It’s doesn’t seem plausible that Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park consumed theaters over twenty years ago. Whenever we come across the film on television, it’s hard to change the channel. It just has this timeless essence to it, laced with unforgettable imagery – like when the water glass starts to ripple because of the threat of T-Rex. It’s iconic. Now, a new generation gets to experience the flesh-eating franchise with its fourth installment, Jurassic World, and the movie doesn’t disappoint.
Directed by Colin Trevorrow, the story follows the dream of Dr. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough in the original 1993 film), who imagined a park where visitors could experience actual dinosaurs like any other zoo. With Jurassic World, that dream is now a reality. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the park’s busy operations manager and she’s under pressure to create new buzz for investors. She believes she has an answer with a new hybrid dinosaur called Indominus Rex. But when the Indominus escapes from its holding area, the park’s visitors are threatened. Making matters worse for Claire are her two lost nephews visiting the park, Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson). In desperate need of help, she turns to Owen (Chris Pratt), who trains a pack of Velociraptors for the park. The two look to rescue the boys while trying to keep the park from total destruction.
We had the privilege of talking to editor Kevin Stitt, who tied all the action and terror together in this adventure film.
Can we say this movie is seriously awesome? How happy are you to be part of it?
I’m thrilled! You know I think we all knew that we had something special. You can’t predict that something like this will happen – it’s like the planets have to be all aligned, I guess.
How did you get involved in the project? It looks like this is your first film with director Colin Trevorrow.
It is. Well, it was only Colin’s second film. My agent Larry Mirisch, and Greig McRitchie, who is head of post at Universal, sort of got together and threw my name in to Frank Marshall, who is the producer. I met with Colin and I was really impressed with him and his style, and he was gracious enough to hire me.
Did you get to go on location during shooting?
Yeah, I went to most of the locations, except when they traveled to Kauai. They went there for about three weeks, but I ended up staying in Honolulu. I actually enjoyed New Orleans more than Hawaii, I don’t know why.
Really?
Yeah, New Orleans is a crazy place – very fun.
Can you talk about your editing process during production?
My whole goal during production is to just try to keep up with camera so that everything is cut. I usually try to present something to the director as soon as possible just to make sure that not only are he and I on the same wavelength, but that he’s getting the material he needs to fulfill his vision. Often times I would try to get him in on the weekends and we’d go over stuff to cook up new ideas. That way, any new shots that he felt he needed, he would have the capability of getting them.
Pace is always an important element to any story, any film. Were there any acts you had to break up so the audience wouldn’t feel overwhelmed?
Well, one of the things I’m the most proud about in the editing of this movie, and it was intentional on all sides, is that the movie starts rather leisurely and then just sort of slowly ramps you into the action. I think by the time you get to the end of the second act, you’re pretty much at full throttle and it just thrives ‘til the end. That’s one of the things that I’m most proud of in this film – the pace just sort of slowly ramps you up and brings you to a boil before you really realize it.
As far as the sequences…it’s interesting because probably one of the biggest sequences in the movie is the pteranodon attack. You know, when you’re putting something like that together there aren’t any pteranodons – it’s just plates, markers, and foreground extras running all over the place. I told Colin when we were putting it together, “I think you got something pretty cool here, this is gonna work out great.”Speaking of VFX – can you talk about your collaboration with them?
Sure. So they would shoot plates, and in the case of the pteranodon attack, there’s a function on Avid with the title tool where you can put little Xs in and move them around so at least you can get an idea of what’s happening. If foreground extras are reacting to something you can utilize the title tool Xs to indicate what the pteranodon is doing.
Basically, when you’re in first cut for the visual effects sequences, you’re just trying to sell the concept as much as possible with whatever you have that’s available to you. So when the director sees it, he says, “Okay yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking” or “No, I want it to do this.” So, that’s how that kind of works when you don’t have any finished effects to cut with.
How do you like working as an editor?
Interestingly enough, for the big picture we have what we call the big board, where we take screen shots off the Avid to represent a scene, and we’ll have a brief description on it. It’s really a low-tech tool in a high-tech world of moviemaking, but you’d be surprised by how many problems that big board can solve. When they’re done shooting, it’s all spread out in front of you and you can move these scenes around like chess pieces. It’s really quite effective.
As far as when I start to put a first cut together, I’ll read the script and glean what I can from the director. Basically, I’ll just put it together and if I think there’s a better way to do it, I’ll usually make multiple versions for the director to see. It’s always nice to show them a structure that they’re expecting and then show them another version that may or may not work better. That’s part of the collaborative process. They might say, “I like this part of what you did here, but what if we did this here?” and that’s how the collaborative process blossoms.
We noticed the audience was really rooting along with the characters and story. Did you see that coming?
It was amazing how much the audience was tied into this. Here’s an example: When [Claire] gets Lowery [Jake Johnson] to open the door to T-Rex…the audience was so ready for that to happen and was so ahead of us that I was sort of shocked by it. It’s like they knew! They knew T-Rex was in there and they were waiting for it. It really gave me a kick. The odd part is we never previewed this movie.
You didn’t?
No. It’s a tribute to Colin’s instincts and all the filmmakers’ instincts. That’s basically what we went on – that this is gonna work here, this is gonna work there, and 99 percent of the time everybody was right.
Speaking of T-Rex. The fight scene between T-Rex and the Indominus Rex had a lot of moving parts. How did you break down that sequence?
Well oddly enough, Colin’s mandate was in that climactic fight sequence he did not want the characters removed from it. He was very, very adamant about the way he shot it and directed it, that they were in the middle of this fight and in jeopardy. He told me, “I don’t want our characters to be sitting back and just watching this fight like the audience. We need to keep them in there and we need to keep them in jeopardy.” I think that’s one of the things that made that sequence so interesting. There’s one shot in the movie that’s about a minute and twenty seconds long of the two dinosaurs fighting and I think it was ILM’s most complicated visual effects shot they’ve ever done. It was actually knitted together with three background plates, but it’s made in one camera move.
Another scene that caught our eye was when we find out that Indominus Rex could camouflage itself. Can you talk about building that moment?
Yeah, it’s interesting because that sequence where he reveals himself from the camouflaging, cloaking ability was prevised, but it was never prevised exactly the way Colin had imagined it. It took a few preliminary passes since it doesn’t actual morph from something to something else. It was a bit tricky and took a few passes with visual effects before Colin was really happy with the results.
So we think there was a little Close Encounters reference in the film when Indominus kills all the soldiers. Can you confirm this for us?
That’s great. I’m glad you picked up on that. Yeah, what we tried to do in the mix of that scene is basically, you know they’re in jeopardy, but it’s before the blood drop. One of the kinda cool things we did in homage to Spielberg was when the blood hits, all the background crickets and animals go away. It’s sort of a tip of the hat to Close Encounters when Richard Dreyfus is in the truck and right before the mailboxes start going crazy, the crickets just drop out of the mix.
Legacy Effects put out a video about how they created the animatronics Apatosaurus that Owen and Claire approach in the field. There was a lot of emotion to that scene – how is it working with something tangible instead of VFX?
I saw that piece. The scene was totally different emotionally than an action sequence. It amazed me how much emotion they were able to extract out of this mechanical puppet. I think that scene is very, very effective. They sold that scene with the Apatosaurus’ eyes. It’s all practical, my hat’s off to the puppeteers. It was important for Colin to have some animatronics in the film. It was a wink to Stan Winston.
Was the pteranodon sequence your favorite?
Probably. Not only for the way it turned out, but also for its complexity, and it’s just horrifying! It was funny, during the mix, pretty close to us being done, Colin came up with the idea he said, “You should put an air raid siren over the park when they come swooping down.” And I go, “I know exactly what you mean!” I took the air raid siren that we used on of Cloverfield and put that in there. Which is totally an old-school, World War II, Cold War air raid siren, but it has a sort of mournful sound that also is kind of terrifying. It was one of those last-minute ideas that I thought just worked great!
What was it like working with composer Michael Giacchino?
He’s great! He was a perfect match for this movie. He knew he had to do a tip of the hat to John Williams, which I think he did brilliantly. People are sort of expecting that theme and he chose some pretty cool places to do that. The music editor Paul Apelgren basically temp scored the movie with all of Michael’s [music], which gave a nice feel to it.
What I’ll try to do as far as sound effects goes is I’ll build as many sound effects tracks as I can to sell the idea. Sometimes I’ll have sixteen sound effects tracks and when you present them to the director, he gets the idea and he starts forming more ideas about how the sound should be. Then we turn it over to the sound department and they’ll understand the intention behind it and take it to another level. It also gives the music editor and composer an idea of what everybody has in mind as far as the sonic quality of the scene. You know, if we have a sequence with Indominus Rex chasing Chris Pratt with gigantic footsteps, he’s not going to put timpani drums on the score there. It will definitely conflict.
How did you work with your assistants?
My first assistant is Stephen Rickert, and he’s been with me for years and he’s the backbone of the cutting-room process. He runs the whole place and basically just allows me to get the material and put it together. All the rest of the people that have worked with me on multiple pictures…Kris Cole, Heather Mullen, Adam Avery, who’s my visual effects editor and has been with me on three pictures. He’s the guy where if I’m working on a sequence and if I don’t have the time or because of its complexity, he’ll make something in a temp visual effects form. Our postproduction PA was Michael Parker and he’s been with me on two pictures also.
Any advice for younger editors?
You know, the business has changed so much. People will ask me how I got into the business, but it just doesn’t seem to pertain so much as the way the industry has changed. The advice I think I would give somebody and it’s what I managed to do and I feel very fortunate, is try to work with a lot of editors as an apprentice. If you’re lucky, try to work with some really good ones. Try to steal as many ideas from them as you can. I worked with a handful of some pretty great editors and I attribute a lot of my success to them.
Every film has its challenges, but was there anything specific that kept you up at night?
I have to say that everybody worked very hard on this movie. It was this huge monumental path. There was nothing that really worried me. It was such a collaborative environment that any problems that came up, we all got together and figured them out. It’s very rare to have that kind of collaborative environment in these big movies because there are a lot of people involved, a lot of opinions. I think once the powers that be saw how well the movie was coming together, how well it was being directed… they sort of backed off and let us all do our job. And because it was that creative environment, everybody brought their A-game to this movie. Problem solving is fun and it was just a great experience that I would love to replicate again.
Fast Five
Name a TV show everyone should watch.
You got me on that one. Rarely do I commit to a series and I know some great ones are on right now.
Last film you watched?
The Searchers.
Favorite dinosaur?
Pteranodon.
Better dinner – pizza or tacos?
Pizza.
Best quality an assistant editor can have?
There’s a lot of qualities an assistant editor can have, but maybe even temperament stands out.
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