Colin Trevorrow, the director of the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion, has stated that the film will be featuring more practical animatronic dinosaur effects than the previous Jurassic World installments.
The Jurassic World: Dominion American filmmaker made the revelation while speaking in a Comic-Con@Home panel called “Directors on Directing,” which can be viewed through Comic-Con International’s YouTube channel and also features other fellow directors Joseph Kosinksi (Top Gun: Maverick) and Robert Rodriguez (Alita: Battle Angel).
As interviewed by panel moderator Steve Weintraub from Collider, Trevorrow stated that for the upcoming third installment of the Jurassic World trilogy, his production crew actually opted for more practical dinosaur effects, as compared to 2015’s Jurassic World and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Animatronics’ expanded role
With Jurassic World: Dominion, the approach to visual effects is not so much as putting more animatronics to the forefront for the sake of verisimilitude, but also as a means of assisting the digital artists in rendering dinosaurs to life on-screen better, simply because they now have better references.
As explained by Trevorrow during the panel interview, animatronic dinosaur effects actually can help a lot in delivering more photo-realistic digital effects.
For instance, animatronics not only play a role in front of the camera but also behind it as well, mainly in providing proper lighting and movement references for digital artists.
The result is that there is now a more seamless partnership between animatronic puppetry and digital rendering and animation. If moviegoers can’t tell which is which, then the visual effects guys have accomplished their mission.
next steps pic.twitter.com/8B62vFtDBY
— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) January 31, 2020
The show must go on for the dinos
Apart from the visual effects wizardry, there is plenty to be excited about with the release of Jurassic World: Dominion.
For starters, with the events of the previous movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the world has literally turned into a Jurassic world, with dinosaurs now freely roaming everywhere.
And if that’s not exciting enough, the third Jurassic World film will also feature the return of three of the most beloved characters from the original Jurassic Park trilogy.
We’re talking of course about paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill), paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).
These past couple of weeks my abs have been sore from laughing so much — it’s good to be back at work with this funny guy 🦖🦕 #TBT #JurassicWorld pic.twitter.com/Aij8Bu7sMW
— Bryce Dallas Howard (@BryceDHoward) July 16, 2020
Any fan would be interested to see just how these characters will interact with the second trilogy’s protagonists, namely Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing and Chris Pratt’s raptor behaviorist Owen Grady.
For good measure, the ensemble cast will also feature returning stars such as Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith, and BD Wong.
Jurassic World: Dominion is scheduled for release in June of next year.
Featured image courtesy of Jurassic World (Universal Pictures)