Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
DINOSAUR HOW TO MAKE A
NEAL SCANLAN AND I started creating the Indoraptor ( above) in August 2016, with the creature concept artist, Jama Jurabaev, and the director, JA Bayona. JA knew what size he wanted the Indo to be. He wanted it to be black, with oily snakeskin, so that it felt like a deadly shadow. Early on in production, he showed us a picture of a shell-shocked soldier during World War I, this haunting image of a man with the craziest eyes you’d ever seen. JA wanted those eyes on the Indo.
We got concepts from Jama that JA would tweak. And we used those to create a detailed study of the head. That’s when we had Steven Spielberg come in and approve it.
From there, Neal and his team added some details and created a full-scale arm, leg, head and shoulders. We used those for up-close shots with the performers. We also created a large foam-sculpted version. Pieces of paper were laid over a 3D-printed scaled version, then peeled off and used like a dressmaker’s pattern. The pattern pieces were transposed to a piece of flexible high-density foam, and were then cut out and assembled.
At Industrial Light & Magic, we also started animation testing. We used a 3D model to render the dinosaur’s skeleton and musculature and see how it would actually move. We wanted it to walk like a raptor, on its hind legs, but also to get down on all fours like a big cat. But when we made him walk like that in the renderings, we noticed that his legs would collide with his elbows. We had to elongate the proportion of his body from hip to shoulders and shorten the arms slightly.
When it came time to shoot, we wanted to use as much practical animatronics as we could. The Indo gets so close to people. We really wanted that reaction from the actors. Once we got into post, however, we ended up replacing the Indo scenes with CGI. It let us get those special details, such as the texture and colour of his irises. The cheeks blowing in and out or the throat creasing as he swallows. He has a lot of damage and scarring on his body, as if he’s been mistreated. Very rangy. And very muscly. JA thought of him as a malnourished street dog. We even gave the Indo crazy synaptic twitches, so his muscles and skin would twitch like a horse’s.