Rick Carter’s Jurassic Park

Experience an early version of ‘Jurassic Park’ through production designer Rick Carter’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s final draft screenplay, brought to life in an entertaining illustrated audio drama! Featuring the film’s original production artwork enhanced with fantastic music, sound effects, and the voice talents of enthusiastic fans.

‘Rick Carter’s Jurassic Park‘ was an epic project born out of the dire 2020 pandemic lockdown. Derrick Davis had acquired many rare and previously unseen selections of concept art, storyboards, scripts, and other materials related to the original ‘Jurassic Park.’ One of the most interesting items he acquired was a unique script that had many elements that would eventually be scrapped, but would also shape the final film, and beyond.

The official history behind the screenwriting process of ‘Jurassic Park’ had always included Michael Crichton, Malia Scotch Marmo, and David Koepp. During this time, the film’s production designer, Rick Carter, took on a bigger role than normal.

“I was brought onto ‘Jurassic Park’ about two years before we finally started shooting […] On most shows, the production designer is brought in and handed a script and asked to visualize it. Not so on this one. I was in on many early meetings with Steven where we would break down the scenes in the book and discuss which ones would work best for the film.” – Rick Carter

In the beginning, Michael Crichton had provided several drafts of the screenplay for his novel before passing the pen to whoever would take a crack at future drafts. Tom Stoppard (‘BRAZIL’, ‘SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE’), an esteemed playwright and screenwriter, was among the choices to take over the script for ‘Jurassic Park.’ Director Steven Spielberg went on to film ‘Hook,’ as the production team for ‘Jurassic Park’ continued to work.

“While Spielberg was doing ‘HOOK’, I would go to him with all these different ideas of how to make things work.” – Rick Carter

Only weeks after Crichton’s time with the production had come to an end, Carter decided on a way to deliver these ideas to Spielberg in a unconventional way for a production designer.

“Steven and all of us were having such amazing conversations as we explored where the movie could go. […] There was a whole river extravaganza, there were a lot of things that were in the book that we were still playing out and exploring. […] So, I wanted to get something in front of Steven that we could use as our working document. And I started to write sort of memos that would outline scenes and I’d throw images with them, and that kind of thing. But it got to be where it almost was easier to do it as a screenplay form. And then, of course, once I entered into that I started just putting in dialogue and, you know, whatever. Or whatever I took from the book that I thought was still really good. – Rick Carter

This led him to craft an entirely new script using much of Crichton’s as the backbone.

“After our last script meetings, I began collecting together my notes. I realized that the only way for me to see how the ideas might actually play out in the story was for me to “collage” them into Michael’s latest script. Well, one thing led to another and I found myself going through the entire story.” – Rick Carter

It’s not every day that a production designer writes a screenplay to get his ideas across in order to make the film a success. But Rick Carter was a special production designer. While his version of the script would not end up being used for the film, it wasn’t his intent anyway. He simply wanted the best way to further continue the production progress of ‘Jurassic Park,’ and he felt altering the script was the best way to do it.

​But what if it had been made? What would it have been like? Would it have felt just as grand, just engaging, and just as memorable? Or would it have had its own unique flavor that no one else could have concocted?

About 30 years since it had been written, Derrick Davis had discovered the script and wanted to know the answers to all of those questions. He decided the best way to experience this early version of the film was to bring it to life. This led to him teaming up with another fan of the franchise, music composer Bernard A. Kyer. Derrick presented him with the idea of creating an audio drama experience from the script. He would do this by using concept art, storyboards, and other official artwork to illustrate it; many of which had never been seen before.

Bernard took the script and adjusted it to flow in this format, while Derrick went to several fans of ‘Jurassic Park’ that could perform various roles, including himself as Tim Murphy and John Hammond. Soon, the entire cast had been realized.

After Bernard edited the audio together with sound effects and composed his original music score, Derrick assembled all the artwork he could find to match what was described. Despite obtaining many rare materials for years, there was still much more that he needed. With the help of others, such as Astríd Vega’s Jurassic Park Collection and original art by Felipe Humboldt, the task was completed. Without them, it would have been much more difficult to visually depict select scenes to the audience.

When the production was nearly finalized, an amazing opportunity took place. Derrick was able to reach out to Rick Carter himself, who was delighted with the project’s concept, and never thought something like it would have been realized from his script. Their discussions led to a recorded conversation that was then edited into two separate videos: one focusing on his script, the other an hour-long look into his career that delves into ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘AI: Artificial Intelligence,’ ‘Avatar,’ and other productions. More importantly, Rick explores the core of what he brings to any project he works on with his inspirational wisdom. Both conversations became supplemental features, perfectly cementing the entire presentation. His wonderful insight into the film’s production, his career, and his life were an emotionally fulfilling highlight.

In April 2022, the program was finally completed. The end result is a one-of-a-kind experience that was an ultimate labor of love from everyone involved. Derrick Davis & Bernard A. Kyer would like to thank Rick Carter and everyone in the production for bringing this dream to life and realizing the imaginations of those who worked so hard to create our cherished, classic film: ‘Jurassic Park.’

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For a grander look at ‘Rick Carter’s Jurassic Park,’ visit Jurassic Time’s site, including an extended “behind the scenes” page. To learn more about Bernard A. Kyer‘s process of crafting the sound design and original music score for the illustrated audio drama, read his four-part blog articles. Be sure to listen to his score album as well!