The Lost World: Jurassic Park - About The Filmmakers

The Lost World: Jurassic Park: About The Filmmakers

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STEVEN SPIELBERG (Director) is one of the world's most respected, successful and celebrated filmmakers.

As a filmmaker, Spielberg reached a professional peak in 1993-1994 with Schindler's List, which won seven Academy Awards® including Best Picture and Best Director. It won every major Best Picture award and an exceptional number of additional honors which include seven British Academy Awards, the National Board of Review, the Producers Guild, the National Society of Film Critics, a Christopher Award and the Golden Globe Award. He was further honored with the Directors Guild Award. Acclaimed throughout the world, Schindler's List has been seen by more than 75,000,000 people in theaters and millions more on video cassette. In February 1997, it was shown in its entirety as a television special on NBC, seen by 65,000,000 people.

Also in 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park, which, in addition to becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, won three Academy Awards® for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing.

He has been associated as director or producer on six of the top 20 highest grossing films of all time. E. T : The Extra-Terrestrial is the second highest-grossing film in the U.S. and Canada. It is still surpassed only by Jurassic Park and The Lion King worldwide. He earned his first Directors Guild Award for The Color Purple, and the DGA also nominated him for Empire of the Sun, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, in addition to Schindler's List. For the last four, he was also nominated for Academy Awards®.

He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute and the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Spielberg, who was born in Cincinnati and spent most of his childhood in the suburbs of Haddonfield, New Jersey, and Scottsdale, Arizona, made his first film with actors at the age of 12 and throughout his teens made several ambitious amateur films. He later studied film at California State University, Long Beach. After making five short films, his 22-minute short, Amblin'(after which he named his production company), was shown at the 1969 Atlanta Film Festival. The talents he displayed in this short film led to a unique seven-year contract with Universal Pictures-making him the youngest director ever to land a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio.

After directing several dramatic television shows for Universal Television, including episodes of Night Gallery, Marcus Welby M.D. and Columbo, Spielberg directed the made-for-television feature-length film Duel in 1973.

Spielberg made his feature directing debut on The Sugarland Express. Teamed with George Lucas, who was executive producer, Spielberg directed Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jndiana Jones and the Temple ofDoom and Jndiana Jones and the Last Crusade. His additional directing credits include Hook and Always. He also co-wrote and coproduced Poltergeist. With Amblin Entertainment, the production company he formed in 1984, he served as executive producer on more than a dozen films including Gremlins, the Back to the Future trilogy, An American Tail, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Land Before Time. Amblin also co-produced The Bridges ofMadison County and produced last summer s hit, Twister.

In October of 1994, he announced the formation of a new multimedia studio, Dreamworks SKG, with his partners in the venture, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

Spielberg's first picture for Dreamworks is Amistad, based on the true story of a mutiny on the slaveship Amistad. This project will be followed by the World War II story, Saving Private Ryan, which will star Tom Hanks.

DAVID KOEPP (Screenwriter), who co-wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park with Michael Crichton, has written or co-written such films as Mission: Jmpossible and Carlito 's Way, which were both directed by Brian De Palma; The Paper, which was directed by Ron Howard and co-written with Koepp's brother Stephen, a senior editor at Time magazine; Death Becomes Her, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis; The Shadow and Bad Influence. Koepp made his feature directorial debut with The Trigger Effect starring Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue and Dermot Mulroney. He also directed the short film Suspicious, starring Michael Rooker and Janeane Garofalo.

Koepp initially considered a career as an actor but transferred from the University of Wisconsin to the film school at UCLA to concentrate on writing. The move was influenced by a professor s assessment of David's acting ability: "I think you're a wonderful writer."

Koepp graduated from UCLA in 1986 and converted his internship with a film distributor into a full-time position that allowed him to write at night. His first selfproduced screenplay, Apartment Zero, co-written with Martin Donovan, was a thriller set in Argentina.

After graduating from Harvard Medical School, author MICHAEL CRICHTON embarked on a novel career. Called the "father of the techno-thriller," his fiction includes The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Sphere, Disclosure and The Terminal Man. He has also written four non-fiction titles:

Five Patients, Jasper Johns, Electronic Life and Travels.

Crichton has directed six films, among them Westworld, Coma and The Great Train Robbery. He has always been interested in computers and once ran a software company called FilmTrack. He also invented the computer game Amazon. His film Westworld has the distinction of being the first feature film to employ digitized images.

GERALD R. MOLEN (Producer) was one of the three producers of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award® for Best Picture and six other Oscars® including Best Director. Schindler 's List, which he produced along with Steven Spielberg and Branko Lustig, was Molen's fourth collaboration with Spielberg.

He previously produced Jurassic Park with Kathleen Kennedy, co-produced Hook and served as production manager on The Color Purple, which was his first project with his future Amblin colleagues.

Following the completion of Schindler's List, Molen served as head of production for Amblin. Other films he has produced under the Amblin banner are The Little Rascals, The Flintstones, Casper, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, How to Make an American Quilt, The Trigger Effect and Twister.

His previous credits include serving as co-producer on Rain Man and executive producer on Days of Thunder. Additional credits include Bright Lights, Big City, *batteries not included, A Soldier's Story, Tootsie, Absence ofMalice, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Ordinary People.

COLIN WILSON (Producer) first became associated with Steven Spielberg on Raiders of the Lost Ark. He began his career in the film industry in 1978 on Superman and worked on the next two installments of that movie series. Since 1986, he has continually worked with Spielberg and/or Amblin Entertainment on some of their most successful and acclaimed films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He was the production effects producer on Hook and a co-producer on The Flintstones. In addition to working as associate producer on Jurassic Park, he was involved in the supervision of visual effects and coordination of the post-production of the film.

Prior to The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Wilson produced Casper for Amblin. He is currently producing Spielberg's next two films, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan. Executive producer KATHLEEN KENNEDY was a founding partner with Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall of Amblin Entertainment. In addition to producing the highest-grossing films in domestic box-office history, E. T: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park and Twister, she has served as producer on The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always, Hook, Congo, Indian in the Cupboard and Arachnophobia. Her credits as executive producer include such films as The Flintstones, Back to the Future and its two sequels, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Money Pit, Dad, Joe Versus the Volcano and Cape Fear.

In 1994, she and Frank Marshall formed The Kennedy/Marshall Company and produced the films Alive, Congo and Indian in the Cupboard.

Raised in Weaverville and Redding, California, Kennedy graduated from San Diego State and worked at a local television station where she gained her experience as a camera operator, video editor, floor director and talk show producer. She first worked with Spielberg as a production assistant on 194] and soon moved through the ranks until he asked her to join him as co-producer.

Director of photography JANUSZ KAMINKSI, A.S.C. won the 1993 Academy Award® for his black-and-white photography of Schindler's List, his first association with Steven Spielberg. Immediately following The Lost World: Jurassic Park, he once again teamed with Spielberg on the upcoming Amistad.

Kaminksi, a native of Poland, moved to the United States in 1980 to attend Columbia College in Chicago, where he earned a degree in fine arts and film. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles to attend the American Film Institute (AFI) as a cinematography fellow. He began his career in 1987 on the feature film Fallen Angel and has since served as director of photography on Jerry Maguire, How to Make an American Quilt, Little Giants, Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures ofPecos Bill, The Adventures of Huck Finn and several independent features.

Kaminksi also worked on two distinguished television projects, the Amblin Entertainment production of Class of '61 and the Diane Keaton-directed Wildflower.

Production designer RICK CARTER began his association with Steven Spielberg and Amblin when he designed 42 episodes of Amazing Stories, which partnered him with a virtual Who's Who of directors, including Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Peter Hyams, to name a few.

Carter has continued the association, moving on to be the production designer on Jurassic Park and following The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with two more projects with Spielberg: the upcoming Amistad and Saving Private Ryan.

His other credits as a production designer include Three Fugitives and Death Becomes Her.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Carter attended UC Berkeley in the late 1960s, worked in New York City and became a world traveler for two years before settling in Los Angeles in the art department on Hal Ashby's Boundfor Glory. He was an assistant art director on The China Syndrome and The Adventures ofBuckaroo Banzai. MICHAEL KAHN, A.C.E. (Film Editor) won two Academy Awards® for his editing of films directed by Steven Spielberg: Schindler's List and Raiders of the Lost Ark. He has also received nominations for Fatal Attraction (for which he won a British Academy Award), Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Empire of the Sun. Kahn has worked on a wide variety of films, including Casper, Jurassic Park, Hook, Alive, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Arachnophobia, The Color Purple, The Goonies, Poltergeist, Used Cars, 194] and Eyes of Laura Mars. He also won an Emmy for his work on the miniseries Eleanor and Franklin.

Composer JOHN WILLIAMS began his career in 1961 with the music for Secret Ways. In the early 1970s, he created gripping and suspenseful scores for such popular disaster films as The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.

Williams is a master of every genre and emotional nuance. He has been nominated for a remarkable 35 Academy Awards® and has won five Oscars ®, inclding three for scores he composed for Steven Spielberg: Jaws, E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler's List. He has composed many of the most familiar themes in movie history, including Star Wars, which also earned him an Academy Award® for Best Original Score, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dracula, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Witches ofEastwick, The River, Hook, Born on the Fourth of July, Far and Away, Nixon, Home Alone, Sabrina and Sleepers. He won his first Academy Award® for his scoring of the film version of Fiddler on the Roof Williams is frequently featured as a guest conductor with Philharmonic Orchestras around the world and for many years has been the conductor and music director of the famous Boston Pops Orchestra.

Eight-time Academy Award®-winner DENNIS MUREN, A.S.C. (Full Motion Dinosaurs) is the senior visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. Muren's eight Oscars® and Scientific and Technical Achievement Award are in recognition of his work on Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, Innerspace, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Return of the Jedi, E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and The Empire Strikes Back. He was also nominated for Academy Awards® for Willow, Young Sherlock Holmes and Dragonslayer.

Among Muren's credits are The Star Wars Trilogv Special Edition, Twister, Mission Impossible, Casper, Ghostbusters II and Empire of the Sun. Muren, who traces his interest in visual effects to the age of 10 when he started making his own films on an 8mm camera, began his career as a visual effects cameraman and worked on such productions as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

STAN WINSTON (Live Action Dinosaurs) has won four Academy Awards®, three BAFTA (British Film and Television Academy) awards and two Emmys for his achievements. He has been nominated for a total of eight Oscars®, five BAFTAs and six Emmys. Winston was nominated for his first Academy Award® with Heartbeeps. He then teamed with James Cameron to create The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Winston reteamed with Cameron on Aliens, heading up the film's enormous effects unit and subsequently won an Academy Award®. In 1987, he earned his third Academy Award® nomination for his work on Predator. For his pioneering work on Terminator 2:

Judgement Day, for which he produced hundreds of animatronic effects and prosthetic make-up redefining the design and technology for special make-up effects, he won two Academy Awards®--one for visual effects and the other for make-up.

In 1993, Winston lead his team of artists to his fourth Academy Award®, creating the full-size dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Among his other distinguished credits are Interview with the Vampire, Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns. Winston most recently created the creature effects for The Relic and Ghost and the Darkness. He also directed the widely-acclaimed short film Ghosts, starring Michael Jackson.

Stan Winston began his career as a make-up artist at Walt Disney Productions. His first television movie, Gargoyles, resulted in his first Emmy Award and a year later he won his second Emmy for The Autobiography ofMiss Jane Pitteman in which he aged actress Cicely Tyson to 110 years old. Between 1973 and 1979, Winston was nominated for six Emmys and then moved into feature films, providing the special make-up for The Wiz.

In 1993, he partnered with James Cameron and former ILM principal Scott Ross in the creation of Digital Domain, a computer effects company headquartered in Venice, California.

MICHAEL LANTIERI (Special Dinosaur Effects) is one of the motion picture industry's leading special effects artists. An Academy Award®-winner for his work on Jurassic Park, he has frequently collaborated with Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment on such projects as Indiana Jones and the Temple ofDoom, Back to the Future II and Back to the Future III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook, The Flintstones and Casper.

Among Lantieri's other credits are: Flashdance, Fright Night, The Woman in Red, Thief of Hearts, The Last Starfighter, My Science Project, Poltergeist H, Star Trek IV, Twins, The Witches ofEastwick, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Death Becomes Her, the latter two of which he did simultaneously. Lantieri's most recent projects prior to The Lost World: Jurassic Park were Mars Attacks!, Matilda and Congo. Lantieri is now in production on Steven Spielberg's current projects, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan, and the Dreamworks SKG production Mousehunt.

SUE MOORE (Costume Supervisor) has been the costume supervisor on such films as Mars Attacks!, Bogus, How to Make an American Quilt and A Little Princess. Prior to that, she was the women's costume supervisor on The Flintstones, Jurassic Park, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Hook, Joe Versus the Volcano, Havana, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Rain Man, Fresh Horses, *batteries not included, Stand By Me (costume supervisor), The Natural and Sudden Impact. Technical Advisor, Paleontology Consultant JACK HORNER, a curator at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and a professor at Montana State, heads the largest dinosaur research team in the country.

Born and raised in Shelby, Montana, Horner collected his first dinosaur fossil at the age of eight. After a stint in the Marines, Horner worked as a field assistant in the Department of Geology at the University of Montana and landed a job as a research assistant in paleontology at Princeton University. From 1978 through 1982, he was a museum scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. He was named Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies in 1982.

Among his most historic finds are the remnants of one dinosaur herd--an estimated 10,000 waddling duckbills and the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered.

His extensive writing includes three books: Maia: A Dinosaur Grows Up, Digging Dinosaurs and Digging Up Tyrannosaurus Rex.

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