Jurassic World Dominion | The Lost Art of Blocking and Editing

0:04 foreign no series is more notorious for losing its magic than Jurassic Park this is a franchise that got jaded and cynical by its second entry and that one was directed by Steven Spielberg oh yeah Ah that's how it always starts but then later there's running and screaming narratively there's nothing else to say beyond what the first film already said but entertainment wise [Applause] this franchise could be pretty damn fun I can sit here and talk about the

0:49 importance of character and themes but the truth is as long as a series is consistently able to pump out two to three really exciting Dino centered action scenes with each entry then this franchise will do just fine and honestly I'm okay with that Jurassic Park 3 was an infamously troubled production but it's worth it for that pterodactyl scene alone even something as ludicrous as Fallen Kingdom can deliver some expertly staged moments of dinosaur Carnage each Chase has a clear sense of geography and tension mechanics are introduced and paid off during the chases each location and encounter has its own atmosphere it's genuinely good directing for a terrible script all that matters for theme park movies is that we enjoy the ride but then to minion had to come out and

1:36 have some of the worst blocking and editing I've seen from a major Studio Blockbuster failing at the very principles this series is supposed to have mastered Dominion's major set pieces don't just disappoint from a basic filmmaking and editing standpoint but also deliberately undermine the fundamental themes at the center of the series you know if it's okay for Jurassic world to be cynical then it's okay for me too let's have some fun breaking down this absolute garbage [Music] the biggest strength of Jurassic world Dominion is that in spite of its script wanting nothing to do with Dinosaurs the film features some of the most visually

2:22 diverse and fully realized dinosaurs ever put to film in this film we have the quetzalcoatlas the dimetrodon the lystrosaurus the Baryonyx the Pyro Raptor and many many more not only did they finally incorporate feathers into these dinosaurs designs but they also gave each of them their own little sequence to show off a moment to get into the character's faces and display their power and they all suck maybe I'm a sadist but the one thing I love about this series is the slasher element good or bad all of our characters have the potential to be the dinosaur's lunch but Jurassic world Dominion refuses to kill off its characters in fact it's the only Jurassic Park film to expand its cast as it progresses

3:07 each of these dinosaurs are given a setup worthy of a great set piece Two Soldiers stranded on a frozen body of water with a raptor that can swim three vulnerable people trapped in a cave swarming with dimetrodons three people flying in a plane only to realize they're not the biggest bird in the sky each scene is loaded with potential for smart moves exciting character moments or even a tragic death these are the moments where the characters can really dig down and discover who they are nope instead Dominion rushes through these encounters at full force a momentary speed bump in the way of the plot the tension from these encounters always resolve themselves door spring from nowhere the dinosaurs delay and Telegraph their moves and characters constantly come from the Heavens to save

3:54 their asses there are no major injuries no character setbacks the dinosaurs are pure filler to break up the plot the only new dinosaur in Dominion that makes any sort of impression is the Therizinosaurus the blank tall dinosaur with the Freddy Krueger fingers this giant bird scene is given the strongest introduction Claire has woken up from a crash landing only to find herself in the presence of this Beast she desperately needs to escape but doing so will make her presence known There's real tension in her decision to jump and the film takes the appropriate amount of time to build to it once she's grounded instead of sprinting in some nonsensical convenient Chase Claire instead slowly crawls making as little noises possible heading towards a

4:41 small body of water she sees ahead the framing here is incredibly effective especially in what we don't see we're locked in on Claire's fear keeping the majority of the Therizinosaurus out of sight because that's not what Claire sees all we sense of this creature are its echolocating squawks and its tall deadly fingers that invade the frame ultimately the reason this scene works is because it has a real satisfying payoff instead of Owen coming to save the day for the 15th [ __ ] time Claire has to hold her breath be calm and collected as possible and hope that Therizinosaurus will not realize she's there it's a visceral feeling that the audience can connect to a sense of dread that they hold just long enough to make the moments of relief satisfying with the scene this is good there ought to be

5:27 more right good oh yeah well actually it's a complete disaster but thanks [Music] Jurassic Park has always tried to outdo the magic of the first film to the scale and inventiveness of its set pieces The Lost World brought a T-Rex to San Diego Fallen Kingdom had its cast survive a stampede of dinos amidst an erupting volcano and Dominion aims to top them all with a multi-layer Chase through the streets of Malta involving dozens of deadly dinosaurs given the setup of this scene and also the fact that Dominion is the most plot driven film in this franchise this scene has less in common with the Jurassic Park set piece and more to do with a globetrotting Chase one sees with born Fast and Furious or James Bond the

6:14 antagonists such as rain delacort and Sonia solantis are clearly modeled after 007's Rogues gallery and if this is a James Bond film then the dinosaurs are well you know I have one simple request and that is to have sharks with freaking laser beams attached to their heads even at its worst this Series has always centered its conflicts around the well-being and nature of its dinosaurs and our complete lack of control over them but here without any exploration the atrocoraptors are perfectly subservient to their overlords with their laser-guided targeting pawns to overcome in Owen and Claire's mission to save their adopted daughter Maisie instead of the new setting complementing these Raptors or giving them fun new ways to express themselves this action

6:59 scene only highlights their lack of importance to the story the Raptors have always been my favorite dinosaur family in this series because of just how expressive they can be they don't just attack they hunt they survey their environment stalking their unsuspecting prey waiting for the perfect moment to [Music] intellectually they are the top of their food chain they are cutting and cruel I love them so much they actually set a trap and in this scene they are nothing more than stupid heat-seeking missiles they take all their Quarters sloppily at full speed they announce their presence before completely missing the kill they are a constant presence and never a threat on top of just obliterating the notion

7:45 that these Raptors are effective killing machines this also completely messes up the flow needed to maintain a lot action scene you can't sustain intensity for 11 minutes straight you need breaks in the action an ebb and flow of tension steadily building for a cathartic moment of release but here the tension never builds and the releases come out of nowhere Hold On Tight the one element that makes Jurassic Park special amongst its contemporaries is that while every other spectacle is about empowering characters to confront their problems this world has been consistent in taking power away from its Heroes their strongest moments are when they give up their control when they realize they can't will their way to Victory and have to succeed through their intelligence and empathy but in

8:31 this scene Colin trevorrow wants Claire and Owen to be Dominic Toretto and Jason Bourne Jesus Christ that's Jason Bourne the action choreography with Owen is fine if not incredibly uninspired it isn't anything we haven't seen a thousand times before but the Rapture Chase with Claire is spectacularly terrible it begins trying to do a show off The Wonder of clear Escape in the building she's trapped in but because this scene lacks energy they stitch together five different takes to the excessive use of the whip pan now the whip pan is an incredibly effective tool to transition scenes or emphasize an impactful moment of action but using it five times in 20 seconds completely kills the illusion of a continuous shot because it's impossible to show Claire

9:17 credibly outrunning this Raptor the chase keeps all of the shots close to the characters using the edits to create intensity without geography it's non-stop cinematic cheating but all of this can't compare to the worst edit in the entire Jurassic Park franchise so when these shots we see Claire running in profile view with no idea where she's heading then we cut to this weird tight close-up shot of her running through these clotheslines and following the action of her turning her head we get a POV shot of the atroc Raptor right behind her turning back to the forward POV shot Claire runs into a sheet of clothing which suddenly cuts to a frame of black only to cut declare opening this door which we have not established and is completely out of continuity with the previous shots then on the action of Claire closing the door we cut to the interior side of this action

10:03 establishing a spiral staircase which the atroc Raptor has now burst through only to tilt down and see that Claire is an entire flight of stairs below Jesus Christ that's Jason Bourne this segment was clearly longer but was hacked to bits to make this scene more intense embodying the horrible filmmaking instincts at the heart of this film these edits are so fast and Relentless to cover for the failures in action geography and tension and so much has cut out that the scene fails on basic continuity and storytelling and this isn't even the worst set piece in this movie bigger why do they always have to go bigger on top of trying to constantly outdo their predecessor set pieces each

10:48 Jurassic Park sequel has introduced a new Alpha dinosaur to provide the ultimate test for Our Heroes this time around we get the Joker Source I mean veganatosaurus the largest known terrestrial carnivore as this film's final boss right as all generations of this series cast unite for the first time they are interrupted by the chaos of this clown through the framing the darker atmosphere and even the iconography of the turned over Jeep it's clear that this scene is evoking the iconic T-Rex escape from the original Jurassic Park now one of the big complaints with the first Jurassic world was that safer one dying Brachiosaurus every single dinosaur in that film was completely computer generated button tried to go toe-to-toe with one of the most important scenes in film history Dominion's crew made a pretty impressive

11:34 animatronic for the Giga from the neck up is this it will Jurassic Park finally return to its horror filmmaking roots and deliver a masterful sequence of what do you [ __ ] think This falls apart from the moment it starts the gecko stands in between the characters and safety laying out the clear geographical goal of the scene and instead of any complications it just walks around the Jeep they're hiding behind as the cast awkwardly moves towards the ladder to safety Ian Malcolm crawls into the turned over Jeep and we're being trapped in the Jeep in Jurassic Park with a death trap here it's effective cover as the cast begins to climb we get our first moment of danger as the Giga bites down on the cage ladder as Maisie is in the middle of climbing it be too terrified to move with death so

12:21 close we set up an interesting obstacle will the cast have to save her will she climb in time or will she fall and have to find another way up instead the cage just rips open clogging the giga's mouth and everyone else climbs the ladder in three rapid edits throughout the entire set piece the cast sticks together like kids on a school field trip there's no splitting up for distractions no impulsive moments or a moment of Chaos in general it's all controlled just compare Ian's heroic moments against the T-Rex versus him standing up to the Giga none of the complications build if a character gets knocked over they get right back up no one takes any risks it's so safe it all builds to a whimper as the Giga crashes through the glass after the characters thought they reached safety you have

13:06 this amazing animatronic and it does nothing the cast's stiff interactions with it completely give away the effect when the Giga leaves it's not a Triumph of character but a whimper of relief that this terrible scene is over there are countless ways you can improve this scene for one maybe start the scene with the older cast stuck in the turned over jeep that way the characters are compromised and need to do something creative to get out have the Giga destroy the ladder so they have to find a more dangerous way up split the cast up have one of them die any of them die all of them die or an injury something please this is spineless tensionless filmmaking and the biggest embarrassment for this entire franchise there is so much more terrible

13:53 filmmaking in this movie we could talk about how Tim Cook's death is just a lame retread of the first film how the climactic fight is beat for beat the same as the original Jurassic world but infinitely worse but I don't want to do that the truth is I want to talk about great filmmaking that builds upon the original Jurassic Park and if I want to talk about something that truly shares the greatness of that film then I have to look elsewhere this is a core idea I brought up in my top gun Maverick Death Star video it's the realization that the magic of our Classics do not belong to the franchises they spawned and so with the final minute of this video I want to talk about other recent media that in my eyes embodies the spirit and filmmaking that Jurassic Park defined the Jurassic Park

14:39 Series has always been closer to horror than action in one recent series that wears its Jurassic Park influence on its sleeve is a quiet place what Jurassic Park does with scale and framing a quiet place does with sound design putting its characters in impossibly tense and compromised scenarios but they have to do amazing things to survive it takes the metaphor of family enduring through chaos and runs with it giving hope for each moment of despair my favorite television series of the year is House of the Dragon the Redemptive prequel That Game of Thrones desperately needed on top of all the amazing performances that drive the show I really love how Central the dragons are to the story without feeling overused ultimately the control the targaryens have over their dragons is an illusion much like the control the

15:25 humans have over dinosaurs and Jurassic Park and the final 10 minutes of the Season certainly felt familiar lastly if you want anything that resembles the craft of a Spielberg classic just watch another Spielberg classic when Colin Rivera was talking to Spielberg about the Troubles of having to block six to eight characters in a scene during the film's climax Spielberg responded well I did 15 in West Side Story there is your homework go watch West Side Story and take notice of all the different ways Spielberg visually tells the story pay attention to how the blocking reveals character how the camera creates emotion and how every single action is Meaningful to the story Jurassic Park's magic isn't extinct you just need to know where to look for

16:10 it