With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom now available on Blu-ray, I recently got on the phone with director J.A. Bayona for an extended wide-ranging interview about the making of the film. Unlike our interview at the junket where we had just a few minutes to talk, this time I had almost an hour with him and we went into extreme detail about the making of the sequel. Since the interview was so long and covered so many subjects, I decided to break it up into two parts. If you’re curious how Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was made, you’re going to learn a lot reading this interview.

Bayona talks about how he shot the brachiosaurus scene where Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard watch the dinosaur succumb to the erupting volcano, if he prefers to storyboard or find it in the moment, how Roger Deakins has influenced his cinematographer (Oscar Faura), his reasons for camera movement in a shot, designing the second half of the film (which is essentially a haunted house movie), if he thinks the human race has learned anything from the Jurassic Park movies, future projects, and a lot more.

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Written by Colin Trevorrow and Derek ConnollyFallen Kingdom takes place three years after the events of Jurassic World and finds Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) returning to the now-abandoned Isla Nublar to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from a brewing volcano that threatens to make the animals extinct once again. But their expedition is not what it seems. After uncovering a conspiracy, Owen and Claire find themselves in a race against greed, corporatism, and murderous dinosaurs. The film also stars James CromwellTed LevineJustice Smith, Geraldine ChaplinDaniella Pineda,Toby JonesRafe SpallIsabella SermonBD Wong, and Jeff Goldblum.

Check out what J.A. Bayona had to say below and here’s part one if you missed it.

Collider: So I definitely have to touch on the scene of the—and I'm going to butcher the name—the Brachiosaurus...

BAYONA: Yeah.

Every time I see the scene, it's so haunting and painful, and it's so beautifully shot, so screw you for doing this and making me cry every time. I'm kidding, obviously. But talk a little bit about putting that scene on screen, because everyone I talk to is like, "That scene breaks me."

BAYONA: I think it was a great idea. That was already in the first script. The moment the characters leave the island behind, there's one dinosaur that you see that it gets left there, and they cannot do anything for her. It wasn't the brachiosaurus at the very beginning, but there was a moment during the long sessions that we were working on the script that we decided that it had to be the brachiosaurus, the first brachiosaurus that we saw in Jurassic Park. There's a speech that Claire does later on, "Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?" And the first time we saw a dinosaur was that brachiosaurus. So it was like a way of putting the audience into that moment, remembering the first time they saw a dinosaur, so it had to be the brachiosaurus. It was the right way, it felt like the right thing to do, to finish the island with the first dinosaurs we saw on the island.

Sure, but I'm also specifically talking about the way you framed the shot because the way you framed the shot is just...it's haunting. You see the dinosaur and the smoke. Talk a little bit about the composition of that image and how much time you spent to get it exactly right.

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Image via Universal Pictures

BAYONA: There's a story about that shot because it was the last shot that we finished, that we completed for the film. It's a very emotional shot. It had to be right because any kind of mistake or thing that wasn't there was going to spoil the emotion of the moment. So I was suffering for that shot, because there was a moment that we only had three or four days to complete the shot, and the shot was not ready, and the moment was not working because the CGI was not working there, the visual effects were not working, so we were struggling a little bit with that shot. There was a moment, in order to go really fast in terms of the specifics for the shot, I asked the visual effects guys to think about the heart of E.T. That shot of the brachiosaurus disappearing among the dust and you see the shadow of the brachiosaurus projected in the cloud, if you think about the heart of E.T., it's very similar.

How would you typically work on set? Is everything storyboarded? How much are you relying on storyboards, and how much are you sort of figuring out in the moment where you're standing there, "This is where I want to put the camera?"

BAYONA: I normally do the storyboards for the whole movie, always, because for me it's like a way of writing the script in a visual way. For me, framing, it's very important. The place where I put the camera, for me, it's always a very, very important decision, because depending on where you put the camera, you're telling the story, you're setting up a tone. So I always do storyboards, and it's like a way of re-writing the script in a visual way, and if there's something I don't know how to frame, normally it's because there's something I'm not a hundred percent sure about in the script. It's something that as we work on the script, we work in the storyboards. But then on set, most of the times, I don't look at them. Because I remember them, and you always have new ideas on set, and these ideas are considering the old ideas that you had before. Doing the boards for the movies is like doing your homework but then on set somehow the fact that you know what you need gives me like the security to...gives me the comfort to improvise and try new things.

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Image via Universal Pictures

In the case of this specific movie—because doing scenes with dinosaurs deals with so many people and so we had to have animatics for all the dinosaur scenes—but then I was pretty surprised that I was changing the shots on set and not doing the animatics exactly as they were, and nobody complains so...no, the thing is that the animatics are helpful for the crew and for the producers so that they what you need on set, and as long as you don't ask for something that you didn't ask before, it's okay. So I felt very open to improvisation in terms of the framing or doing things with the actors on set.

You have some very cool camera moves, and I'm just curious, how do you decide when you want a static shot and when you want to dolly in on something on tracks?

BAYONA: For me, it's an instinct thing. I just close my eyes and see the scene. It doesn't work like, "In this moment I'm going to use a dolly because I want to give that impression." It's just I close my eyes and I see the scene.

So it's literally just instinct on set? 

BAYONA: Exactly, yeah.

Well, I'm going to say good job. 

BAYONA: Thank you.

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Image via Universal Pictures

When you're shooting, how many cameras do you typically like to use? For example, Roger Deakins likes to shoot with one camera, that's it. Then many other directors I've spoken to, like Ridley Scott, sometimes uses four or five. So how do you typically like to work?

BAYONA: Normally we shoot with one camera, only one camera. Because my DP, Oscar Faura, he loves Roger Deakins. Roger Deakins is his favorite DP, and he always talks about Roger Deakins, and I didn't know that Roger Deakins was the same way as him, like he only works with one camera, but I understand now why.

Yeah, it's crazy, because I've heard stories about Deakins where he shoots it a certain way, there might not be any coverage, and everyone's like, "Okay, let's just go. Roger has it." The producers are like, "Okay, we're all set." And so many other producers or directors would be like, "That's crazy." But with Roger you know it's going to be amazing.

BAYONA: Yeah. Yeah, I think that, for me, the camera movement and the moment when you do the cut is so important for the final storytelling that I never go random in that sense. I don't like to have five cameras, two cameras shooting at the same time and then decide during the editing what's better for the movie. I normally like to have a very specific idea. You can always try different things on set, and you can always shoot shots that you didn't plan before, but I like to bring my homework to the set.

I mean, I guess that there are some blockbusters that what they do is a very like...they lead the set, some DPs lead the set and then leave the directors to do what they want, but with Oscar, my DP, normally it's like he works every shot very specifical, so the camera can move wherever you want. This shot, we talk about that shot, it's going to go from here to there, and the light is designed for that camera movement or that specific shot.

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Image via Universal Pictures

One of the things about Fallen Kingdom is that, I re-watched it last night, there's a lot of shots where the camera's like slowly panning in on something, or zooming in on something. There's a lot of camera moves. There's no way to cut away to something else in the middle of a camera movement so it's specifically designed with intention.

BAYONA: Yeah. That's something that I learned watching Steven Spielberg movies. He has this famous dolly track shot that the camera moves slowly to the actor, and normally actors are looking off camera, and that gives importance to the next thing you're going to see. It creates tension. That's very typical for Steven, and I love it.

What's funny is I don't think the average person who's not a cinephile understands what they're seeing is the camera going in, but I think maybe in their subconscious they feel it.

BAYONA: Sure, I mean, for me that's what makes difference [between] television and cinema. When we talk about movies, I think that there's something in the way you can tell a story using sound and the camera and the edit that feels totally different from what normally television is, though television now looks more than ever like cinema, you know what I mean?

I'm not sure if you've seen Roma yet by Alfonso [Cuarón], but the sound in that and the way he uses sound is incredible.

BAYONA: I haven't seen it, but I mean sound, silence, it's great, you know? You don't see much silence nowadays in the movies, but it's probably the most effective sound effect.

When you have a chance to see Roma, see it in a theater if you can, because he uses the Atmos mix in a way that really pulls you in.

BAYONA: Yeah. Exactly. That's what I love about movies. That's why I've been working in movies and not much television.

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Image via Universal Pictures

I completely get it. You obviously are not filming the next Jurassic World, but what do you hope happens in the next one?

BAYONA: No, I don't know much about it. I think it's very interesting. It's something that definitely we've never seen before, and I like that. But at the same time, I know that Colin has a very challenging endeavor right now in front of him. I think it's very exciting, but it's very challenging, too.

The second half of Fallen Kingdom is a haunted house movie, complete with a rooftop chase, death, and tons of action. Can you talk about designing the house, and filming some of those sequences? What was challenging about it, or how you wanted to design it?

BAYONA: Well, it's very important when you sit down and read the script, and then you find that there is a very specific tone. I mean, you have volcanoes and dinosaurs, and then you have a big auction in a Gothic mansion, so you really need to find the tone to make that work. I try to use humor in order to pull all the pieces together and try to make it very cinematical, you know? Talking about the ending, it feels like the classic ending of a fairy tale, of a Gothic story, like finishing at the top of the castle with the princess in the tower and the dragon chasing the little girl. It had this kind of tone that I really like. It felt fun. It felt like something I wanted to see, and this is your instinct telling you, "Yes, I want to see that."

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Image via Universal Pictures

When you tell the actors, crew, and the VFX artist that you want to do the big action set piece on the roof in the rain, how much does everyone's face drop, and how much are they sort of excited to do it?

BAYONA: We were very excited. The set was incredible. It was a beautiful, beautiful set. It reminded me of some of the Hitchcock movies. Everyone involved was very, very excited. It was very hard at the same time, of course. That was shot on a soundstage, so it was like one week of shooting something like that with the actors hanging from wires all the time. But we were very excited, and the shots were looking really good, you know, so that's always a bonus when you're working on it.

This is, I think, my big question of the day. Do you think the human race has learned anything from these Jurassic Park movies, Jurassic World movies, or do you think the second we can create dinosaurs the way they're created in this movie, we are literally going to do the same thing that is happening in these films?

BAYONA: Wow. I don't know. One of the things that I love about the Steven Spielberg movies is somehow how he's able to combine big entertainment with important ideas, and sometimes they feel like moral tales. They tell you what is the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. And I like that. From the very beginning, from the very first page of Michael Crichton's book, it was also the intention, like pointing not science, but the wrong use of science. So hopefully, that will plant a seed on the people and the kids. Not for dinosaurs, but for animals. I think that if you can do that, I think it's great.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Sure. I have no faith that the human race has learned anything from watching these films.

BAYONA: Yeah, me too. Me either. From the moment you will tell the people that you can create a dinosaur, people will get crazy and forget about the moral and the ethical repercussions of it.

But also one of the things you touch on in the movie is human cloning, and I would imagine if...listen, I'm of the opinion that maybe there's some cloning going on on the planet right now that we just don't know about because the technology is so far ahead. But if I was a multi-billionaire and lost my child, and had the ability to bring that person back à la the way it's done in this movie, I think it's probably something that might be happening or will happen in the not so distant future.

BAYONA: Well, you will be able to replicate the body of someone, but not the soul. I am myself a clone, because I have a twin brother, and we are...

I did not know that. 

BAYONA: ...and we are very different. We look exactly the same, but we are totally different, so that's part of the background and the tragedy of Lockwood, that he wanted her, his daughter, back, but you cannot bring your daughter back. You can bring a copy of your daughter, but you will never be able to bring your daughter back. Then you get into a more philosophical debate about that, but I think that it's not as easy as that. You cannot replicate a person and then you have it back.

There is a beautiful moment in the film, for example, when Maisie steps into Lockwood's bedroom at night, and he's sleeping, and then he wakes up, and there's a little bit of confusion in James Cromwell's eyes. I remember talking about it like, "Is he thinking that he saw Maisie or the original Maisie in that moment?" I like that detail in James's performance.

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Image via Universal Pictures

Yeah, James is what we call a talented actor.

BAYONA: Yes. He's not bad.

He is what we call okay. So you're in Spain right now. Are you getting ready to make another movie? What's coming up for you?

BAYONA: I'm developing some stuff right now, taking my time to develop the next project. I'm developing a couple of things. I would love to do another big movie, but I'm very lucky that I can always go back home and work in my smaller films, so I would love to do that. But I haven't decided what's next yet.

Well, I would imagine, though, after you deliver a movie like this...there are not many filmmakers that can handle a film of this size and scope, and bring it all on screen, and have people respond to it the way people responded to this one. I'm just curious, what is it like after you deliver a movie like this, people like it, all of a sudden is your agent getting a whole bunch of calls? Are you reading way more scripts than you've ever read? What happens after you make a movie like this?

BAYONA: First of all it's a big relief that the movie did so well in the box office, because the studio trusts such a big...I mean, I had the pressure of dealing with such a big thing, bringing a new chapter of Jurassic to the big screen. The fact that the movie did so well, and that the audience really like the film, it's a big relief, because it's a big responsibility.

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Image via Universal Pictures

I was going to say, though, that you're in that position, or maybe you're close to the position, where you might be able to get like a dream project financed, because of your track record and what you've done. So do you have in the back of your brain that one project that you've been sitting on for a while that you're like, "This is going to be tough to get made, but I think I can do it now."

BAYONA: Yeah. Well, the truth is I consider myself very lucky because I always did the movie I wanted to do at the moment I did them. I was always able to choose what would be my next project. Everything has moved so fast. I did my first movie, The Orphanage, 10 years ago, 11 years ago now, and then I found myself able to make a second movie with a much bigger budget, and that was The Impossible, and I can tell you that the title of The Impossible was a little bit like a private joke, because it felt impossible at that time for a movie like that one in Spain, and we did it. And it went so well that I decided to somehow do something more risky, and that's when I decided to do A Monster Calls, because I knew that A Monster Calls was going to be a tough sell.

Actually, it was at the end. It's a movie that worked really well in Spain, because people know me very well in Spain, and people really liked the movie in Spain, and trust the movie, but it was a very, very hard movie to sell in the rest of the world, and it didn't work the same way. But I knew that was a risky move and it was because of the success of The Impossible that I was able to do that, and probably because I knew that A Monster Calls was not going to be that successful at the end. It was a pretty, as I said, it was a pretty hard sell. I decided to move to a bigger movie, and I did Jurassic.

Now, you're right. I probably can take more risk in my next project, but I don't know really what's going to be next. I'm working in a couple of things, and some are smaller and in Spanish, and I would love to do that, but at the same time I really enjoy working with a studio, and I would love to another one.

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Image via Focus Features

I'm just going to say on record, and I think I told you this at the junket, I love A Monster Calls, and I think the people—

BAYONA: Look at the numbers in the U.S. It didn't do anything. I think we did like two million or something like that.

The thing that I've discovered, and maybe you're also noticing it as well, is that the world right now, and I think it was happening a little bit when A Monster Calls was coming out, the world has gotten even darker than it used to be, and I think that more and more people are going to the movies for pure entertainment, and to be sort of transported to another time and place for two hours to forget about life. I think that's one of the reasons why Fallen Kingdom made so much money, because it's a rollercoaster ride for two hours.

BAYONA: And I think it's great to have those movies, but I'm going to keep fighting for doing the other kind of films, because I love to see these movies, and I love to see them in a movie theater. So if I have a chance of making another film like A Monster Calls, I will definitely try, because I think we need those films.

Also, it's a very interesting position when you're in between Hollywood and Europe, because A Monster Calls was the biggest film of the year in Spain. It was a massive hit in Spain, and then you move to rest of the world, and the movie did nothing in the U.S. It's the same film. It's very interesting when you find yourself in that position. You really need to separate the movie from the reception, from the box office of the film, even from the receptions of the critics. If I take a look at the reviews that we got for Jurassic in US, they're not as good as the ones that we had in Europe, in France, in Spain. I got in France the best reviews ever with Jurassic. It's not the case in the U.S. But you really need to separate from that and be able to see what you did, to understand what you did, and learn a lesson from that, and I always try to do that.

I've been reading reviews since I was a kid. I've been going to movies since always, so I know how it goes, and I think I know a little bit how it goes, and you really need to be honest, and understand what you did, and try to do your best all the time.

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Image via Universal Pictures

No, I completely get it. But ultimately it made $1.3 billion. There must've been at least a few people that loved that movie.

BAYONA: No, I'm talking some reviews that we got in the U.S. I'm not talking about the audience because I've seen the movie several times with the audience and I know that the reaction is really good.

Completely. But my last thing for you, going back to the fact that one of the I think the superhero genre is so popular is that you really get to escape and dream that that person on screen is real...do you think that the next film you want to do is Hollywood, like another big kind of film? Or do you really think it'll be like a smaller, Spanish movie that's next?

BAYONA: I'm working in both directions right now. I don't know what's going to be next, but I'm working both directions now.

I'll leave it there and say I'm very curious what you're going to helm next, and very much looking forward to it.

BAYONA: Thank you.