Although the director found inspiration for the film's style in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Lost World, he also referenced a variety of vintage films for visual cues. "Older movies are always running through my mind," he says. "On this film, my references were things like King Kong, Godzilla, a couple of Roger Corman and Alfred Hitchcock films, and a lot of 1950s monster movies, like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Gorgo, and all of those other 'chase, crush and devour' films."

[Januz] Kaminski says, "Steven said to me at one point, 'I want this to look like an old glossy Hollywood movie, but I don't want it to feel dated.' So that was basically the approach. We did include a lot of homages in the movie, though; there's even one shot of Japanese tourists running in front of a big CGI T. Rex!"

The cinematographer adds, however, that he had some of his own visual references in mind. "Alien and Blade Runner were the two films I looked at," he says. "The biggest compliment Steven gave me was during the shoot. He came back to the set after doing some cutting, and said to me, 'Man, it's so moody, it looks like Alien!'"

The cinematographer began his preproduction planning by sitting down for detailed discussions with ILM visual effects supervisors Dennis Muren, ASC (full-motion dinosaurs) and Michael Lantieri (special dinosaur effects). "It was actually very easy to shoot all of the CGI composites, because the guys at ILM are just amazing with that sort of stuff," Kaminski enthuses. "There were times when we had a flare in the lens, and I would say, 'Dennis, there's some flare there, is that okay?' And he would reply, 'Well, it's never been done before, but let's try it!' We have some shots in the film in which we tilt down from the sun into the ground, where there are some activities going on.

The article also includes several dozen exclusive storyboards from the infamous "Trailer Sequence":

Click an image to enlarge

And if that's not enough, the feature also includes several pictures from the production of the movie, including these two. That white globe in the second picture uses gyroscopes to balance the camera so it doesn't shake around during filming.

Andy Rattinger got to go to the press screening of JP2 in Mexico last week (it will be released June 27th there), and was given a cool 3-D pin, as well as a Lost World mousepad. (if anyone sees the mousepad somewhere in the states, please tell me where you found it!)

The daily merchandise report: Scott Smith found the large and smaller die-cast JP2 vehicles in his local Kay-Bee (the M-class and Hum-Vee), and some "really cool" t-shirts at his local Target: A T-rex t-shirt which glows in the dark, for $9.99 and a Tie-dyed shirt for $12.99. Charles Cortez spotted a Lost World Super-Soaker (water-gun)!

Steve wanted everyone to know that he added a few new LW .WAV files to his LW Sounds Page.

• When someone asked David Koepp via e-mail if there would be a JP3, Koepp responded that he's had, "enough dinosaurs for one lifetime. Even if there is a third movie, which I seriously doubt, I don't think I'd be a part of it."
• Well, even if Koepp won't be on the project, another inside source backs up the tid-bit last week that Crichton is working on a third JP novel. According to Chaos, an employee at his local bookstore, Crichton is planning on "ending the series with dinosaurs breeding on the mainland, and the humans having to put up walls around their cities."

Some new video clips from the one and only, Chris:

Chris also made a .MOV of the new Bond Film, Tomorrow Never Dies. You can get that (6mb), here.

A new Lost World commercial has been spotted on television. According to Chris Baker, the new one has the narriator saying "This weekend, see it again....This time ... with your eyes open". It's proceeded by the "T-rex eye" scene from the film, then some other shots.

Talking about commercials, three new ones have been seen advertising various JP2 merchendise: A "Kodak Lost Roll" commercial features a woman running from a T-rex, only to spill her bag, which happens to be filled to the brim with film canasters. The narriator goes on to explain the contest and prizes (a trip to New Zealand). A interesting commercial for a "Raptor 'Karate Fighting' Game", has two button-controlled raptors which spin and try to knock each other out of their respective spinner thingies. (Okay, so why don't you try to explain it better!) A third new commercial features some of the new JP2 toys, including the stegosaurus, ground tracker, and the T-rexes. [thanks to Charles Cortez, Chris Baker, and Agent_C]

And on the subject of JP2 merchedise, Hobbes reports that he's seen a few new products at his local Toys 'R' Us: A "Play-Dough"-type product has molds to make your own hunter or dinosaur, which can be painted, then for even more fun, can be dropped out of a high window. Also spotted were two types of JP2 Backpacks (One of which has a cool hologram-type picture of Raptor on the back), an electronic pinball game, as well as dinosaur erasers, pencil cases, and rulers.. And don't forget the Indoor sleeping bag and playhouse, which looks like a cage with a dinosaur inside. Whew!

By the way, I can not find the JP2 underwear and/or boxers. : )

I have a total of two hours left to go (tomorrow) in my High School career. Woo Hoo!

According to this Entertainment Wire press release, Robert Zemeckis announced today that he would be starting his own movie production company, called ImageMovers, which would be producing movies for Spielberg/Geffen/Katz's company, Dreamworks.

Here's an interesting interview with Stan Winston, from this month's issue of Dinosaurus Magazine (apparently an Australia-only publication). Thanks to Aussie.

"I love dinosaurs!" Says Stan Winston, whose team of special effects wizards helped breathe life into the gigantic dinos in Jurassic Park and The Lost World. "to ba able to re-create the largest, most powerful creatures that walked the earth is exciting," he says. That's why he was psyched when director Steven Spielberg asked him to build a T-rex, Winston's favorite dinosaur.
It's no surprise that Winston grew up to make scary creatures, considering the flicks that inspired him as a kid. "I was a big fan of fantasy characters in movies like Frankenstein, Dr. Jerkyll and Mr. Hyde, and King Kong." Winston was so amazed by films that starred hulking, mechanical creatures, he decided he wanted to be the one to pull the strings. "While my classmates were out playing football, I was playing with clay and learning about puppetry," he adds. After college, he landed a job at Disney's makeup department. Little did he know he'd soon be giving makeovers to dinosaurs. Making a mammoth dinaosaur "puppet" takes a lot of time and hard work, says Winston. "About a hundred people helped create the dinosaurs in the movie," including paleontologist Jack Horner, who made sure the creatures were scientifically accurate. "We began designing the T-rex in Jurassic Park two years before the film was made," explains Winston. It took a year to get the design right and another year to build it. Once the T-rex was sculpted into a life-sized creature, the special effects crew broke the dino into parts- head, arms, legs- to make molds of them. "We covered the molds with 'skin' that is made by baking foam rubber in an industrialized oven for a day," explains Winston. After the bone structure and robotics were added, the T-rex was assembled. This first T-rex weighed a whopping 9,000 pounds and stood 25 feet tall. That's a lot of dino! Winston has other tricks up his sleeve when it comes to making T-rex and his other dino creations appear even more lifelike. He uses a variety of chemicals and goop to create body fluids- you know, slimy stuff like mucus, oozing blood, and the wetness around the dinos' eyes. Some products, like slime, you can buy in a store, says Winston
Since T-rex had a starring role in The Lost World, it had to be dragged out of storage and reassembled. "It took a year to bring the old T-rex back to life," says Winston. And this time it's even scarier. The new, improved T-rex is anchored to a movable cart and weighs an unbelievable 14,000 pounds! "We treat the dinosaurs with a great amount of respect," says Winston, "because they're very, fast, and dangerous. It takes nine operators and puppeteers just to keep T-rex under control."
But you can bet that T-rex will be going berserk in The Lost World, stalking and chasing down anything that moves-specially humans. Winston guarantees you'll be on the edge of your seat: "The Lost World is better, bigger, and a lot scarier." Let the terror begin!

The total box office gross of The Lost World is actually $191 million, when you take into account the Monday to Thursday receipts. (thanks to Dan Cohen)

Here's a picture of two of the Burger King watches, thanks to Babi30930. If you haven't gotten a watch yet, hurry up -- the BK near me is already sold out:

The website "Classic Insites Performance Center" has a section about the Lost World soundtrack, complete with comments and audio clips. Visit it here.

According to Chris Baker, the new issue of GamePro has some new screenshots of the upcoming JP2 game for the Sega Genesis. (Other pictures can be found in the Media Gallery)

By the way, have you visited The Shop lately? It's the best place to find JP2 merchandise for discount prices. Amazon.com has just lowered their price on "The Making of the Lost World", so now's a great time to order.

Last night's Dateline, and tonight's episode of Entertinament Tonight both had segments on the special effects in JP2. I'll have the audio from the ET clip tomorrow, and Chris says he'll get the video from the Dateline segment as well.

Talking about groovy books, baby, check this shagadelic one out. And for $8, it's cheaper than a Swedish Penis Enlarger! Yeeeeeeahhhhhh Baby!!!!!!!!

1. "Speed 2: Cruise Control," $16.2 million.
2. "Con Air," $15.2 million.
3. "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," $12 million.
4. "Addicted to Love," $2.3 million.
5. "Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery," $2.1 million.

Chris, the guy with the video capture card, has digitized the funny JP2 spoof from Thursday's MTV's Movie Awards. It's 17mb, and can be downloaded here.

Here are some new release dates, courtesy of the Internet Movie Database: Poland, Finland, and Sweden - September 5th, Estonia - September 12th, Denmark - September 19th, Hungary - September 25th, Portugal - September 26th, and France - October 22nd.

Last Week's Poll Results: In this poll, I asked you to give The Lost World a rating of 1 to 4 stars. Well, the results were interesting: The majority of the people who saw the movie (57%), loved it, giving it Four Stars. The votes basically went down from there, with 3 ½ getting 19% of the vote, and 15% giving it 3 stars. Only 6 people (1%) gave the movie one star.

This week's question: Who was your favorite character in JP2? Vote Here.

Just heard this interesting tid-bit about Jim Cameron's epic movie, "Titanic", currently to be released this December -- supposedly the cost has risen to an estimated $210 million with several special effects shots left to be completed. At one point, Cameron ordered the Sfx crew to re-do a shot, simply because the famous ship was going down with it's rotors turning, something historians think was false. Is it just me, or this movie going to be the largest bomb ever? I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting through a three hour movie when I know what's going to happen in the end (hint: the boat sinks).

The summer movie issue of Screen Scene (Published by Scholastic), has a short article on The Lost World. The cover: (thanks to Kid4N64)

If you haven't been to the official Trespasser website in awhile, check it out. They've started to update the "News" section daily, so you can check out the progress on the game. They've also got some cool new screenshots:

Here's a picture of those "Dino Hatchlings" that were mentioned awhile back. (thanks to Compy):