Behind-the-Scenes: Jurassic Park T-Rex Entrance Scene

One of Steven Spielberg’s most well-known and celebrated films (yes there are many) is his 1993 science fiction film Jurassic Park. The film, which won 3 Oscars, is famous for its groundbreaking special effects that remarkably hold up very well today, over 20 years later.

One of the most pivotal scenes in the film occurs about halfway through. During a strong thunderstorm on the island, the park’s electricity goes out, cutting the power to the electric fences that contain the genetically-created dinosaurs. The tour cars, which are run by an electric track, are stopped at the most dangerous place on the tour---the T-Rex paddock.

As with all scenes that showed dinosaurs on screen, a lot of work went into the making of the scenes. This scene in particular, however, had some very interesting aspects to it. First of all, the scene was shot in a sound stage. Earlier in the film, the tour car passed the paddock with a no-show from the T-Rex. That scene was filmed on location on Kaua’i island, Hawaii. However, due to this scene taking place during a storm, the production crew needed to control the elements, and thus they re-created the T-Rex paddock and surrounding areas from Hawaii for the scene (Jurassic Park DVD).

Ultimately, both live-action (animatronic) and computer generated versions of the T-Rex were used for the scene. Generally, the close-up shots used the animatronic T-Rex, while the full-view shots used CGI. One of the biggest problems the crew encountered during the scene was the effect the “rain” had on the animatronic T-Rex. The animatronic  T-Rex (weighing 9,000 pounds and 40 feet long) was robotic, and thereby electrically powered. When the animatronic became wet, it would start not functioning properly. The “skin” of the animatronic T-Rex would soak up the water, which would cause its weight to change. Furthermore, the T-Rex’s head would start to shake, forcing the crew to wipe the animatronic down with towels. This problem occurred several times as the T-Rex was constantly being rained on from the set (Jurassic Park DVD).

The animatronic T-Rex that was used for most of the scene. A CGI version was created for full-length shots.

One other issue that was initially seen as very small turned into a big puzzling problem. As the T-Rex approaches our main characters, we hear it before we see it. In particular, we see a cup of water start to form “rings” from the T-Rex’s approaching footsteps. Spielberg got the idea after listening to loud music in his car and seeing his rear-view mirror vibrate from the heavy bass. He quotes, “I was on my way to do storyboards for Jurassic Park and I never forgot what it looked like when the bass rhythm went off. I thought in the middle of storyboarding ‘hey wouldn’t it be cool if, when the T-Rex began to approach, the low-end vibration of all that tonnage hitting the ground was causing these little concentric circles.’” The crew thought the gag would be really simple to pull off. As it turned out, however, forming these “concentric circles” proved to be much more arduous than anticipated. Everyone on the production team was puzzled. Sound engineers, physics specialists, and wave tank generators were called in and used to try to achieve the circles, but to no avail. Finally, a solution was found. Michael Lantieri, who was part of the special effects team, quotes, “The night before the shot, I’m at home and I’m still playing around and I took a guitar that I had at home and set a glass of water on the guitar and plucked the string, and it vibrated and did it.” So in the end, the gag was achieved by feeding a guitar string from the cup through the tour car down to the ground, where a guy laying under the vehicle plucked the guitar string (Jurassic Park DVD).

The "concentric circles" or "rings" that formed in the cup of water from the T-Rex approaching. Ultimately, this was achieved by connecting the cup to a guitar string and plucking the string.

As you can see, a great deal of work went into making this famous scene. Using the animatronic T-Rex in the “rain” was easily the biggest challenge. However, even something as simple as forming rings in a cup of water turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Perhaps a lesson that can be taken from this scene is to not think of a task as simple until you actually do it.


Written by Anthony Watkins

BELOW you'll find the "T-Rex Breakout" scene from Jurassic Park. The clip starts with the cup of water vibrating from the T-Rex's footsteps.

WORKS CITED
Jurassic Park. Screenplay by Michael Crichton and David Koepp. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Special Edition DVD. Universal Pictures, 1993.