Designer Times
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51. Jurassic Park Movie T-Rex Animated Figure

Sci-Fi movie buffs have enjoyed a massive revolution in film Special Effects from the late 1980's thru the late 1990's. Prior to James Cameron's film "The Abyss", movie EFX used physical and optical tools to tell the stories while fiddling with a first dabble into computer generated imagery (CGI).

The Abyss showed how much more fantasy can be realized, particularly in big scenes.

The previous movie creatures of all sizes were "practicals", or physical devices shot optically for the scenes. By 1998 these practicals had become extinct....like the dinosaurs. Virtually every new creature was now CGI.

Interestingly enough, it was a dinosaur that led the way into CGI while closing out the great history of large practical animated movie creatures.

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park T-Rex was the star of this major turning point in movie technology.

Spielberg had bought the movie rights to Michael Crichton's epic story "Jurassic Park" even before it had been published. Spielberg made inquiries to some of Hollywood's well known movie creature designers to find someone to build this monster. The general reaction was....."don't do it, it won't work" based on prior giant creature effects. The Dino DeLaurentis King Kong proved very difficult to make work. And Spielberg's own experience with Bruce the Shark in Jaws was troubling.

Spielberg had observed our Sequoia Creative team as we installed our first 30' tall King Kong animated creature at Universal Studios Tour Hollywood in 1986. He would come by our set every day at noon to watch, but never interrupted our work. I remarked at the time to our guys...."he's picking all this up". Sure enough, Steven called me June 30, 1990 while I was doing a project at the about-to-open Universal Studios Tour Florida.. "Bob, they tell me it won't work, but I know your King Kong has worked great for several years....let's talk".

We started discussions right away at Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment back in Hollywood on June 4th. Since we both were scheduled for attending the Florida Tour Grand Opening two days later, he gave me a galley proof copy of the unpublished Jurassic Park the size of a phone book to take with me on the plane....."you can read it fast, it's only printed on one side of each page". By the next morning I could see why he was so concerned about building a big realistic T-Rex. This would have to be a giant leap in every technology required for such a risky mechanical machine.

I joined Steven's entourage for the first press ride thru the new King Kong Florida Attraction, which impressed everyone that yeah, a big Dinosaur could really work. Returning to California, I started work officially with Amblin Entertainment on June 13, 1990.....(a preliminary design phase that would run through the end of August).

As the Amblin pre-production team of writers, artists, sculptors, and EFX designers began work in earnest, it became apparent that Jurassic Park was not just another Hollywood Monster Movie but a defining moment in special effects history. I met the most fascinating and inspired creative folks ever....(outside of Walt Disney and The Imagineers, of course).

This whole episode was chronicled in detail by Jody Duncan in Cinefex issue number 55 for August 1993. Duncan writes...."We looked at the 'King Kong' attraction in Florida, which Steven really liked....We talked to the Henson organization, which was doing 'Dinosaurs' for television....The most serious discussions involved Bob Gurr, the designer of the King Kong....Gurr is a key player in the design of creatures for amusement parks".

I laid out all the usual large animation requirements, scope of work descriptions, and preliminary mechanical master layout for the T-Rex. The motion points for all the body, arms, neck, and head were fairly easy to determine. Steven wanted the creature to walk, or at least look like it was taking at least one step. That meant supporting the whole mass on one leg so we could have one leg free to make a large stepping action. Maybe we could put the whole thing on a traveling rig so it would look like it was walking, but hidden by some setwork.

In late June we met with Stan Winston at his Van Nuys creature shop to solicit his interest. Interest?.....Stan was crazy to do it, but was committed to Terminator 2 at that time. Stan's expertise was with "stick figure puppetry" such as his manually animated creatures in "Alien". He had not done big heavy hydraulic computer programmed animations such as King Kong. Sequoia had just completed the installation of two more giant King Kongs at Universal Florida. I had Kong Project Manager Craig Barr furnish a short video of the Kongs in action to show to the Amblin team.

And what a show that turned out to be! Craig had the camera do an action close up of Kong's face, then pull back and down to show workmen at Kong's feet....in contrast to the Florida Kong's mammoth 42' size. I'll never forget the look on Stan and Steven's faces as they turn to look at Craig and I. They knew then that they had to do it. Stan was now in agony. But a new development changed everything.

At one of our lunch meetings in Steven's Amblin Sante Fe styled dining room, Oscar winning wizard Dennis Muren from George's Lucas' ILM group was describing how the T-Rex could be done in a computer. We all strained to understand just how a mere computer can produce a real living Dinosaur. I never forgot that moment. The world was turning.....the wizard and the storyteller were in sync.

Not long after, Steven decided to add another year to the Jurassic Park pre-production development. Stan would finish T2 and Dennis would refine the CGI software. The mechanical T-Rex would be put on hold for a year.

Secretly, Stan had his great artist, "Crash" McCreery, start designs and illustrations for a whole family of dinosaurs, not just the T-Rex. When Amblin and Universal Picture were ready to resume development, the Stan Winston Studio was ready and prepared to roll.

I made sure that Stan hired Craig Barr and Lloyd Ball, two of King Kong's most knowledgeable builders. All the expertise that was learned on the giant King Kongs should now get added to Stan's shop of creature creators. Stan then had me spend a day at his shop introducing his shop guys to a class in "Giant Animated Figure Hydraulics and Math Calculations". Most of the guys rolled their eyes at these "furrin' idears", but one tech loved mathematics, so away they went.

The rest of the Jurassic Park project continued on to the debut of an absolutely stunning movie two years later....one that showed the world that we never will be limited by physical EFX ever again....that if one can imagine any Sci-Fi scenario, just feed the thoughts into the computer banks and put the mechanical tools back in the box. Sure, a lot of welders have to find something else to build, but a whole heck of a bunch of Pixar-like techno-dweebs will charge into the future. I was there.

oOo

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