Behind the Scenes: Jurassic World Rebirth

IBC

The VFX blockbuster opts for an old school production by shooting extensively on location and on film

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Director Gareth Edwards returns to Thailand after filming The Creator there for another science fiction but this time with a far bigger budget and a decision to shoot on 35mm in order to recall Steven Spielberg’s 1993 franchise starter.

Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World Rebirth starring Scarlett Johansson is the seventh in the series and has a reported $265m budget, three times that of The Creator which was shot mostly on Sony FX3.

While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom had been shot by Oscar Faura using digital cameras, and Dominion shot by John Schwartzman was primarily captured on film, Edwards’ film is entirely shot film by cinematographer John Mathieson (Gladiator) and in manner which harks back to classic location pics of the 1950s.

“Gareth immediately asked me, ‘If you were to reshoot the Spielberg Jurassic Park now would you  shoot it on film?’ Absolutely, I said. I've been dying to shoot something on film again since Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019).

Mathieson noticed the recent trend of a higher ratio of Oscar nominated films that are shot on celluloid compared to the number of digitally shot movies overall. “This reaffirms my suspicions that anyone can work a digital camera,” he says. “I don't think they're that difficult. You've got lots of people who will look after you on set and the cameras have got almost too much latitude. There's no real decision making with those damn things. With film you are working in stone. If you screw it up, you screw it up.”

Edwards has a reputation for using DIY techniques and agile camera gear in making films like breakthrough hit Monsters. “It struck me as interesting that he’d gone for a potentially more cumbersome route to shoot this project,” says Mathieson. “Film cameras are the weight of labradors.”

Film discipline

There was some resistance to shooting on negative even though executive producer Steven Spielberg has yet to convert to digital in his own movies. “We had to prove that we'd be responsible and shoot within budget of 22,000 feet a day which we never got near. We were down at 6000-7000 ft a day.

“When you shoot on digital the temptation is to let the camera roll and roll,” Mathieson says. “You’d even shoot the blocking, even though you know it’s going to be wrong. In a film like this it makes no sense to spray the cameras around and shoot everything. I mean, our screen is going to be filled with dinosaurs and clearly you’re not capturing them in camera.

“You're actually saving money because you're not doing overtime. You haven't got a bunch of DIT guys running around transferring data and doing the layoffs. These calculations don’t really come out on paper but I think producers and accountants should realise that shooting film can be more economic than digital, provided you are disciplined.”

Mathieson shot Kodak 500T and 50D 35mm with Panavision E and C series older anamorphic lenses, a simple camera package that he says harks back to how films were shot in the 1990s.

Principal photography between June and September 2024 visited Bangkok as a backdrop for some urban sequences and Thai coastal regions of Trang, Phang Nga, and Phuket for exotic and jungle settings. The Huai To Waterfall at Khao Phanom Bencha National Park, Krabi also features in the movie.  Greenwich University played a role in establishing the film’s setting. Additional scenes were shot in Manhattan’s DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area.

Location location location

“People don’t tend to go on location any more. Not truly. We want on lots of recces, dealing with more old-fashioned logistics rather than popping along to Leavesden and a bunch of green screens.

“How do we get in there and what's the monsoon doing? Will the road still be there, or do we have to build a bridge? Are we going to get the trucks in and should we lay down sand ladders if they’re going to sink.

“The only way to do an epic movie was to go somewhere fantastic. We were in Thailand with amazing limestone stacks and deep heavy jungle. Trees wider than this room. Massive things. All the  holiday makers disappeared [because the tourist season ends in the spring] which was great. But then the weather came.”

He says, “Thailand's great if you go from the beach to the bar to the sea and back to the bar but if you go into the interior its tough. The jungles are spectacular and beautiful. Everything's overscale.
The palm fronds appear to be 30 foot long. There’s bugs. There's snakes. Big spiders. Lots of nasty diseases you can pick up. You're always wet. You're always sweating. Your feet are rotting. It was old style in that you go somewhere with a camera that people don't really want to go to you. You go around the bend of the river that no one goes around.

“We lived in the jungle, on some islands, then some caves that were full of bats. We had a Batman come to get rid of the bats because they are rabid. There's bat shit everywhere. Our crew came down with dengue fever, yellow fever, even cholera.

“We had a snake guy to get the snakes out of the jungle which is so absurd it's like trying to get worms out of a potato patch. Then the snake guy got bitten, so he disappeared.”

Mathieson recalls this with humour. He clearly enjoyed the experience as part and part of the rigours of filmmaking, much like Werner Herzog literally having his cast and crew haul a boat over jungle and mountain for Fitzcarraldo.

Feeling the heat

Even for the scenes set at sea they shot from two boats in the Mediterranean, as well as filming in large water simulation tanks at Malta Film Studios.

“We’d much rather experience the humidity and the sweat and toil to put it on film rather than doing it on a green screen or on a volume stage,” he says. “Even on this film we had bad weather and I got the wrong film stock at the wrong time but I’ve built up experience of being in the shit before, right back from making documentaries. If you had the wrong stock then you had to improvise. Push the stop. Open the windows. Shoot wide open. Anything you can to make it work.”

He says he partly got into the film industry for the adventure - “for going around the bend in the river to see things that tourists wouldn't see otherwise. I remember seeing Man with the Golden Gun in a crappy old cinema on a rainy November in suburban London and thinking I have no idea where that place is but I want to go there some day. Filmmakers went to beautiful places, photographed them and presented the wonder of the world back to cinema audiences at home.”

He thinks too much production these days is “unadventurous” in sticking to blue screens at home.  “Even though [this shoot] was ugly, difficult and hard work I still believe you get better results if you go somewhere for real. You can take people there.

“Some of the shots we have of the jungle in this film are designed to be spectacular when you see them in a cinema. Enormous leaves. Huge fronds. Towering waterfalls, burbling rivers, massive banyan trees. It feels real because it is. You couldn't build that in a stage.

“When we try and double it back in London [at Sky Studios Elstree] with foliage or a banana tree it’s a banana tree from a local nursery and it’s tiny. Even though you have great production designers you can't actually get that feeling of size, scope or sweep that you get from filming on location. We have some big deserted vistas so you really feel you're on this magical island in the middle of nowhere.”

It didn’t all go according to plan. Mathieson thinks they shot in Thailand at the wrong time of year. “We went from using some 5205 to fast Tungsten stock because it was so dark in the jungle. The canopy does it’s job very well if you’re a plant. Every little leaf is looking for a bit of photosynthesis. And if you've got no sun, you don't get lovely spaghetti stripes, you just get great sludge.”

They did “struggle” to bring in some lighting equipment but the DP says this didn’t offer much help. “You can put a bit of brightness in the background to offer some depth but you hope for a clearing or a fallen tree so you have a bit of contrast somewhere. I'd preferred it if we'd shot earlier in their winter with clearer skies and the sun beating straight down on us and we’d put in smoke to look like
jungle mist and steam.”

Even in humidity and temperatures of 100F in Malta the film camera survived.  He says, “Film cameras don't mind getting wet because once you load that film and close the door they are waterproof.  They don’t have fans to cool them down. If we'd shot digital, we’d be wrapping them up to keep it dry. With all the tropical rain I'm sure we'd have overheated them. Digital cameras don’t like moisture or dust and Malta has to be the dustiest place in the world.

“Film cameras are very user-friendly in tough situations where I think digital cameras would have failed. They’re more like Land Rovers. Built tougher.”

“Everyone loves a dinosaur”

Mathieson says the Spielberg was very involved. “He was speaking to Gareth every day and he’d give us notes on the rushes. He’d say ‘this is a bit dark’ or ‘this is too close-up’. You have to realise that Jurassic Park is his baby. He has had astonishing success but Jurassic Park might just be his biggest. It’s as big in terms of audience fandom as any Marvel or Star Wars project.”

The DP who has worked with Ridley Scott, Guy Ritchie, Joe Wright and James Mangold says he was drawn to the project as much by wanting to work with Edwards as to have his own stab at making a summer blockbuster.

“Gareth’s fantasy and science fiction films have a freshness. As a viewer you feel more in his pictures than you would in some of these other Godzilla King Kong space movie. The way he introduces monsters or dinosaurs is almost casual. You just feel that's the way it would be so you believe it more.”

Mathieson’s main regret is that they didn't use many animatronics with ILM taking charge of dino VFX. “That's one of those things that you mourn about the digital age because the days of big special effects are dying out,” he says.

Spielberg’s original movie is famously the first blockbuster to give generous screen time to CGI creatures but it also used a lot of practical effects, such as the T-Rex head and eye glaring into a jeep full of petrified humans.

“The mechanical effects make it feel much more present. It’s why the original is such a favourite. That said, everyone loves a dinosaur. Every kid loves dinosaur. And ours are enormous.”