Gareth Edwards on Directing 'Jurassic World Rebirth': "Spielberg is the Reason I Became a Director" | THR Video - video Dailymotion

The Hollywood Reporter

At the 'Jurassic World Rebirth' premiere, director Gareth Edwards describes the correlation between the script and final movie. Plus, he shares the pressure he felt bringing the film together, knowing Steven Spielberg was watching.

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00:00What were you hoping to bring to the Jurassic franchise with this new film?

00:06It's like the ultimate question, isn't it?

00:09I don't know, these things are more for the people to tell me,

00:12like, you give it out to the world at the end,

00:16and then everyone tells you what you did or didn't do.

00:18And I feel like it's weird watching the cast go past.

00:23They're all far too good looking.

00:25I've learned on my next film, I'm not going to do that again,

00:28because I always look terrible whenever I'm stood next to them on the press junkets.

00:32Yeah, so basically, it's all about today.

00:36You spend the whole year making a film like this going,

00:39what would it feel like in the audience when you watch it for the first time?

00:43And I would play a little trick where I'd have a monitor,

00:47and in the jungles wherever we were, and it was really bright,

00:50so you'd have to kind of put your T-shirt around it.

00:53And then I would get my fingers, and I would put them in front of the monitor

00:56to sort of look like heads of people in the cinema.

00:59And so I'd pretend I was in the cinema, and there was annoying people

01:01where they're sort of blocking the view a bit.

01:03So I could just basically have the reaction that I hope people will have tonight,

01:07where I'm kind of watching it going,

01:09oh, you know what we could do? Oh, you know what we should do?

01:11And then you finish a take, and you have another idea.

01:13And so it's just like trying to imagine you're here,

01:16about to watch the film, and how do you feel about it?

01:20And the process of directing or making a movie is basically projecting yourself

01:25a year from now to things like this.

01:28So this is quite a nerve-wracking moment,

01:31because you never know how you've done until you're the other side of this stuff,

01:35so fingers crossed.

01:37Were there any scenes in particular where,

01:40after you had sort of tried to view it from a theatrical viewpoint,

01:44you decided to try something different or rearrange them?

01:48Yeah, totally, yeah, in the edit.

01:49You basically rewrite the film again in the edit.

01:51People always say that, but the editor's here somewhere.

01:54It's his fault.

01:55But, yeah, even what sounds great on a page and works really well,

02:01flows really well, when you film it and then bolt it together,

02:05you can watch it and go, oh, this needs some help structurally or tightening.

02:12And so it's funny, because on a shoot where the script is like God and the Bible,

02:18and you do everything it says, as soon as you get in the edit,

02:21it's like it didn't exist, and it's all about what does this feel like watching it.

02:24And you can kind of, you've got a license to do anything you want.

02:27And so we basically, we didn't need to change much.

02:32Our first cut of the film, because I was desperate to do a director's cut

02:35that was under two hours, was just, just under two hours.

02:40And then we basically showed it to the studio, and the main note was,

02:43can you put the other five minutes you cut out back in?

02:46So we put that back in, and it's essentially what the film is to some extent.

02:49I mean, David did such a good job with the screenplay.

02:52Didn't need to mess around too much, so.

02:55And what sort of interactions did you have with Steven Spielberg on the project?

02:59What sort of interactions did you have with Steven Spielberg?

03:01Yeah, so Steven was very involved in the film in that he developed the whole storyline with David

03:08and basically had major input, as much as me, as it started.

03:15And then as we started filming, he's very much a filmmaker-friendly, as you can imagine, producer.

03:23And so there was a certain point where he felt he'd set it all up really nicely,

03:27and he was like, Gareth, go make your movie.

03:29It's over to you now.

03:30It's just a lot of pressure when someone like him gives you that freedom,

03:35because, you know, he's the reason I'm a film director.

03:38So it was weird shooting a movie knowing that Steven Spielberg was watching everything you're doing.

03:43It's quite intimidating.

03:44And then one day you'd get a text that would say something nice about the dailies from yesterday or something,

03:50and you'd have so much relief, and you'd share it with the cast,

03:54and everyone would be high-fiving each other and hugging, and we'd carry on.

03:57And so, like, Steven's feedback or, like, praise or whatever it was,

04:03was just like, like, just what you're every day, you're just, like, I hope we're doing all right.

04:09I hope he's happy.

04:11And what about visually with the dinosaurs?

04:13What were you hoping to do different with this film?

04:15Yeah, so, I mean, basically dinosaurs have been done very well, I think, since,

04:20you can argue, since the very first Jurassic Park.

04:23That T-Rex attack's pretty perfect.

04:26And so, really, it's like, on this movie it was a bit less about improving dinosaurs

04:31and a bit more about environments and things.

04:34And we wanted to film in real locations, and so we went to, like, the jungles of Southeast Asia

04:38and did it for real with waterfalls and mangrove swamps and all sorts of things.

04:45And so, really, it was about using the computer graphics to augment them.

04:49And we have, there's a whole sequence in the movie with the Mosasaurus, which is this ocean dinosaur.

04:55And, obviously, that's interacting with water, which is super, super, super hard in the computer.

05:01And so, a lot of effort went in early on to crack all that, and they totally nailed it.

05:06I think the water in this movie that's not real water is impossible to spot.

05:11Like, it's incredible.

05:12I thought I was going to spend the whole of post-production just having a nervous breakdown about this stuff.

05:18And on day one, it was, they'd nailed it perfectly.

05:22And so, then you end up running out of things to criticize.

05:24You start criticizing the clouds or something in the sky.

05:26It's like, you know, it looks so good.

Gareth Edwards on Directing 'Jurassic World Rebirth': "Spielberg is the Reason I Became a Director" | THR Video

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