What filmmaking techniques does Jurassic Park use?

CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Jurassic Park (1993): Photorealistic CGI Pioneering, Practical In-Camera Effects, Diegetic Sound Design, Kinetic Set Piece Architecture and Leitmotif.

Who directed Jurassic Park?

Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park, released in 1993. CineCode also covers Duel (1971), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

What films are similar to Jurassic Park?

Films that share techniques with Jurassic Park include Jaws (1975), Gladiator II (2024), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).

Adventure · Science Fiction

Jurassic Park

Steven Spielberg, 1993

A billionaire builds a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs on an island and brings in experts to approve it. When a worker sabotages the security system during a storm, the animals get loose. For filmmakers, this is where computer-made creatures first looked real, mixed in with full-size robot dinosaurs built on set.

2 Cinematography 2 Sound 1 Editing

At a glance

Jurassic Park is a 1993 adventure and science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (2 cinematography, 2 sound and 1 editing), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Jaws uses several of the same techniques.

Cinematography

Photorealistic CGI Pioneering

Making images entirely by computer and tuning the surfaces, lighting and focus to look like live-action photography. At its best, you can't tell what was filmed and what was rendered.

How this film uses it

Industrial Light & Magic built some of the dinosaurs entirely inside a computer and lit them to match the real footage around them. Combined, those computer-made dinosaurs are on screen for only about 6 minutes. Spielberg uses them sparingly, so each one feels like an event.

Where to see it

The first dinosaur. Grant and Sattler stand up in their jeep as a Brachiosaurus walks across a field and rears up to eat from a tree.

Cinematography

Practical In-Camera Effects

Creating effects physically on set with makeup, prosthetics, built props and camera tricks, with no computer graphics added later. The results look solid and real.

How this film uses it

Stan Winston's team built animatronic dinosaurs, robots covered in sculpted skin, that the actors could touch and react to. Many of the T. rex attack shots use a full-scale animatronic T. rex, about 20 feet tall and 9,000 pounds. The animal has real weight against the cars, and you believe the kids are in danger.

Where to see it

The T. rex escape. In the pouring rain, the T. rex breaks through the dead electric fence and attacks the tour car holding Tim and Lex.

Sound

Diegetic Sound Design

Using sounds the characters themselves can hear, like footsteps, radios or traffic, to build tension or show how someone feels. The sound does more than make the scene realistic.

How this film uses it

Before you see the T. rex, you hear its footsteps. A deep thud repeats, and the water in a cup on the dashboard ripples with each one. The effects team made the ripples by plucking a guitar string under the dashboard. It's pretty much the perfect warning, because it tells you how big the animal is before it shows up.

Where to see it

The water cups. Tim notices rings forming in the cups on the dashboard, and the thuds get louder as the T. rex nears the fence.

Editing

Kinetic Set Piece Architecture

Building an action sequence as a chain where each solution creates a new problem. The layout of the space stays clear, so the escalation follows its own logic.

How this film uses it

The kitchen scene keeps you oriented in a room full of steel counters. Every place the kids hide gives the raptors a new way to reach them. Spielberg always shows where the raptors are, so the danger builds step by step and you can follow it.

Where to see it

The raptors in the kitchen. A raptor lunges at Lex's reflection in a steel cabinet door, and one raptor ends up locked in the walk-in freezer.

Sound

Leitmotif

Repeating a short piece of music or a sound every time a certain character, idea or feeling comes up. You learn to connect the 2.

How this film uses it

John Williams' main theme first swells when the group sees a living dinosaur. It gets tied to wonder at the park. When it comes back at the end as the survivors fly away, it carries both the awe and everything that went wrong.

Where to see it

The Brachiosaurus reveal. Grant takes off his sunglasses in disbelief as the theme builds over the herd by the lake.

Questions

Jurassic Park: quick answers

What filmmaking techniques does Jurassic Park use?: CineCode breaks down 5 techniques in Jurassic Park (1993): Photorealistic CGI Pioneering, Practical In-Camera Effects, Diegetic Sound Design, Kinetic Set Piece Architecture and Leitmotif.
Who directed Jurassic Park?: Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park, released in 1993. CineCode also covers Duel (1971), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
What films are similar to Jurassic Park?: Films that share techniques with Jurassic Park include Jaws (1975), Gladiator II (2024), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).

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