Jurassic Park Kitchen Scene Analysis
(Introduction to Film): Assignment: (Group Assignment)
(Thursday, December 6, 2012)
Student Names:
Edwin T. Read, Trevor Kitchen, John Davis, Meesha Garad,
Dallan Hope, Magalita Johnson, John T. Michael
Salt Lake Community College
Introduction
Jurassic Park, One of America's greatest classics, Steven Spielberg created magic with this movie. Steven Spielberg is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio mogul. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, war, and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Spielberg’s male characters are filled typically with anxiety about their masculinity and they struggle with the idea of being a father. Due to his parents’ divorce and the feelings of disconnect with his father. Only when physical challenges are forced upon them do they show any authority and begin to develop into a more responsible and protective father. Jurassic Park also makes use of this idea.
The crew, shoot at Universal Studios’ Stage 24 for scenes involving the raptors in the kitchen. Muldoon notices that they are being hunted by the raptors and draws their attention while Sattler continues to the bunker. Ellie restarts the park's systems, but is attacked by a raptor from which she escapes. Muldoon is killed by a raptor, before Alan, Lex, and Tim climb an electric fence out of the park's animal zone, and Tim is nearly killed when the fence is reactivated. Grant and the children head for the visitor's center; he leaves them alone in the kitchen while he reunites with Sattler and others, this is where this scene starts.
Background info
Prior to this scene, scientists have discovered how to splice DNA. Along with this discovery, they also found focalized mosquitos that had dinosaur blood inside them. Using the DNA from the blood, they were able to create live dinosaurs. Then bring some paleontologists to the island they are going to turn into an amusement park. Their purpose in being there is to decide if it would be safe for people to come and visit. However during their visit, the power to the electric fences is shut off, allowing the dinosaurs to access to the entire island. Now they have to find a way to contact help, and get off the island alive.
Sound
The only dialogue is in the beginning of the scene, but when the action starts its all ambient sounds, sound effects, and the composed background music. A few sound effects meant to be heard loud and clear are: clicking of the raptors claws to show their nearness, crashing of the pots to elicit frenzy and picking up of pace, the clang of the ladle that makes the audience fell fear for the boy, the Tim’s shoes squeaking as he tries to run away raise anxiety, and the slamming of the door and the key in the lock finally evoke the relief that we as an audience need to feel safe again along with the characters. The characters make distinctly different sounds from the raptors; such as breathing heavily, gasping, and screaming. The music grows loud and fast whenever they flee from the raptors. Once escape is accomplished, it suddenly diminishes to almost nothing if there is another looming danger.
Lights
Throughout this scene shadows are heavily used, they tend to represent evil and terror. It appears as if the raptors themselves are always in the shadows wherever they go. While the children seem to enter in and out of the shadows, the light reflects off of all the metallic services. It also seemed as though the light was portrayed as security especially when the boy was running towards the freezer. The freezer was his way out, and it literally glowed. It also seemed as though the shadows always covered half of the actors’ faces making the scene appear eerier.
Set Design
Upon returning from filming in Hawaii, the cast and crew set up for the next series of shots that would become the famous raptor kitchen scene. The set design for Jurassic Park’s kitchen scene was shot on set in Universal Studio’s “Stage 24.” The set began as a pretty basic, industrial kitchen with lots of stainless steel appliances and countertops. While the actual set design was fairly straightforward, there are two compelling facts about the set that created problems for the crew, while also provided a distinctive style to film. Upon arriving at the set for the first time, the crew discovered an unexpected challenge in shooting in the kitchen: everything in the kitchen was made entirely of stainless steel, which has a highly reflective surface. So every light, every camera, every microphone had to be in exactly the right place in accordance with the camera to ensure reflections were not being filmed. The initial size of the kitchen in combination with the raptors, crew, and camera and lighting equipment made this almost impossible, so the kitchen was expanded to handle a larger scene with more possibilities of camera angles without a concern of reflection. The revised kitchen also provided additional space to film the long dramatic shots of the raptors, as well as captures a deeper focus and certainly draws the audience into the film. While this set was riddled with problems from the beginning, the directors were able to overcome them and create one of the most memorable scenes of all time.
Characters
Lex and Tim are brother and sister trying to escape from the raptors in the kitchen that are hunting them. The children did a good job portraying the intensity of the situation and the suspenseful part of them trying to escape from the raptors. It made the audience feel the emotion and suspense, and the scared feeling that they had knowing how the raptors catch their prey. Lex did a good job at showing how scared she was when she was trying to hide in the cabinet when the lid would not come down, and how Tim hurt his foot as he was trying to get away from the raptor that spotted him as he was trying to chase him, and what relief we felt when they were safe.
Camera
This scene was filmed with a great emphasis on the placement of the camera being at about eye level of the children. That meant that the camera was primarily set extremely low to the ground because the children were mostly crouching, hiding from the raptors. This set a feeling of power and dominance of the raptors because of the angle upward looking up at the raptors. Finally, at the ending shots, the children fight back and trap the raptor in the freezer. At that point, the camera angles are much higher, but still at their eye level. It gave a magnificent view of their perspective to the physically overpowering raptors.
(Thursday, December 6, 2012)
Student Names:
Edwin T. Read, Trevor Kitchen, John Davis, Meesha Garad,
Dallan Hope, Magalita Johnson, John T. Michael
Salt Lake Community College
Introduction
Jurassic Park, One of America's greatest classics, Steven Spielberg created magic with this movie. Steven Spielberg is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio mogul. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, war, and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Spielberg’s male characters are filled typically with anxiety about their masculinity and they struggle with the idea of being a father. Due to his parents’ divorce and the feelings of disconnect with his father. Only when physical challenges are forced upon them do they show any authority and begin to develop into a more responsible and protective father. Jurassic Park also makes use of this idea.
The crew, shoot at Universal Studios’ Stage 24 for scenes involving the raptors in the kitchen. Muldoon notices that they are being hunted by the raptors and draws their attention while Sattler continues to the bunker. Ellie restarts the park's systems, but is attacked by a raptor from which she escapes. Muldoon is killed by a raptor, before Alan, Lex, and Tim climb an electric fence out of the park's animal zone, and Tim is nearly killed when the fence is reactivated. Grant and the children head for the visitor's center; he leaves them alone in the kitchen while he reunites with Sattler and others, this is where this scene starts.
Background info
Prior to this scene, scientists have discovered how to splice DNA. Along with this discovery, they also found focalized mosquitos that had dinosaur blood inside them. Using the DNA from the blood, they were able to create live dinosaurs. Then bring some paleontologists to the island they are going to turn into an amusement park. Their purpose in being there is to decide if it would be safe for people to come and visit. However during their visit, the power to the electric fences is shut off, allowing the dinosaurs to access to the entire island. Now they have to find a way to contact help, and get off the island alive.
Sound
The only dialogue is in the beginning of the scene, but when the action starts its all ambient sounds, sound effects, and the composed background music. A few sound effects meant to be heard loud and clear are: clicking of the raptors claws to show their nearness, crashing of the pots to elicit frenzy and picking up of pace, the clang of the ladle that makes the audience fell fear for the boy, the Tim’s shoes squeaking as he tries to run away raise anxiety, and the slamming of the door and the key in the lock finally evoke the relief that we as an audience need to feel safe again along with the characters. The characters make distinctly different sounds from the raptors; such as breathing heavily, gasping, and screaming. The music grows loud and fast whenever they flee from the raptors. Once escape is accomplished, it suddenly diminishes to almost nothing if there is another looming danger.
Lights
Throughout this scene shadows are heavily used, they tend to represent evil and terror. It appears as if the raptors themselves are always in the shadows wherever they go. While the children seem to enter in and out of the shadows, the light reflects off of all the metallic services. It also seemed as though the light was portrayed as security especially when the boy was running towards the freezer. The freezer was his way out, and it literally glowed. It also seemed as though the shadows always covered half of the actors’ faces making the scene appear eerier.
Set Design
Upon returning from filming in Hawaii, the cast and crew set up for the next series of shots that would become the famous raptor kitchen scene. The set design for Jurassic Park’s kitchen scene was shot on set in Universal Studio’s “Stage 24.” The set began as a pretty basic, industrial kitchen with lots of stainless steel appliances and countertops. While the actual set design was fairly straightforward, there are two compelling facts about the set that created problems for the crew, while also provided a distinctive style to film. Upon arriving at the set for the first time, the crew discovered an unexpected challenge in shooting in the kitchen: everything in the kitchen was made entirely of stainless steel, which has a highly reflective surface. So every light, every camera, every microphone had to be in exactly the right place in accordance with the camera to ensure reflections were not being filmed. The initial size of the kitchen in combination with the raptors, crew, and camera and lighting equipment made this almost impossible, so the kitchen was expanded to handle a larger scene with more possibilities of camera angles without a concern of reflection. The revised kitchen also provided additional space to film the long dramatic shots of the raptors, as well as captures a deeper focus and certainly draws the audience into the film. While this set was riddled with problems from the beginning, the directors were able to overcome them and create one of the most memorable scenes of all time.
Characters
Lex and Tim are brother and sister trying to escape from the raptors in the kitchen that are hunting them. The children did a good job portraying the intensity of the situation and the suspenseful part of them trying to escape from the raptors. It made the audience feel the emotion and suspense, and the scared feeling that they had knowing how the raptors catch their prey. Lex did a good job at showing how scared she was when she was trying to hide in the cabinet when the lid would not come down, and how Tim hurt his foot as he was trying to get away from the raptor that spotted him as he was trying to chase him, and what relief we felt when they were safe.
Camera
This scene was filmed with a great emphasis on the placement of the camera being at about eye level of the children. That meant that the camera was primarily set extremely low to the ground because the children were mostly crouching, hiding from the raptors. This set a feeling of power and dominance of the raptors because of the angle upward looking up at the raptors. Finally, at the ending shots, the children fight back and trap the raptor in the freezer. At that point, the camera angles are much higher, but still at their eye level. It gave a magnificent view of their perspective to the physically overpowering raptors.