"Jurassic World: New Adventures" by DreamWorks from today on Netflix and at 20pm on K2

Jurassic Park and its digital dinosaurs first wowed audiences in 1993, establishing themselves as a generational milestone - just like Star Wars it had done 16 years earlier - for millions of young viewers. The franchise has since had its ups and downs, with the 2015 blockbuster film Jurassic World rekindling interest in the series and leading to the making of the animated TV series of Jurassic World - New Adventures (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous), an animated series consisting of eight episodes, produced by DreamWorks Television Animation and which will debut today (September 18) worldwide on Netflix and on channel 41 of digital terrestrial K2 at 20 .

Running the new series are executive producers Scott Kreamer and Aaron Hammersley, both proud members of the Jurassic generation. “I saw it in the cinema and then I immediately snuck into another screening,” says Kreamer. “He had a big impact on me as a kid - I think I've seen him six or seven times in theaters,” adds Hammersley.

The producers had experience with both DreamWorks and Netflix, having worked with Nickelodeon on projects such as Kung Fu Panda - Mythical adventures (Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness), before moving on to DreamWorks - Kreamer to then work on Cleopatra in Space and Hammersley, who they report for Camp after a stint at Disney Star vs. the Forces of Evil (Star vs. the Forces of Evil). In mid-2018, Kreamer took over a premise and pilot script developed by -Men: First Class e Thor the screenwriter Zack Stentz and some early design works of art.

Not a "Kiddie" version

Expectations were high and there were no guarantees with respect to previous attempts on Jurassic. The TV series had failed to go into production. Kreamer says the show had to avoid being a "kid's" version of the movies.

“We knew what we were trying to do and how difficult it would be to achieve,” says Kreamer. "But the first thing was to draw the attention of the kids, to who these characters were and to get a driver into shape." This is where Hammersley came into play, starting work on the pilot script in early 2019, with a focus on character development.

The series follows six teens, who are the inaugural group attending the titular camp on Isla Nublar, home to Jurassic World: Darius Bowman, voiced by Paul-Mikél Williams, an African American teenager who shared an obsessive love of dinosaurs with his father. recently passed away; Brooklynn (Jenna Ortega), a social media influencer who conveys her life to a large following; Kenji Kon (Ryan Potter), who projects a self-centered and interesting image through vast family wealth and access to the park's secrets; Sammy Gutierrez (Raini Rodriguez), a cowgirl at heart whose farming family provides food for the island's resorts; Ben Pincus (Sean Giambrone), a book-eating nerd who is afraid of his own shadow; and Yaz Fadoula (Kausar Mohammed), a stoic athlete. Watching the campers - and trying to keep up with them - are councilors Roxie (Jameela Jamil) and Dave (Glen Powell).

Setting a less cartoonish, more grounded tone was a huge challenge, and Hammersley says he immediately dove into the search for moments when the characters could breathe and come to life. “My big goal when I started the animated series was just to make sure that… I knew what they were thinking, that I understood what they were feeling,” he says.

The characters take center stage

Taking influence from Spielberg films such as The Goonies e NA, the characters are at the heart of the series and required a lot of elements to come together in the right way to work. Establishing the characters and their relationships in a grounded and credible way was tricky, says Kreamer. “We want all the kids to start - 'disagree' is the wrong word - but it's like the first day of school,” she says. “Are the kids showing up for who they really are? Or who do they want to look like? "

Among the more complicated characters were Darius, who is the audience entry into the show and needed to be a loser without being too "sad,"; and Brooklynn, who needed to avoid the stereotype of a silly social media star.

Sometimes it took multiple tries, says Kreamer, citing the need to re-record an opening scene, in which a dinosaur attacks the observation tower. “There is a difference between cartoon screams and screams of fear for your life,” he says. “And I think there has been a period of adjustment. We're really trying to found this show and ground these characters and avoid cliché cartoon poses.

Both showrunners praise CG animation director Daniel Godinez's efforts to go beyond the call of duty. “Dan would go through the notes in our writers' room - just the raw notes - for any kind of clue as to who these characters are and how they would move and how they would behave,” says Kreamer.

That ethic extended to production, which was split between the DreamWorks Animation team and CGCG in Taiwan. As Hammersley points out, "The CGI team went a lot further and came up with many creative solutions on how to get a more expensive look on a TV budget."

The production had access to digital resources of the dinosaur features and sets, both simplified for the television animation pipeline. But to fit even with dinosaurs and simplified environments, the character designs had to be closer to real life, says Hammersley. “The goal was to keep some of those proportions, but then also exaggerate just enough to distinguish the characters from a live-action design,” he says. "So it was enlarging the eyes, enlarging the ears, hands, feet and things like that to just give it a little bit of caricature and a little bit of exaggeration."

With all eight episodes of the series coming out simultaneously, the show's serialized elements help it play like a four-hour movie, one with an open ending for additional seasons. But for now, showrunners are excited to see how fans react.

“The big challenge for any franchise like this is that you can't please everyone,” says Hammersley. “We are really doing our best to try to honor the franchise and keep so much of what we love in Jurassic Park e Jurassic World and make sure the kids walk away from this show, feeling very similar to how we all felt when we watched Jurassic Park . And I think it's really exciting that we can introduce a whole new generation to the Jurassic series. "

 Jurassic World - New Adventures (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous) debuts today (September 18th) on Netflix on September 18th.

You can watch the trailer for the series here:

“The big challenge for any franchise like this is that you can't please everyone. We are really doing our best to try to honor the franchise and retain so much of what we love. "
Executive producer / showrunner Aaron Hammersley

'We knew what we were trying to do and how difficult it would be to get it. But the first thing was to nail these guys on who these characters were and get a driver into shape. "
Executive producer / showrunner Scott Kreamer