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Anatomy of a Scene

Watch Bryce Dallas Howard’s Slow Escape in ‘Jurassic World Dominion’

The director Colin Trevorrow narrates a sequence featuring the actor, a testy Therizinosaurus and a murky pond.

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Colin Trevorrow narrates a dinosaur escape sequence featuring Bryce Dallas Howard.CreditCredit...Universal Pictures

In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.


We’ve seen the character Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, run from dinosaurs while wearing high heels in “Jurassic World.” We’ve seen her climb atop a sleeping T-Rex in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” But her rendezvous with a feathered dino in “Jurassic World Dominion” adds something new to the franchise.

For the first time, Howard gets a harrowing solo sequence with a dinosaur. It’s the Therizinosaurus, a feathered creature that is no less menacing even as an herbivore.

Discussing the moment, the director Colin Trevorrow said about Howard: “I built this sequence that I felt would both showcase her as an actor, her absolute best long-take looks of horrified terror, while also being able to collaborate with her as a director and really understand the intention of every single shot.”

Trevorrow called Howard “one of the most precise and expressive actors. And because she’s also a director, she understands what the scene needs, not just from the perspective of performance, but from filmmaking and craft and form.”

One part of the sequence involves a long take that keeps the focus on Howard as she enters a pond hoping to slowly evade the creature.

We tried to make sure that the camera was always very, very slowly moving at the same speed,” Trevorrow said. “So it had that same sense of heaviness and weight to it.”

Read the “Jurassic World Dominion” review.

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Mekado Murphy is a senior staff editor with a focus on movies coverage. He joined The Times in 2006. More about Mekado Murphy

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