A centerpiece action sequence in The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a scene in which mother and father T-rexes attack a trailer at the edge of a cliff -- with Ian and Sarah inside -- in retaliation for the kidnapping of their baby. The scene was shot on stage with two full-size T-rexes built by Stan Winston Studio.
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- Using Different Techniques for the T-Rexes in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
- Doing Real Damage With the T-Rex Rigs
(“Mommy’s very angry.” An iconic scene in The Lost World where the T-Rex parents attack the trailer to retrieve their infant.)
Using Different Techniques for the T-Rexes in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Whereas practical shots of the single T-rex in Jurassic Park had been captured either with a full-body rig or an insert head, The Lost World would make use of two partial-body rigs that extended from the head to mid-torso. "We had discovered on Jurassic Park that there wasn't a lot of need for a head-to-tail T-rex." John Rosengrant explained. "Because this creature was so huge, shots that were wide enough to show the whole body became CG shots. And shots that used our T-rex rig were close enough that you only saw the head and about half its body in the frame. So, for The Lost World, we built these head-to-mid-body T-rexes."
Instead of securing the T-rexes to a motion base platform, as had been done for Jurassic Park, the SWS crew mounted them to motor-driven carts capable of moving the multi-ton rigs forward or backward on eighty feet of track set in concrete on the soundstage floor by special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri. "The motion platform we'd used for Jurassic Park was great," Rosengrant commented, "but it was limiting in that you couldn't get a sense of forward and backward motion. That was critical to some of the scenes in The Lost World. By mounting them to these carts, we had a lot more mobility and freedom in what we could do with the T-rexes."
(A chilling growl from the T-Rex just before the group gives the baby dinosaur back to its parents.)
Doing Real Damage With the T-Rex Rigs
Mobility was essential for the scene in which the T-rexes attack the trailer. Working on a stage set at Universal, the Winston crew gleefully rammed the T-rex rigs into the vehicle over and over again. "I think out of everything on this movie," said Shane Mahan, "we had the most fun smashing up the RV with the two T-rexes. At first, we were hesitant, thinking that we had to be careful with the rigs. But it got to the point where we were just, 'Ah, to hell with it,' and we just demolished that trailer with the T-rex rigs. That scene wasn't faked. Those T-rexes were really slamming into that thing, breaking glass and shaking it. I think the scene really works because we went for it like that. You can tell that something truly violent is happening."
-Jody Duncan
Excerpt from The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio