Thanks for that, I heard something similar to what you said there on a youtube video about the open matte version. But why does the bluray version I have show a small amount to the left side but the open matte version is cropped, only slightly but noticeable?. Do you know where the open matte version of JP came from and how they got hold of them?. Also, I noticed there was a 16:9 aspect during a non effects shot where the camera moves into Grant’s face as he is looking towards the herd of Brachiosaurs moving across the lake below, but the other non effects shots go back to the open matte look.
I don’t know why that close-up shot (and another one where he says “they move in herds”) was matted. Such shots probably had green screen. We know that they couldn’t film inside the ranch where the lake is. The wide shot of the Brachios wading on the lake is a still photo frame that was animated during post-production. the actors were shot with a green screen in the foreground and later composited in the photo, edited to look like a motion picture image; with heatwaves, reflections on the water surface and camera shakes, etc.
I never knew that they couldn’t film at the place where the lake is, strange I don’t recall hearing this on any JP documentary of behind the scene. I have recording of an episode of a UK series called “Schofield in Hawaii” from 1995 where Philip Schofield visits the Kawai location used for the helicopter ride and landing pad to the island and he talks to the owner of the land, but he never mentions anything about that the crew couldn’t film at the lake only that they had to use dummies inside when the copter descending down the waterfall due it being a dangerous descent. The shot I was referring to is the shot of Grant turning to look at the lake below. After this and the Brachiosaur lake shot it cuts back to Hammond and it’s now back to an open matte, but than after that cuts back to Grant saying “they move in herds…” and it’s back to the wider “hard matte?” aspect, even though it’s only an head shot of the actor.
Do you know where these open matte versions have come from, how do people get hold of these which won’t be released on any home video copy? as I say, the one I found you can see the edges of the film in certain shots, the tape visible on the visitors jeeps plastic roof and boom mics visible like during the helicopter ride to the island). The file seems to be really huge despite only being about 6gb (I suspect it’s much bigger) and an MP4 1920x1080 file and my laptop can’t process the video without the image breaking up. Converting to an MP4 file using Handbrake does the trick but encoding the entire film takes about 10 hours to do for some reason.