00:00What were you hoping to bring to the Jurassic franchise with this new film?
00:06It's like the ultimate question, isn't it?
00:09I don't know, these things are more for the people to tell me,
00:12like, you give it out to the world at the end,
00:16and then everyone tells you what you did or didn't do.
00:18And I feel like it's weird watching the cast go past.
00:23They're all far too good looking.
00:25I've learned on my next film, I'm not going to do that again,
00:28because I always look terrible whenever I'm stood next to them on the press junkets.
00:32Yeah, so basically, it's all about today.
00:35You spend the whole year making a film like this going,
00:39what would it feel like in the audience when you watch it for the first time?
00:43And I would play a little trick where I'd have a monitor,
00:47and in the jungles wherever we were, and it was really bright,
00:50so you'd have to kind of put your T-shirt around it.
00:53And then I would get my fingers, and I would put them in front of the monitor
00:56to sort of look like heads of people in the cinema.
00:59And so I'd pretend I was in the cinema, and there was annoying people
01:01where they're sort of blocking the view a bit.
01:03So I could just basically have the reaction that I hope people will have tonight,
01:07where I'm kind of watching it going,
01:09oh, you know what we could do? Oh, you know what we should do?
01:11And then you finish a take, and you have another idea.
01:13And so it's just like trying to imagine you're here,
01:16about to watch the film, and how do you feel about it?
01:20And the process of directing or making a movie is basically projecting yourself
01:25a year from now to things like this.
01:28So this is quite a nerve-wracking moment,
01:31because you never know how you've done until you're the other side of this stuff,
01:35so fingers crossed.
01:37Were there any scenes in particular where,
01:40after you had sort of tried to view it from a theatrical viewpoint,
01:44you decided to try something different or rearrange them?
01:48Yeah, totally, yeah, in the edit.
01:49You basically rewrite the film again in the edit.
01:51People always say that, but the editor's here somewhere.
01:54It's his fault.
01:55But, yeah, even what sounds great on a page and works really well,
02:01flows really well, when you film it and then bolt it together,
02:05you can watch it and go, oh, this needs some help structurally or tightening.
02:12And so it's funny, because on a shoot where the script is like God and the Bible,
02:18and you do everything it says, as soon as you get in the edit,
02:21it's like it didn't exist, and it's all about what does this feel like watching it.
02:24And you can kind of, you've got a license to do anything you want.
02:27And so we basically, we didn't need to change much.
02:32Our first cut of the film, because I was desperate to do a director's cut,
02:35that was under two hours, was just, just under two hours.
02:40And then we basically showed it to the studio, and the main note was,
02:43can you put the other five minutes you cut out back in?
02:46So we put that back in, and it's essentially what the film is to some extent.
02:49I mean, David did such a good job with the screenplay.
02:52Didn't need to mess around too much, so.
02:55And what sort of interactions did you have with Steven Spielberg on the project?
02:59What sort of interactions did you have with Steven Spielberg?
03:01Yeah, so Steven, like, was very involved in the film,
03:05in that he developed the whole storyline, and with David,
03:09and basically had major input, as much as me, as it started.
03:15And then as we started filming, he's very much a filmmaker-friendly,
03:20you know, as you can imagine, producer.
03:23And so there was a certain point where he's like,
03:25he felt he'd set it all up really nicely, and he was like,
03:28Gareth, go make your movie.
03:29Like, it's over to you now, and just a lot of pressure
03:31when someone like him gives you that freedom,
03:35because, you know, he's the reason I'm a film director.
03:38So it was weird shooting a movie,
03:40knowing that Steven Spielberg was watching everything you're doing.
03:43It's quite intimidating.
03:44And then one day you'd get a text that would say something nice
03:48about the dailies from yesterday or something,
03:50and you'd have so much relief, and you'd share it with the cast,
03:54and everyone would be high-fiving each other and hugging,
03:57and we'd carry on.
03:57And so, like, Steven's feedback or, like, praise or whatever it was,
04:03was just like, like, just what you're, every day,
04:07you're just, like, I hope we're doing all right.
04:09I hope he's happy.
04:11And what about visually with the dinosaurs?
04:13What were you hoping to do different with this film?
04:16Yeah, so, I mean, basically dinosaurs have been done very well, I think,
04:20since, you can argue, since the very first Jurassic Park.
04:22That T-Rex attack's pretty perfect.
04:26And so, really, it's like, on this movie,
04:29it was a bit less about improving dinosaurs and a bit more about environments and things.
04:34And we wanted to film in real locations,
04:36and so we went to, like, the jungles of Southeast Asia
04:38and did it for real with waterfalls and mangrove swamps and all sorts of things.
04:44And so, really, it was about using the computer graphics to augment them.
04:49And we have, there's a whole sequence in the movie with the Mosasaurus,
04:54which is this ocean dinosaur.
04:56And, obviously, that's interacting with water,
04:58which is super, super, super hard in the computer.
05:01And so a lot of effort went in early on to crack all that,
05:05and they totally nailed it.
05:06I think the water in this movie that's not real water is impossible to spot.
05:11Like, it's incredible.
05:11I thought I was going to spend the whole of post-production
05:14just having a nervous breakdown about this stuff.
05:18And on day one, it was, they'd nailed it perfectly.
05:21And so then you end up running out of things to criticize.
05:24You start criticizing the clouds or something in the sky.
05:26It's like, you know, it looks so good.
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