Steven Spielberg Shut Down A Colin Trevorrow Complaint About Jurassic World Dominion In Hilarious Fashion
As you can see from the photo above, there are seven protagonists in a big scene in "Jurassic World Dominion." That's not only a whole lot of cast members to keep straight in the story, but if you're putting them in one place, particularly a small place, the blocking is going to rival a Broadway dance number. Writer/director Colin Trevorrow had to work hard to keep them all in the shot correctly, which was difficult. He's not the only director to have to balance things like this out, however, as he told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview about the filming process.
In "Jurassic World Dominion," we have several storylines going at the same time. In one, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) are taking care of cloned kid Maisie (Isabella Sermon), who is rebelling at the restrictions that hiding her is causing. They're also dealing with the fact that Blue has had a baby, and that both the baby and Maisie have been kidnapped. We've got DeWanda Wise's new character Kayla, who is a pilot who helps them (and channels Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones while doing it). There is the Biosyn storyline that I won't spoil for you here, but involves Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Alan Grant (Sam Neill) reuniting to try to save the world again. They obviously come together in the end, as we see in the above image. But even without the dinosaurs, this pic would have been difficult to pose.
That's a whole lot of people in one place
In the THR interview, Trevorrow mentions how he was sort of put in his place after complaining about it all. The interviewer mentions a helicopter shot and the blocking. Trevorrow said:
Yeah, it's funny because I remember I said to Steven [Spielberg], "In the last act of the movie, it was really hard having to block six, seven, sometimes eight people into a frame and always do it differently every time." And after I complained about it to Steven, he said, "Well, I did 15 in West Side Story." And I was like, "Damnit, Steven! Of course you did." (Laughs.)
The lesson? Never complain about anything to Spielberg (who directed the first film, "Jurassic Park," in 1993), who is always going to have a better story than you do. Honestly, whatever you thought of "West Side Story," you have to admire the cinematography of it all, and the way he made it feel like you were right in the thick of everything, including the dance scenes full of people. I mean, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and Ariana DeBose won for Best Supporting Actress. I'd say he did a pretty good job with the blocking.
It seems like good natured teasing though, considering that Trevorrow told me in our interview that Spielberg gave him the original Panavision camera that they used in the first film to shoot some of this one. Not a bad present, huh?
"Jurassic World Dominion" is in theaters now.