Extinct No More

DreamWorks Animation puts the giant dinos back to work in Jurassic Park: Camp Cretaceous. By Tom McLean

Jurassic Park and its digital dinosaurs frst gether at Nickelodeon on projects such as the features, Kreamer says. wowed audiences in 1993, establishing Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness be”We knew what we were trying to do and itself as a generational milestone — just fore moving over to DreamWorks — Kreamer how diffcult it would be to achieve,” says as Star Wars had done 16 years earlier — for to work on Cleopatra in Space and HammersKreamer. “But the frst thing was to nail down millions of young moviegoers. The franchise ley reporting for Camp after a stint on Disney’s these kids as far as who these characters were since has had its ups and downs, with the Star vs. The Forces of Evil. Coming on in midand to get a pilot into shape.” That’s where 2015 smash hit feature Jurassic World reviving 2018, Kreamer took over a premise and pilot Hammersley came in, starting work on the piinterest in the series and leading to its frst script developed by X-Men: First Class and Thor lot script around the start of 2019 with an eye TV iteration in Jurassic toward developing the World: Camp Cretaceous, ‘The big challenge for any franchise like this is, you just can’t characters. an eight-episode aniThe series follows mated series produced please everyone. We’re really doing our best to try to six teens who are the by DreamWorks Telehonor the franchise and retain so much of what we love.’ inaugural group atvision Animation and tending the titular debuting September 18 — Exec producer/showrunner Aaron Hammersley camp on Isla Nubworldwide on Netfix. lar, home to Jurassic

Showrunning the new series are executive screenwriter Zack Stentz, and some early deWorld: Darius Bowman, voiced by Paul-Mikél producers Scott Kreamer and Aaron Hammer sign artwork. Williams, a Black teen who shared an obsessley, both proud members of the Jurassic gensive love of dinosaurs with his recently deeration. ”I watched it in the movie theater and Not a ‘Kiddie’ Version ceased father; Brooklynn (Jenna Ortega), a then immediately snuck into another screening Expectations were high and there were no social media infuencer who broadcasts her of it,” says Kreamer. ”It had such a big impact on guarantees since previous attempts at Jurassic life to a large following; Kenji Kon (Ryan Potme as a kid — I think I watched it six or seven TV series had failed to make it into production. ter), who projects a self-centered and cool imtimes in the movie theater,” adds Hammersley. And no less an authority than original feature age via vast family wealth and access to park

The producers had experience with both director Steven Spielberg said the show had secrets; Sammy Gutierrez (Raini Rodriguez), a DreamWorks and Netfix, having worked toto avoid being a sanitized, “kiddie” version of cowgirl at heart whose ranching family pro-

Thrill Ride: The serialized nature of the show makes it feel like a four-hour visit back to the world frst imagined by late author Michael Crichton.

‘We knew what we were trying to do and how diffcult it would be to achieve. But the frst thing was to nail down these kids as far as who these characters were and to get a pilot into shape.’

— Exec producer/showrunner Scott Kreamer

vides food for the island's resorts; Ben Pincus (Sean Giambrone), a bookish nerd who's afraid of his own shadow; and Yaz Fadoula (Kausar Mohammed), a stoic athlete. Overseeing the campers - and trying to keep up with them - are counselors Roxie (Jameela Jamil) and Dave (Glen Powell).

Establishing a less-cartoony, more grounded tone was a huge challenge, and Hammersley says he dove right into fnding moments in which the characters could breathe and come to life. “My big focus when I started on the show was just making sure that … you knew what they were thinking, that you understood what they were feeling,” he says. Characters Take Center Stage

Taking infuence from Spielberg-infuenced flms such as The Goonies and E.T., the characters are at the heart of the series and required many elements to come together in the right way to work. Establishing the characters and their relationships in a way that was grounded and believable was tricky, Kreamer says. “We want all the kids to start off — ‘at odds’ is the wrong word — but it’s like the frst day of school,” he says. “Are the kids presenting themselves as who they actually are? Or who they want to seem to be?”

Among the trickier characters were Darius, who is the audience’s entry into the show and needed to be an underdog without being too much of a “sad sack”; and Brooklynn, who needed to avoid the stereotype of a vapid social media star.

It sometimes took multiple tries, Kreamer says, citing the need to re-record an early scene in which a dino attacks the observation tower. “There’s a difference between cartoon screaming and fear-for-your-life screaming,” he says. “And I think there was an adjustment period. We’re really trying to ground this show and ground these characters and avoid cliche cartoon poses.”

Both showrunners praised CG animation director Daniel Godinez’s efforts to go above and beyond the call of duty. “Dan would go through our writers room notes —just the raw notes— for just any kind of clues to who these characters are and how they would move and how they would behave,” says Kreamer.

That ethos extended through the production, which was split between the team at DreamWorks Animation and CGCG in Taiwan. As Hammersley points out, “The CG team has been pushing themselves really far and they’ve found a lot of creative solutions on how to achieve a more expensive look on a TV budget.”

The production had access to the features’ digital assets of the dinos and sets, both of which were simplifed for the TV animation pipeline. But to match even the simplifed dinosaurs and environments, the character designs had to be closer to real life, Hammersley says. “The focus was maintaining some of those proportions, but then also exaggerating it just enough to set the characters apart from a live-action design,” he says. “So it was enlarging eyes, enlarging ears and hands and feet and things of that nature to just give it a bit of caricature and a bit of exaggeration.”

With all eight episodes of the series set to drop at once, the show’s serialized elements help it play like a four-hour movie, one with an ending open for additional seasons. But for now, the showrunners are excited to see how fans react.

“The big challenge for any franchise like this is, you just can’t please everyone,” says Hammersley. “We’re really doing our best to try to honor the franchise and retain so much of what we love about Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, and make sure kids walk away from this show feeling very similar to how we all felt when we all watched Jurassic Park. And I think it’s really exciting that we get to introduce a whole new generation to the Jurassic franchise.” ◆

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous premieres on Netfix on September 18.