Sunday, November 04, 2012
Behind-the-Scenes Jurassic Park Video Gives Us a Look at the Man Inside the Raptor Suit
The Mary Sue: Add a little dino magic to your Sunday with this video of visual effects supervisor John Rosengrant—a.k.a. one of the Jurassic Park velociraptors—honing his raptor skills from the suit’s earliest tests to its final version. Yes, there were real people playing the raptors in the kitchen scene. No, it wasn’t CGI. There’s a reason the special effects have aged so well, you know!
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16 comments:
This is by far one of the most intriquing articles I have seen on this blog. I am always interested to learn new things about movies I have loved from a young age and the fact that these raptors were in fact elaborate costumes is quite a spectacular feat. I am extremely impressed by the engineering ingenuity used to create them. The amount of engineering and mechanic creation that went into the simple action of arm motion on the raptor is astounding in itself, let alone the rest of the body. And as always the difference between their initial mock up and the final product is astounding. I would really love to go back and re-watch Jurassic Park and see if I can notice any characteristics of the puppetier in the movie.
I can understand that with the CGI technology advancing at the pace that it is why many film makers have embraced it. With that said the process shown in this article for using the suit and physical effects is such an amazing process. Physical effects have been going out of style but as an art form physical effects should be getting outrageous with 3d printing and cnc milling. Seeing how much of the physical effect process was just a manual art form was great but I also think that with synthesizing in all the digital age rapid prototyping technology we should be able to make shockingly realistic costumes props and models. I hope there is a backlash against CGI in close up work so that physical effects industry and their art can continue. We need to make sure that the entertainment industry can still create things in the physical world. With the increasing shift into the digital realm I would like to see an increase of bringing the digital into the physical world through digital age fabrication.
It's pretty mind blowing to see the progression of this project from start to finish, and the development that the puppeteers make is also pretty incredible. As the suit advances they are able to substantially increase their mobility and really bring life to the raptor.
As Luke points out this now would more than likely be done with CGI. Take the depiction of Gollum from the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and Caesar from 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'for instance. They production uses a real actor (almost as a puppeteer) however in this case the actor is in a suit mapped with sensors so later the image of the creature can be mapped onto his body in post-production. As cool as this is we lose a lot of the artistic creation, even the costumes and make-up for 'Planet of the Apes'(2001 w/ Mark Whalberg) pushed the envelop and sadly we don't see that anymore.
Like Timothy, this is my favorite article I've ever read on the blog. Jurassic Park has been one of my favorite movies and book for as long as I can remember, but I had NO idea that the raptors were actually humans. That blew my mind. Every time I see an article about something of this nature I am completely stunned. I suppose I shouldn't be stunned over a puppet when things like CGI exist.
In my props mini last year we made hand puppets and I thought that was a lot of work. Perhaps thats why a puppet so complex and intricate seems like a foreign language. Joseph is very right when he says that if these dinosaurs were made in CGI, they wouldn't be nearly as impressive.
What a flashback! I haven't seen this amazing movie in far too long! It was a total surprise to me that the raptors were just suits with actors inside of them. It is refreshing to hear that there was so much physical time and effort put in to make these suits work, rather than using CGI, which is all you see nowadays. It also allows actors to experience an uncommon practice, since it is rare in film to not have such things added in later through means of technology.
I think that it is very interesting to learn about the tricks that were employed to make fantastical things come to life before special effects. I am surprised that there is a real person inside of the dinosaur shell. I am particularly intrigued how they developed the walk for the animals. I fine the movements of the puppet the most interesting. It seems to me like that method takes longer than CGI but I would be interested to know comparatively how much more time/money one requires over the other.
This is interesting and raises a few more questions about the film. When Robert Muldoon says, "Clever girl" just before getting killed I didn't know he wasn't actually talking about a person in a raptor costume. But both the video and both the blurb about the video suggest that the actor playing the raptor was a man. Makes you think if the line was flubbed and it was written as, "Clever, mate!" or "Clever bloke." I've never read the book before but now I'm curious to see waht the gender of those dinosaurs really were.
This is so incredibly awesome. Seeing the finished dinosaur, it truly looks real. I was definitely shaking in my seat when I first saw this movie, I thought for sure it was some extremely well done computer graphics (this was about ten years ago). The reality of the body suit, however, is infinitely cooler. In its final and complete state, the costume looks like such a daunting, impossible challenge to tackle. But seeing the process that the designers went through and the individual steps they took, testing and adjusting and improving as they went, makes it seem entirely believable and doable - and even makes me want to try to make something just as amazing myself.
I can't believe that those dinosaurs weren't real! My childhood is ruined. I actually thought there was an island with flying dinosaurs until today. But, nonetheless, this is pretty amazing. Its interesting to see how they make mock-ups of the costumes, and actually jump right into them as the designers. It really seems like human special effects and automation is the best. You can get humans to move and memorize things just the way you want. CGI is great, but if not done well and done at all nowadays, you can tell its CGI. Jurassic park was old, but it looked great. And those dinosaurs definitely had more then one gender. Not only by the actor as Matt pointed out. But because they used frog DNA. Thats science.
This video was so. cool.
But actually, I agree with everyone else that the fact that these were done with costumes and puppetry and humans is astonishing, and I think that it was the reason that the raptor scene in Jurassic Park is so terrifying. The raptors' movements are so precise and calculated and I'm not sure if the same effect could have beeb achieved with CGI, even today with how much it's advanced. I think that we all can tell when something is real or CGI, even with something as high-tech as Gollum in Lord of the Rings, which someone above mentioned. I think that it's important that the ability to do things like this without CGI effects isn't lost.
Also, think how AWESOME it would be to have raptors like this on stage in real life and how terrifying it would be... things like this could be where theatre is heading, as Hollywood becomes ever more CGI-infiltrated....
Maybe these costumes can be rented so that CMU SOD can do Jurassic Park: The Play next season?
Im gonna be a geek for a moment and point that this concept of puppetry and costumes and people creating the creatures in real life are what made the original 3 star wars AMAZING as a little bird will tell you there are only 3 star war movies nothing more nothing less. I am not a fan of this misconception that CGI is a better product for film. CGI for the most part destroys film scenes for me. I remeber watching all three of the jurrasic park films i remember seeing a scene in the third where the tricentriplots (the one with the wing on its back) pokes its head by the plane and something creeped me out yet made me very very curious because it seemed off. you see its eye turn towards his potential victim, which is not something that they pulled off in the first film, that is not to try and take anything else away from the first film
They show some of the steps that this went through. I wonder the time period that all of this happened and how fast all of this had to be developed. I wonder what other effect that they do for movies beside for the aliens that that they talked about. I also wonder how they made some of these parts. I noticed at the beginning they showed a lot of detail about how they made things but as the video went on they showed a lot less and eventually they just showed the final product. Also they did not show any other projects they were working on or developing. The fact that this movie is so old and just now they are replacing this information I just wonder what they are doing now.
THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I WANT TO BE A RAPTOR!!! I loved the raptor from JP they totally freaked me out. I remember wishing I could own a raptor. That was awesome that actual people were the animal. I am so glad to know my dreams were not crushed, unlike Dale when David Bowe did not have magical ball powers it was just the guy behind him, my dreams have not been crushed. That would be one awesome job to have.
I think this is so cool to see how they made the dinosaurs work because I could've sworn they were all just robotic dinosaurs. I think the whole process of building and testing while working with the person who will be inside the suit on getting all of the actions and visuals correct is pretty cool as well. It also helped to see what they were trying to do and the finished product from the movie. It's so interesting to see all of this and really neat to see just how much work was put into every detail visually and physically.
This is very cool! The realism that can be made with out computer effects can be very surprising in this day and age. I wish that Halloween had not just passed so that I could have dressed up as a Raptor. It's interesting to think that in film when a crazy effect is needed often a computer is used to make the effect, but that their are older methods that can work amazingly well as well. I wonder if theatre could learn from this sort of costume effect and push costuming past pretty clothing to crazy new levels. There are shows with fantastic costumes like the lion king, but perhaps something more realistic could be possible with the help of film tools and methods.
Wow, this is really incredible. I’m sure this process was a blast. I know if I were working on this project I would be cracking up every two seconds, but for real, this is extremely impressive! In addition to the completely innovative design of the suit, the paint is insane! It must have taken hours and such fine detail to really make this creature look like it would in real life. And the actor inside the costume, I would never volunteer to do that! It would be so extremely uncomfortable and physically demanding, I cannot even imagine the stress put on the body of the person inside the costume. It would take tons of training and reteaching yourself to move in certain ways that would appear natural as a velociraptor. I applaud the creativity and the determination this must have taken.
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