Colin Trevorrow, the director of Jurassic World: Dominion, has revealed the third film is using more animatronic dinosaurs than those in the previous two films – Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
During Collider’s “Directors on Directing” Comic-Con@Home panel featuring directors Robert Rodriguez and Joseph Kosinski, Trevorrow shared his excitement for the new technology that allows him to use more practical effects with digital enhancements in the upcoming third instalment.
“We’ve actually gone more practical with every Jurassic movie we’ve made since the first one, and we’ve made more animatronics in this one than we have in the previous two,” he said. “And the thing that I’ve found, especially in working in the past couple months, is that we finally reached a point where it’s possible to… digital extensions on animatronics will be able to match the texture and the level of fidelity that, on film, an animatronic is going to be able to bring. And you didn’t use to be able to really mix them. You could really see the seams. And so that part of it is very exciting for me.”
Trevorrow continued to explain how the animatronic dinosaurs assist in creating more realistic digital effects by using them as lighting references:
“[Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director] J.A. Bayona really, he found the value in creating really photo-real, just beautiful lighting references that could be articulated just slightly. Just a head and a jaw that could move, but painted beautifully, hand-painted. And we do it for all of the dinosaurs now, so when we put it into a space, you can see how the light reacts to the skin. And even if they ultimately do make that a digital animal, there was always something there reacting to the light in that environment … just puppetry in general, just really simple puppetry is proving to be amazing.”
Jurassic World: Dominion is being directed by Colin Trevorrow and features a cast that includes franchise returnees Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Justice Smith, Danielle Pineda, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy and Isabella Sermon along with new additions DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It), Mamoudou Athie (Patti Cake$), Scott Haze (Venom), Campbell Scott (House of Cards) and Dichen Lachman (Altered Carbon). It is set for release on June 21, 2021.
