Can you believe there are now seven Jurassic films? I still remember seeing the first two in theaters, and they were big moments in my childhood. They were all I could think about. And I’m far from the only one who experienced that joy in theaters. The films are some of the most influential ever made.

“All those films you love, that you grew up with, that have that certain look that really hard to describe? It’s because it was shot on Kodak.” – Gareth Edwards, director, Jurassic World Rebirth.

Jurassic World Rebirth premiered on June 17th and stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali.

Capturing the Spielberg look with Kodak and Panavision technology

The Jurassic films are known for pioneering visual effects, but all but one of the films was shot on traditional 35mm film. Jurassic World Rebirth continues the tradition. The past few decades saw a transition into digital to film movies, but there has been a nostalgic resurgence of interest in using traditional methods.

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You can thank director Gareth Edwards for the decision to use Koday 35mm film and Panavision lenses. “All the films I grew up loving were ... shot on Kodak,” says Edwards in a video uploaded to YouTube. He says he “fought really hard” to shoot Jurassic World Rebirth on Kodak film a Panavision lenses.

“All those films you love, that you grew up with, that have that certain look that really hard to describe? It’s because it was shot on Kodak,” said the nostalgic Edwards.

But it goes beyond nostalgia. For Edwards, a film can look “better” than reality, even with the right camera technology, because of how colors can appear.

“Having the film stock and the film veneer and grain and these really beautiful wide, animorphic, distorted lenses to work with has been really beautiful,” says David Vickery, Visual Effects Supervisor, in the video. “It’s something to help us bed the visual effects and creatures into, how much bowing and distortion and stretching of the image happens towards the edge, all sorts of chromatic aberration that happens to the highlights and make sure that when we add digital elements into the frame that we can sample that and put it all back on.”

Panavision lenses preserve the magic

In addition to Kodak film, the team also tried to recreate the magic behind Spielberg’s first film by using the iconic Panavision anamorphic lenses to shoot the film. Animorphic lenses work by using cylindrical lenses to compress the image during recording, rather than cropping or matting. Then, an additional lens expands the image back to widescreen proportions. This way, more image resolution is preserved.

It's interesting to see film studios lean into the public demand for experiences that feel familiar, even if the technology is older.

I suspect we'll see even more of this attitude towards film and TV as too much AI has the potential to overwhelm and exhaust audiences, particularly Millennials and Gen Xers who will likely pine for a simpler time.