Jurassic Park Short Film

[ianc]

Hey all,

I've been a lurker on this site for quite awhile now. I have contacted a few different members about their JP Jeep's for the following reason: I am working on a Jurassic Park based short film that will be called Jurassic Park: Origins. Jurassic Park has been my favorite film since I first saw it back when I was probably 8 years old. I have always dreamed of what it would be like to be a part of a film like Jurassic Park. Awhile back, while searching for 3D CGI dinosaurs models, I stumbled across the work of a guy in France name Julien Romeo. He has spent the last 4 years developing 3D models of dinosaurs, vehicles, buildings, and characters from Jurassic Park. The level of quality and detail are absolutely stunning. You can see some of his work by browsing the following imageshack profile: http://imageshack.us/homepage/?user=giu3232.

I contacted Julien about the possibility of a Jurassic Park themed short film that would include his incredible 3D models. He was very interested and we have been in the pre-stages now for a few months. I managed to rent the use of forum member "Bossk"'s JP Jeep to shoot some test footage. You can see some rough test footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMKSQnyO6pE and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i2cQW94Igo . You can also see one of Julien's more recent animation tests here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k0KtywaLyU. We will hopefully be releasing another animation test that includes the JP jeep here soon! As a sidenote, about a month or so ago, Julien actually got to meet Steven Spielberg and Julien gave a book of his work to Spielberg. Spielberg was very complimentary of Julien's work. Julien is also in contact with a number of other people involved with Jurassic Park. Many of them are quite interested in our short film and will actually be viewing our project once finished .

I have also been in contact with forum member "Railtech" to gain high resolution images of his very nice JP Jeep because Julien is working on creating a highly detailed 3D model of the Jurassic Park Jeep. You may notice on the image shack profile he already has a good start: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/10 ... izlow.jpg/ . But, in order to have a convincingly real 3D JP Jeep that we can use for shots in the film that call for it (aka, if it needs to get run into by a dinosaur, exploded, etc. Anything we can't shoot with a real JP Jeep.), Julien needed some high res shots of a real JP Jeep. We are making progress on that front right now with the help of Railtech. The high res images of his Jeep are contributing to an awesomely detailed 3D model of the JP Jeep. The following picture shows a quick insight to the aggregation of photos to create the 3D Jeep render... http://www.jporigins.com/media/jeep/JP% ... OMPOSE.jpg .

Right now we are in the process of creating some teaser trailers for the short film in oder to show the potential quality of JP:Origins. Once we have sufficient proof of concept with the trailers, we will be launching a Kickstarter campaign to "crowdsource" the funding for a high quality Jurassic Park short film. In the meantime, I'd love for anyone interested to check out our facebook page, follow along, and please become a "fan" if you'd like! : https://www.facebook.com/JPOrigins .

So, why am I sharing this? For multiple reasons:
1. I wanted to share our project with fellow Jurassic Park enthusiasts. I hope you will find our project exciting, and help to spread the word!
2. As I mentioned, we are creating a 3D CGI JP Jeep. Although Railtech's Jeep has served as a GREAT baseline for this, we could use a couple of volunteers to get some extra shots of a few things. We need somebody who has gone the extra mile and has the front bumper decked out with the lights (with grills), and a winch. Anybody that has this and a nice camera that would be willing to take some pictures and send to me, please shoot me a PM and I'll let you know what we need in more detail. This would be a HUGE help!
3. As we move forward, we look forward to launching our Kickstarter campaign sometime in the beginning of the next year. I'm sure with the help of word of mouth, and some creative social media advertising, we'll be able to get some great funding for this project. Once funded, we will begin production and will certainly need involvement of some Jurassic Park Jeeps to help bring the short film to life. Anyone with highly screen-accurate JP Jeeps that would be interested in being a part of the project, please let me know. This is going to be a REALLY fun project to be a part of. Our goal is to make a JP based shortfilm that has a great storyline (will be based around the story of the beginnings of Jurassic Park. I'd like to include some of the backstory provided by the Hammond voice-overs in the "Trespasser" game), but that is also VERY HIGH QUALITY. You can see from the 3D dinos that Julien has created, this is going to be top-of-the-line. And we'd love to include some of these top-of-the-line JP Jeeps that I've seen here on the JP Jeeps forum!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more info.
-Ian

[ImperialTrooper]

Hi Ian and welcome, you certainly have a huge project ahead of you. I wish you good luck, and don't give up. You seem to be on a good track!

I look forward to seeing more progress shots or videos.

[DrewSmith007]

Looking pretty good! What camera are you shooting with?

[ianc]

Looking pretty good! What camera are you shooting with?

For now we're shooting with a Canon 5d mark II with various lenses. Once we get funded, though, I hope to shoot with a camera that can do a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color space to improve chromakey work. Something like the Canon C300 would be quite nice. We will posting more of this kind of information very soon on the JP:Origins fan page on Facebook. Here soon we will be trying to do about 3 updates a week with BTS, renders, trivia, info, etc. both to appeal to our fellow JP fans and to help build interest in the project. We will be relying heavily on user interaction to help spread the word !

[cpltony]

I can't view youtube at work.....darnit!!
Will check these out ASAP though.

[ianc]

Was just playing around today in photoshop with one of the images of Railtech's Jeep...

[ianc]

***FUN UPDATE***

Hey everyone! So, to help promote interest in Jurassic Park: Origins, we're doing a special giveaway. Up for grabs is a Dennis Nedry Barbasol Cryocan. This is the same high quality prop replica that can be seen on the Jurassic Park Blu-Ray "Behind-the-scenes" footage.

The Cryocan will be given away one of two ways. It will either be given away randomly to one lucky page fan when we reach 1000+ Jurassic Park: Origins Facebook Page "Likes", or the first person who individually manages to bring in 250+ new page fans.

Check out our Jurassic Park: Origins Facebook Page at http://facebook.com/jporigins to see the video and learn more !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa5IFBR1Jpw

[fantomas]

just "liked" you on FB.

What's the time frame you're thinking of for the "origins"? For example... I doubt JP 29, a 1992 Jeep Wrangler Saraha with that specific color and equipment would be on the Island in 1988 or 1990.

Also, where abouts are you located so interested parties (actors, key grips, ect) would be able to help?

[ianc]

Thanks fantomas!

Time frame is park beginnings. According to my research (much of which includes timelines from the "trespasser" Hammond storyline), this is going to be 1982-1989. What I really want to focus on is what I felt was so strongly emphasized in the books but only lightly touched on in the movies... the science (and of course the "chaos theory" intertwined with it). The first Jurassic Park does a pretty good job of briefly covering the basics: using mosquito's found in amber to extract dino DNA, standing on the shoulders of giants to achieve scientific goals (the dinos), "life will find a way", etc. But the line that I really want to explore is when Ian Malcolm says "But your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could... they didn't stop to think if they should." The storyline will follow the building of the Jurassic Park team/staff by Hammond. Nedry, Wu, Arnold, etc. And the scientific, ethical, and moral obstacles that they deal with to achieve the goal of bringing dinosaurs back to life. It will explore the parts of "The Lost World" that intrigued me so much and were totally lost in the movie version. The trials and toils of "site B". They came SO close to developing this plot in JP3 when they stumble into the lab and we hear the lines "This is how you make dinosaurs?" ... "No, this is how you play God". THAT is the plotline I find so very compelling in the Jurassic Park novels (and that got lost in garbage monster mayhem in JP3). The brashness and lack of respect for the scientific power that's being "wielded like a kid who just found his dad's gun".

I want the audience to SEE the science, struggles, and discoveries of Jurassic Park being developed from the beginning. Hammond's relentless pursuit of profit (the "dark side of Walt Disney" as Crichton envisioned), Nedry's computer expertise (using the power of 3 Cray-XMP super computers to sequence the genetic code) and struggle with finanaces, Wu's scientific brilliance and remarkable genetic engineering. And of course, all of the characters dealing with the ethical and practical consequences of their actions. When THAT storyline is developed along side what will obviously be thrilling dinosaurs scenes (baby dinosaurs being created, the unknown of how they will adapt and react, the inevitable choatic uncontrollability of creatures brought back after milliions of years) I think we will have a VERY strong film. As a fan of Crichton's brilliant writing, I think it will give the fans a deeper look at a part of the story that I feel captivates so many. It would be easy to do a monster movie. Something goes wrong, dinosaurs escape and eat people. That's pretty blah. But if we feel invested in the story of Jurassic Park's creation, the characters, and the challenges and triumphs along the way, any ensuing dinosaur appearances and catastrophe will seem organic and inevitable instead of forced for the sake of creating action out of thin air.

Let me put it this way, let's ask this question... "What caused Jurassic Park to fail?" The surface answer would be "Dennis Nedry cut off the power and security systems". But I think if you asked Michael Crichton that same question "What caused Jurassic Park to fail"? the answer would be something like "Scientific hubris and the illusion of control".

As for the Jeep, honestly I feel like Jeeps have a pretty timeless look. I mean, look at a 1995 wrangler and a 2010 wrangler. Not TOO much difference to my untrained eye in terms of style. I think a 1992-1995 Jeep sahara tricked out in full Jurassic Park regalia could easily pass in the audiences mind as a Jeep from 1982-1989. Plus I think the "hero" vehicles made such an impression on viewers in the 1993 film (obviously, hence this site), that it would be hard to try and present something different for the prequel. I feel that seeing the established look of the JP Jeep would help viewers ease into the Jurassic Park universe once again to watch the story unfold.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee. Although, we hope to shoot some parts of the film at more "Jungly" location (ideally, Kauai).

I'd be glad to have more people's involvement with the film. This will be a monumental effort, but I am confident it will be WELL worth it. I am beyond excited about this project, I know we can get it funded quite well on Kickstarter.com and make something truly entertaining.

Thanks,
-Ian

[DrewSmith007]

I started working on a Thinking Machine CM-5 replica panel a couple months ago, I can probably finish it up before you need it. If you even want to use it. I think they were Cray's in the book, but TM's in the movie.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/bradley/cm5/