The production of Jurassic Park

"Jurassic Park" was realized in 1992-1993 by director Steven Spielberg and producer Kathleen Kennedy, based on the book by Michael Crichton. The film grossed over one billion US dollars at the box office and won three Oscars. But where and, more importantly, how was the cult flick produced?

Most of the film was shot on Kauai, a Hawaiian island. Cinematographer Cundey was immediately taken by the beautiful and, above all, varied tropical landscapes. On August 24, 1992, the film crew arrived in Okele Canyon and filming could begin.However, before the first clapperboard fell on August 24, 1992, a construction team had already been on location for three months to build the film sets. This included, for example, the iconic facade of the visitor center, which was an impressive 70 meters long and 20 meters high, as well as the generator house where Ellie was surprised by the raptors while trying to restart the power in the park.

The 8-meter high electric fence of the dinosaur enclosure was especially challenging for the team. It was erected in the middle of the jungle. Of course, roads had to be built there first before the actual set construction could start. Another problem was the high load on the towers/piles to which the thick steel cables were attached. Spielberg insisted on tightly tensioned strands. After all, they had to be able to stop dinos!

The actual filming on the Hawaiian island went smoothly for the most part. A few problems, according to the crew, were caused by the constantly changing light, which was due to frequent weather changes, and the location of some of the filming locations, which could only be reached by four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles. Nevertheless, only the last day of shooting fell through: ironically, due to a hurricane. So, just like in the movie, the team was evacuated from the island. The missing shots were later made up by a second unit.

By the way, only one dinosaur replica "entered" Kauai. This was the sick Triceratops: a first acid test for the animatronic artists around Stan Winston. Spielberg even applied for additional funding to transport the robot, as he felt the effect would be much more authentic in the jungle than in the studio. For the rest of the dino scenes shot on the island, the prehistoric creatures had to be added as computer graphics after the fact.

After shooting on Kauai, production continued in Los Angeles. The production took place in seven different studios. Outdoor scenes were shot in two of them, while indoor scenes were recreated in the remaining five. The studios offered the great advantage of having total control over lighting and weather, as well as much greater flexibility regarding the robots. There was plenty of room to hide technology and there was no need to expose the replicas to unnecessary wetness, to which the animatronics were very sensitive.

For the scene in which the Tyrannosaurus attacks the two broken-down cars, Universal even had to rent a studio from competitor Warner Brothers, since no studio of its own was large enough. So the main street of the park was set up in Hall 16 with a huge fence on one side and the toilet that was to be the lawyer Gennaro's undoing on the other. The studio measured 50 x 80 meters! The shoot was incredibly elaborate, but the work was definitely worth it. After all, it resulted in one of the most iconic sequences ever.

The Stan Winston Studios team, which had already made a big impression on the film crew with the sick Triceratops, made an animatronic T-Rex specifically for this scene, on a scale of 1:1. The robot was seven feet tall and weighed in at a whopping 12,000 pounds. The team worked on the construction for two years!

The puppet was controlled hydraulically by a smaller model that translated the animators' movements. An air cushion construction had to be placed under the giant to distribute the energy of the fast movements over a larger area and thus attenuate them, because otherwise the floor under the T-Rex would most likely have shattered. Underneath the actual studio floor was a 1.80 meter deep concrete pit. So it was possible to take out the floor at certain points in order to expand the set. Specifically, this was used to install the mud pit in which the car was supposed to sink under the weight of the T-Rex.

This scene was shot in the dark and in heavy artificial rain, which was helpful on the one hand because it allowed a lot of the technology to be concealed, but fatal on the other because, as mentioned earlier, the dino construction was very susceptible to water. The foam rubber that made up the outer skin of the T-Rex soaked up water. Crew members therefore had to stay on set overnight and use large hairdryers to dry the dinosaur again in time for the start of shooting the next day.