Jurassic World Renaissance: What did the actors see in place of dinosaurs on the set?

It was Scarlett Johansson’s dream, and he finally realized! Fan of the first hour of Jurassic Park, the American actress dreamed of participating in the saga. Thanks to Renaissance, his dream has come true.

Met during the promotion of the feature film, the actress explains that she followed the evolution of the franchise in the last 15 years “Whenever I heard about a new film in preparation, I showed myself to say that I was available, but nothing had materialized.”

Scarlett whispers in Spielberg’s ear …

The actress then slipped into Steven Spielberg’s ear that she would like to be involved if a new film was born. When her agent announced that she had been chosen to play Zora Bennett, specialist in secret operations, the actress yelled on the phone “I was so happy. It’s really like a dream come true.”

The first film has indeed enormously marked Scarlett Johansson who tells us: “It was an extremely transformative experience for me. I had already seen films before but I do not remember any of them. It was so impactful and I never stopped remembering this film there.”

Jurassic Park has indeed revolutionized cinema by bringing Michael Crichton’s novel for the first time to the screen. The feature film of Spielberg has profoundly transformed the representation of dinosaurs to the cinema thanks to the combined use of giant animatronics and images of syntheses.

What was there in place of dinosaurs on the set?

On the occasion of our meeting with the actress and her co-stars Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali, we also asked them what they had in front of them in place of the dinosaurs on the shooting of Renaissance and what are the difficulties encountered when one turns in front of an invisible danger.

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Scarlett Johansson explains to us: “ Most of the time, it was just a tennis ball after a very large stick. And sometimes, you spent half of the day playing by fixing this ball, so that you were then told that it was not the right one, that in reality you should have looked at another ball … except that no one had been warned. “

Mahershala Ali, who lends her features to Duncan Kincaid, Zora’s right arm, adds: “: a Malta, we were on a platform, the gaze turned on a simple X placed on a blue curtain. Most of the time, it was really as if everyone played their own film, surrounded by other actors who were also in their own film. And it became even more surreal when it was necessary to react to imaginary dinosaurs launched on our kits. “

“”It is for this reason that we ended up using the tennis ball: so that we all look exactly in the same place, rather than each in an approximate direction“, Complete Scarlett Johansson.

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Help actors imitating dinosaurs

Jonathan Bailey – Who lends his features to the paleontologist Henry Loomis, adds that the director Gareth Edwards and members of the technical team stop helping them by pushing dinosaurs: “”Gareth is very good at imitating the noise of dinosaurs. “

The team of creatures effects led by John Nolan (Jurassic World Le Monde according to, The Witcher), creative supervisor of animal special effects, also built physical parts of dinosaurs: heads, members, claws … which were mainly used as lighting and eye lines for actors.

And artists in motion-capti embodied certain dinosaurs. The main puppeteer Tom Wilton explains in the press kit: “We help actors deliver authentic performance. A large part of our work is to produce sounds: I surprised myself to make a lot of dinosaurs or inventing effects to scare the actors or simply tell them where the creature is. “

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The David Vickery visual effect supervisor adds: “The team of special effects, made up of artists, puppeteers and performers, brings a lot to shoot. They help the actors understand what is supposed to happen. Whether it is a type in blue combination with a tennis ball, someone holding a pair of spinosaur jaws that slam, or a puppet just in front of you.”

All these elements were then fully replaced in postproduction by the artists of the visual effects, which played a central role in the creation of 75 % of the plans of the final film, ensuring that the dinosaurs appear integrated, credible and alive in each image.

Rather than alternating between physical constructions and creatures in synthetic images throughout the film, the objective of Gareth Edwards was to maintain a coherent aesthetic by adopting a clear methodology: using the visual effects to create all the dinosaurs of the film.

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Imagine new dinosaurs

Once the shooting is finished, the challenge of giving life to Renaissance dinosaurs mobilized several departments, under the direction of director Gareth Edwards, the visual effects supervisor David Vickery and the producer of visual effects Carlos Ciudad.

In the feature film, the team arrives on an island that was used, 17 years ago as a laboratory for genetic tests. New dinosaurs have been created there and the worst have been abandoned on the island. It was therefore necessary to create new dinosaurs, notably the D-REX.

“” Design dinosaurs was one of the wildest six weeks of my life“Says Vickery in the press kit before adding:“In a week, we had more than 700 conceptual illustrations to submit to Gareth Edwards who encouraged artists to surpass themselves, by giving them total freedom to get rid of established conventions from the Jurassic universe.

We have literally asked for completely extraordinary concepts to obtain both unique and memorable designs. “

Jurassic World: Renaissance is to be seen in the cinema.