Jurassic Park Jelly Scene

 

Introduction

The aim of this project was to recreate a scene from Jurassic Park (1993) of two children eating before running and hiding from a dinosaur. We had to recreate the scene as precisely as we could by making such things as the camera angles and effects the same as in the original clip. This was challenging to recreate, especially the use of the dinosaur in the scene, as we had no experience with CGI, however we settled on using a toy dinosaur as a puppet, with the use of sprays and silhouettes to give the prop life and show emotion in the scene.

Planning 

We decided that the best place to film the first scene with the children eating was the Nixon canteen because of the booth-like seating and we could use the real food there as props. Since we couldn't find any jelly, we used a cup of water instead to show the girl's fear when the dinosaur appeared by shaking and spilling it. 

We also decided to film the scene with the children running and hiding from the dinosaur in the DT department because it had a similar layout to the original clip, with there being a long hallway and a table at the end to hide behind.
 

Filming

When filming with the dinosaur puppet, we tried to make it as accurate to the original clip as we could by moving the toy as if it were moving like a real dinosaur and using sanitizer spray to mimic the breathing of the dinosaur through the window. 

We also found the mural from the original clip and projected it onto a screen, then used the shadow of the dinosaur toy to create a silhouette just like in the film, with the shot being the boy looking behind him and seeing the dinosaur. We did this by connecting the dinosaur to a stick and holding it up over the projection so that the shadow lined up with the boy's view like in the original.

Editing evidence

This was my first time using Final Cut Pro, which meant that the editing done on this project was mainly done by other members of my group.

Final result

Evaluation

For my first piece of work, I think this film was a great introduction for me to Film Studies as a subject. As I was not able to do Film at GCSE level, as it was not offered in my area, I was completely new to the course, and didn't have much prior experience or knowledge on cameras and the process to create a film. This task helped me learn a lot about this, especially the importance of planning and editing. Learning to use Final Cut Pro was also very new to me, and being taught how to use it gave me some skills in editing, as well as the importance of sound and colour correcting.