DINOSAURS RETURN
It’s been three years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment. Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles.
2015’s Jurassic World was a huge smash success, bringing the Jurassic Park franchise roaring back to life. Now here comes Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the much-anticipated sequel, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona. A lifelong fan of the Jurassic Park films, he talks about his time on set, and the new dinosaurs. Did you use inspiration from other movies while planning shots?
Preparing for Fallen Kingdom,i watched all the Jurassic movies again as well as read Michael Crichton’s novels. I took a look back and tried to understand where I was. There are films that I see again and again looking for inspiration. You use music to set the tone on sets. Is that something you’ve carried over from previous work?
I think that music is very helpful for me. I normally am a very emotional director, and sometimes the best way to articulate what I need is through music. I’m looking for emotions, and I know immediately what I’m looking for when I hear a melody. Normally when I’m preparing a movie,
I’m thinking about the music in advance, and when I’m shooting a scene, I know what kind of emotion I want to have on set. Was there anything specific played on the Fallen Kingdom set?
I remember the first day we played a medley from John Williams, of course! There was no way to start a movie like this without it. How do you balance honouring what has come before with tweaking it to your needs? From the moment I knew I was going to do a Jurassic movie, I started to read about it. I realised how important it is for the kids’ fascination for dinosaurs. And most of that fascination comes from the textures and colours of the dinosaurs.
We took the original dinosaurs and we gave them a little bit more colour, and we worked the textures, because I realised how much kids love that. Do you have one dinosaur that you’re proud to be bringing to the screen?
I think there’s one dinosaur that, once you’ve seen the movie, you will know what it is! All the Jurassic movies are remembered for specific dinosaurs and I tried to work really hard in the design of a new one that hopefully people will remember from this one. You’re inheriting characters. How did it feel to be making a sequel?
It was great to get the chance to get into a story where you have a couple who have experience. We didn’t need much rehearsal to create the relationship, because it was established from the previous movie. What is the one thing you are excited for the audience to see? I think Colin and I agreed that there was an element of fear we wanted to bring back into the saga. I remember the feeling of being in front of the T-rex in the first movie, or the scene in the kitchen with the Raptors. Everyone loved those moments of suspense that we wanted to enhance and increase the level of fear in this new episode. ● Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is currently on screen at cinemas.