Red-Dilopho's avatar

Red-Dilopho

Juanosaurus
1.8K
Watchers
119 Deviations
112.9K
Pageviews
Greetings to anyone who still visits my page! Thank you for checking back even though I hadn't posted stuff in such a long time. My last journal entry is from almost 4 years ago. Shame on me! hahaha. I thought it was time to update it with some random thoughts!!!... yay!

I just saw Jurassic Park 3D on IMAX for the fourth time this past weekend! It was such an incredible experience to see my favorite movie back on the big screen. Everyone is writing about it, and fortunately the reviews for it have been great! So different from what critics said 20 years ago when it was originally released. I still remember reading a terrible review on the newspaper when I was a kid, saying the movie was way too frightening for kids to see, and that the rating should be bumped up to R, etc, etc, (they compared it to "Batman Returns", which came out around the same time). Thankfully my parents ignored all these "potential post-traumatic disorder" warnings about the movie and took me to watch it anyways because they knew I loved dinosaurs so much. My life was never the same, because after seeing Jurassic Park and simply not understanding how it was possible to make such a movie, the question "How did they do that?" became the biggest and most important. I think it helped me get through some rough times, because no matter how bad things got, there was always a goal to look forward to, a higher purpose that meant more than any difficulty I went through - to figure out the enigma of Jurassic Park.

I still haven't figured it out. As interesting as technical answers about animatronics and animation software are, I think they are only part of the answer to how they gave the dinosaurs such an awesome presence. It is the whole movie I think, the way it is paced, the music, sounds and the careful staging of the dinosaurs. The first T-Rex appearance is foreshadowed by the rippling water and the mauled, bloody goat's leg falling on the roof of the car creates an authentic sense of danger. The Brachiosaurus is revealed with a triumphant musical score (none other than the Jurassic Park theme itself!) and timed perfectly after a second of silence as Grant and Ellie look off-screen in awe. The Dilophosaurus has an interesting twist to its introduction. It is first presented as a harmless, playful character - only to shock the audience when it suddenly reveals its deadly, predatory nature. The raptors have the longest introduction in the movie, and when one finally makes an unexpected appearance (quite literally) it makes for a scene worthy of a horror movie and a perfect jump-scare. In contrast, when the Triceratops is revealed, the feeling is the opposite, it is pure awe and wonder. There are not many movies that can combine wonder, suspense and horror as well as Jurassic Park did  (I think "The Neverending Story" did this very well too).

The lighting in some scenes is much darker than in most movies of the same genre nowadays. The Dilophosaurus scene is set at night in the rain, and the Dilophosaurus itself is mostly seen as a shadowy figure, speckled with glossy reflections. The T-Rex main road attack sequence has a similar dark look, with the huge dinosaur sometimes seen only through rain-splattered windshields. I think they left more to the imagination, and it had a powerful effect. But whenever the audience couldn't see a dinosaur, the filmmakers made sure they could still hear it, and the dinosaur sounds created for the movie are among the most recognizable of all time - the awe-inspiring T-Rex roar, the blood-curling Raptor shrills, and the haunting trumpeting sounds of the Brachiosaurus.

John Williams' score is a classic masterpiece with a wide range of moods, like the movie itself. The "Theme from Jurassic Park" has become an anthem of movie magic, and the music written for the raptor scenes is just as terrifying and effective now as it was 20 years ago.

Another thing I noticed watching the movie this time is how it doesn't down-talk to the viewer at any point. The filmmakers of Jurassic Park were not afraid to speak to the audience in a technical language and pull the curtain on the science behind the premise: The latest theories on dinosaur evolution (the dinosaur-bird connection), the astonishing bio-engineering procedure that brought dinosaurs back to life and the mathematical theory that ultimately predicted the park's demise. This all added up to create an incredible sense of realism.

I could go on writing about how amazing this movie is, but I think this is already a really long journal post! If you got this far, thanks so much for reading!

-Juan
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hi to everyone who visits this page! I can't believe it's been almost a year since I last updated this journal! :o

Anyways, there have been some things going on that have kept me from putting a whole lot of stuff up here on DA...I just saw that my last post is pretty old. But I'm still alive! (at least I am as I'm typing this hahaha) in case anyone was wondering about it...which I honestly doubt, lol.

I just came back from an awesome trip to Montana. I went on a dinosaur expedition to dig up fossils alongside paleontologist Paul Sereno!!! (for those of you who don't know him, he is one of today's top paleontologists, and a very inspiring person too...he has been all around the world in adventures hunting for dinosaurs).

It was kind of surreal, because I have admired Paul Sereno since I was in grade school (I read about him in magazines back when the dino-mania that came with Jurassic Park spread all over the world), and there I was just last week, discussing about dinosaurs over lunch with him and the other expedition members, digging up fossils and preparing them to be sent to the University of Chicago...it was amazing, and a dream come true, that's for sure!

I came back with recharged batteries so to speak, and I'm working on my new sculpture (I just posted the design I drew for it today), and I'll get back to my 3D Dilophosaurus soon too, and a 3D environment for it that is half-built already.

Anyways! Thanks for visiting my page, and for reading this journal! I hope you enjoy the dinosaur stuff (and soon fantasy stuff as well) on this page.

-Juan
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hi! It's been a while since I last posted anything (hahaha, I like to state the obvious :P). I've been a bit busy lately doing some sculpture, finding a new place to live, thinking about life and stuff.

I just heard back from the Ottawa Animation Festival, and my film wasn't accepted :( oh well, but at least now I'm free to show it publicly. I hope you guys still remember about it! Looking back at it now, I'm still very happy with it, even with all it's many imperfections :).

Oh! and today I finished my first sculpture, finally! hahaha, it took me like 2 months :P...it's a Protoceratops. I'll take pictures of it and put them up tomorrow.

Ok, that's all for now. Thank you for reading and for visiting my page!

-Juan
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
I can't believe it... somehow I managed to finish my dinosaur film :D. I gotta say it's not perfect or anything (it's a student film), but I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. Now the only thing that's missing is the sound, but my sister is taking care of the design and mixing of it. It should be ready by April 15 more less.

I don't know, it's a bit strange because when I finished the film I didn't feel the way I thought I was going to feel, you know, that sudden "This is it! it's done!" type of feeling. It was much more subtle, it was more of a letting go, it wasn't perfect but I had to let it be. I thought it was similar to falling in love...I wasn't punch drunk in love with the film, but I liked it as it was, with the good stuff and the not so great stuff. I'm starting to believe that's how it works...maybe there's no such thing as love at first sight after all. Anyways.

* * *

I will put up the film online as soon as I'm done with assembling my demo reel and portfolio for any possible job interviews. I promise I'll put it up! :) Thanks so much to all of you guys for your nice comments on my work and the critiques too.

I'm graduating pretty soon, so "where do I go from here?" is the question now...it's quite overwhelming (well, for me it is). I guess I'll just put together the portfolio and demo reel, and follow my instincts according to the situation, because you know what they say... "You can make a boat, but you can't make the ocean". So I'll just try to make the best of the tide I'm in. Thanks again to everyone for your support! :D
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Holy smokes, I can't believe I'm about to start animating the last scene of my film! It's so exciting!! :D.

There's a lot (a lot) more work to do after that though, I have to render a shadow pass for everything in the scene, then there's compositing, color correction, etc. My sister will be doing all the post-production sound, so that's something I don't need to worry about :).

It's been an amazing year, this 4th year of Animation, but it has gone by so much faster than the other three! And after that there's graduation...man, I don't even want to think about that right now. It's exciting and scary at the same time...going out to the real world and paying your own rent, and being completely free. I can't wait though. I'm pretty sure I learned more about myself than about animation here in college, and I think it's the same for everyone around me. Everybody has changed a lot in the last four years, or grown up I should say.

And really, animation has taught me that life is like a movie. The whole movie, it's sequences, scenes and shots are always divided in three acts: setup, conflict and resolution. Everything has a motivation, the characters tend to come in late and leave early, and there's always a twist.  It needs lots of editing, and requires suspension of disbelief from the viewer. And like one of my favourite teachers here told us in his last class: "Every good story has four elements: hope, redemption, truth and justice". I believe him. I'm hoping the last scene of this film will be the best, and that there will be many more to come!

Ok, I got carried away, hahaha, this was a long journal entry and I don't know if it makes a whole lot of sense, but I felt like writing it :P. It's back to work now! :D
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

Jurassic Park 3D and back on DA by Red-Dilopho, journal

Montana, Dinosaurs and Update by Red-Dilopho, journal

Film and New Stuff by Red-Dilopho, journal

I Finished My Film! :) by Red-Dilopho, journal

Last Scene of My Film! :0 by Red-Dilopho, journal