Here are a couple of my ideas that ended up in Jurassic Park:
When I was honeymooning in East Africa, one of the places I visited was The Ark in Kenya. The Ark sits at the edge of a salt lick that animals have been coming to for centuries. You can watch different animals and different groups of animals visit the salt lick in succession 24 hours a day (yes, all night long as well).
You can watch the animals visit the lick from above, from floor level, or from ground level. There is one-way glass so that the animals can’t see you. The elephants came right up next to The Ark.
The lungs of the elephant were so huge, it was like being right next to a pair of gigantic sub-woofers. We watched as our heroes in the film listened to the colossal lungs of an ailing Triceratops.
I have noticed that at first glance, both frigate birds and pelicans look just like pterosaurs — until you realize they aren’t. This pelican/pterosaur fake-out of mine was used at the end of the film.
So, although officially, I did not work on the film Jurassic Park, I was hired by the Universal Studios publicity department to work on the advertising for the film. Before any negotiations took place, Universal set the prices for each design at much more than I would have charged. Because of that, this became one of the most lucrative jobs of my career, as I cranked out loads of ad ideas, both my own and the art director’s.
I was left up to my own at first. Here are some of the ad ideas I came up with:
The skull above has begun the restorative life process with the T. rex’s eye…
Much more to come…