Using a Real-Life Spinosaurus Discovery as Inspiration for Jurassic Park 3
Among the new dinosaurs created for Jurassic Park III (2001) was the massive Spinosaur, which was sculpted by key artist Joey Orosco in one-sixteenth-scale, from sketches by SWS concept designer Mark "Crash" McCreery. Real-life scientific discovery informed the movie’s fictional world. “Scientists had found a Spinosaur skull just as Jurassic Park III was going into preproduction,” said Orosco, “and that’s why the filmmakers had wanted a Spinosaur in the movie.
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- Designing the Spinosaurus
- Building a Full-size Spinosaurus Animatronic
- What Can Beat a T-Rex?
- Spinosaurus vs. T-Rex
Designing the Spinosaurus
Artists Joey Orosco, John Rosengrant, Trevor Hensley, Rob Ramsdell, and Paul Mejias produced an eight-foot-long, one-fifth-scale Spinosaur maquette. Full-scale computer-milled foam pieces, created from a cyberscan of the maquette, formed the basis for the full-size animatronic.
(Steven Spielberg and Stan Winston review the design concepts for the Spinosaurus for Jurassic Park III. Also present are Stan's trusted designers -- Joey Orosco and Mark 'Crash' McCreery.)
(Joey Orosco completes the paint job for the 5th-scale maquette for the Spinosaurus, Jurassic Park III.)
Building a Full-size Spinosaurus Animatronic
“We had achieved quite a lot on those earlier films,” 25-year SWS supervisor & co-founder of Legacy Effects John Rosengrant said, “so there was a lot to live up to. We wanted to make the animatronics faster and better. At the same time, we wanted to come up with new designs and pump some energy into the old ones.”
By the time it was completed, the studio’s full-size Spinosaur measured nearly forty-five feet long and weighed 25,000 pounds. Revisiting an approach that had worked well with the T-Rex rigs for The Lost World, the crew built the Spinosaur from the tip of its nose to the base of its tail, from the ‘knees’ up, and mounted it to a motorized cart that ran on tracks.
(Trevor Hensley, Andy Schoneberg, Rob Ramsdell, Joey Orosco, and Paul Mejias work on the sculpture for the massive dino.)
(The head, milled in foam, is close to being molded.)
What Can Beat a T-Rex?
The Spinosaur was not only the biggest and heaviest animatronic ever built by the studio, it was the fastest, featuring state-of-the-art, ‘hot-rod’ hydraulics — designed by Tim Nordella and Lloyd Ball — controlled by an eighteen-inch-tall telemetry device. “The Spino had to be faster, splashier, and better than the T-Rex,” stated Nordella. “The producers wanted something that was going to actually kill the T-Rex, in fact; so it had to be a more formidable character than the T-Rex was.” Whereas the T-Rex had boasted 200 horsepower, 1000 horsepower drove the Spinosaur. Its solid-state construction also made it far sturdier than the T-Rex, which had been quite delicate, despite its appearance. The Spinosaur, in contrast, could take a beating.
(The animatronic understructure of the Spino used brand-new technology mixed with the very best of what worked in The Lost World.)
Spinosaurus vs. T-Rex
In one of the last scenes to be shot for Jurassic Park III — though not its last scene in the film — the Spinosaur does battle with a T-Rex. The crew took one of the T-Rexes from The Lost World out of storage and refurbished it for the fight scene, which was as violent on stage as it appeared in the film. “That was a true fight,” Ramsdell said. “They were just going to scrap the dinosaurs after the show anyway, so they had us really ram those two robots together to get as much great footage as we could. We had two puppeteering teams with their little telemetry devices swinging them around; meanwhile, these huge robots were slamming into each other across the way. Everybody on our crew was a little bit on edge about it, because we’d put a lot of time and work into these things. But the producers and studio execs were having a great time watching this, rooting for either the T-Rex or the Spinosaur to win. We ended up knocking the head off of the T-Rex — so I guess the Spinosaur won!”
(The Spino looms HUGE over the set with the T-Rex watching warily on.)
-Jody Duncan
Excerpted from THE WINSTON EFFECT: THE ART AND HISTORY OF STAN WINSTON STUDIO
Courses with the Creators of Jurassic Park III
- Hybrid Characters: Blending Practical & Digital FX with John Rosengrant
- How To Draw Monsters - Drawing Stan Winston Creatures with Tim Martin
- How To Lifecast: Head, Hands & Teeth with Mark Viniello
- How To Make Creature Props - Mold, Cast & Paint with Tim Martin
- How To Make A Monster Puppet - Rods & Cables with David Monzingo
- Makeup Blood FX - Blow Your Brains Out with David Monzingo
- Making Creature Eyes with John Cherevka
- Advanced Creature Teeth: Prosthetic Dental Appliances with John Cherevka
- Articulated Mask Making On A Budget Part 1: Lifecasting, Sculpting & Teeth with Patrick Magee
- Articulated Mask Making On A Budget Part 2: Fabricating Flesh, Painting & Hair Work with Patrick Magee
- Remote Makeup Application Part 1: Prosthetic & Kit Preparation with Andy Schoneberg
- Mastering Effects Disasters - Explode A Head with Andy Schoneberg
- Creature Screenwriting with Juliet Snowden & Stiles White
MORE JURASSIC PARK STUFF FROM STAN WINSTON SCHOOL
- Jurassic Park III Pteranodon Attack Rehearsal
- The Lost World Jurassic Park 2's T-Rexes
- Jurassic Park T-Rex - Sculpting a Full-Size Dinosaur
- Jurassic Park T-Rex - Building an Animatronic Dinosaur
- Jurassic Park T-Rex Skinning An Animatronic Dinosaur
- JURASSIC PARK's Spitter - Building the Animatronic Dilophosaurus Dinosaur Puppet
- JURASSIC PARK - The Evolution of a Raptor Suit with John Rosengrant
- JURASSIC PARK's Brachiosaurus Animatronic Puppet Rehearsal
- JURASSIC PARK TRICERATOPS - Puppeteering an Animatronic Dinosaur