, and I really hope it made you want to go and watch Jurassic Park for possibly the a thousandth time, just to try and look at all those little details and really think about what the art department was doing when they were creating that film back in the 90s with a scaled-down budget and how you do world building, just in general, really thinking about the design elements that you're looking at. And having now seen Rebirth three times, Matthew's work on that film is fantastic. I absolutely love the little details that are put in the film, and I really want to get him back on later in the year, once it's out on video, video, how old am I? Once it's back, once it's out on home release, and we can both really go into the film in great detail, and we can just talk about the elements that he worked on. I hope that we can do that later on in the year. Now, as to what's coming up next on this podcast, I've sort of got one final episode to bring you, and that is my spoiler thoughts. And I'm bringing back Derek Davis and James Motram. So it's going to be the three of us sat down chatting about all of our spoiler thoughts on this, the seventh entry in the Jurassic Saga. Now that probably won't be out next Wednesday, it might be out later on in the week, hopefully for Friday, ready for your weekend. And then what happens after that episode I'm not quite sure. This podcast was meant to be twelve episodes talking about the anticipation leading up to Rebirth's release. But the thing is, I've sort of been having a little bit too much fun and I don't want to stop it now. What it becomes, I'm not sure, but all I will say is watch this space. Head over to Road to Rebirth on Instagram at RoadToRebirthPod. Email me your thoughts about rebirth, about what this podcast could become. I'm really interested to hear everybody's thoughts on those matters. You can do that at road to rebirthpod at gmail dot com. But until next time I'll just say thank you very much for listening and goodbye.