How one maverick changed Jurassic Park - and filmmaking
Making a dinosaur with computers was another 'crazy' idea
Growing up, I LOVED going to the movies (that hasn’t changed). I can tell you about the summers of my childhood around the movies that played in the theaters between May-August.
1993 gave us Tom Cruise in The Firm (and piqued my interest in Grand Cayman).
And Harrison Ford in The Fugitive (which had me wondering how they make Lake Michigan green on St. Patrick’s Day).
But the biggest movie of the summer of 1993 combined two things I loved:
Steven Spielberg and dinosaurs.
Spielberg didn’t waste money with big stars for his film. Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are good in their roles, but the things that pulled us into the theaters (more than once) were the dinosaurs.
You may not think so now (given the sea of CGI films made today) but when Jurassic Park came out, it was incredible.
When those dinosaurs appeared on the screen, we had the same reaction as Dern and Neill in the movie:
But how did those dinosaurs make it to the screen?
I was curious…and after I read about the bigger name effects teams that worked on the film, I discovered Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams.
If the world of animation in 1991 had a bad boy, I think it may have been Spaz…
Here’s the story of how Steve Williams’ refusal to take no for an answer led to the magical dinosaurs in Jurassic Park
Steven Spielberg began production on Jurassic Park in 1991. He hired Oscar-winning special effects and visual effects experts to create large animatronic dinosaurs and puppets, and planned to capture their movement on film using a well-established process called stop motion.
But there was one problem.
Stop motion footage can appear jerky on screen – or even worse – fake.
So Spielberg hired Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) to add effects to improve the stop motion footage.
And that’s where 29-year-old ILM animator Steve Williams comes in…
Williams was tasked with adding blur to the footage to improve the appearance of the stop motion dinosaurs.
But Williams and some of his colleagues at ILM saw an opportunity.
Instead of using stop motion, why not build the dinosaurs using computer graphics?
But this was 1991, and no one believed computer graphics were capable of creating a dinosaur that looked real and could move – or they were too scared to try.
But not Steve Williams.
Williams had already been pushing the boundaries of what was possible, working on the effects in films like The Abyss and Terminator 2.
Even though his boss had explicitly told him not to, Williams secretly began building the bones of a T-Rex in computer graphics.
“We were mavericks. We always questioned established systems. ILM was a lab. We were inventing and experimenting with things.”
Spurred by his curiosity (and a desire to convince others he was right), he spent months experimenting, and managed to create an incredible CG walk cycle of a T-Rex.
But he knew his boss would never show it to the film’s producers.
So he got creative.
Williams knew that Jurassic Park producer Kathleen Kennedy would be visiting the ILM office for a routine screening, so he set up a monitor by the door that showed his T-Rex creation, ensuring she would see it as she walked down the hall.
When Kennedy saw Williams’ CG T-Rex, she was immediately impressed – and suddenly stop motion didn’t look like the best option anymore.
With Kennedy’s endorsement, Williams got the green light from his boss at ILM to continue building his CG dinosaurs.
He spent the next 4-5 months building the skin of his T-Rex (to match the animatronic versions that had already been created), before it was unveiled to Spielberg, George Lucas, producer Kennedy, and a few others working on the film.
When they saw the CG dinosaur moving on the screen, they were amazed.
And it changed everything.
When Spielberg saw what was possible with CG, he knew it was a game changer.
And the well-defined process of stop motion was suddenly on its way to being extinct.
In fact, Spielberg was so enamoured with the T-Rex, he re-wrote the end sequence of the film to include more action with a T-Rex.
Williams had built the creature, but now he and the team at ILM had to make it run. Phil Tippett, who had originally been hired to create the stop motion work on the film, was able to help the animators understand the kind of movement they would need to create in computer graphics.
At the same time, the team at ILM had to make sure their CG creations aligned with the animatronic dinosaurs and puppets Stan Winston and his team were creating.
The final film that arrived in theaters in 1993 included a combination of CG dinosaurs (visible in the wide shots), animatronics, and puppets.
And when Jurassic Park opened in June 1993, audiences couldn’t believe how realistic the CG dinosaurs were. The film was a smash hit, raking in more than $900 million, and becoming the highest-grossing film at that time.
Although many initially doubted what computer graphics could do, Steve Williams was always a believer.
“I love the term ‘You will never’, Williams said. “If I listened to the people who said, ‘You will never…’, T-Rex wouldn’t have been built.”
You can see how Steve’s work on Jurassic Park evolved here.
Fun Fact: When Steven Spielberg decided to use computer graphics in the film instead of stop motion, he had to break the bad news to stop motion expert Phil Tippett.
After telling Tippett he was being replaced with computers, Spielberg asked him, “How does that make you feel?”
Tippett responded, “I think I’m extinct.”
Spielberg responded: “That’s a great line for the film.”
And Spielberg added the line to the film.
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New research has revealed that creativity is at an all-time low among adults.
That’s not good – as we need creativity to solve problems and innovate.
Luckily, I have a solution!
I have a new creative workshop that I’m excited to be sharing with corporate clients and their teams – particularly those who aren’t in the “creative industries” or who feel they “just aren’t creative.”
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These are skills everyone needs – and they are skills everyone can develop!
Keep Smiling - and Stay Curious!
-Beth