Burlington director leaps to 'Jurassic World'

Colin Trevorrow made his first film, "Safety Not Guaranteed," for a small budget, and even did some of the work in his new adopted home state of Vermont. The movie earned Trevorrow a screenwriting award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

His second film, "Jurassic World," comes out this week. Co-produced by Steven Spielberg, the movie is the fourth in a line of big, loud, action-packed dinosaur movies. The $150-million, 3-D summer blockbuster should gross more in one week than "Safety Not Guaranteed" earned at the box office during its entire run.

Such a leap sounds daunting; imagine a pitcher for the Vermont Lake Monsters suddenly being called up from the low minor leagues to start a big game in the major leagues. Trevorrow, though, was at ease taking a huge jump that would make a nimble velociraptor proud.

"I didn't have room to be worried; I didn't have the space," Trevorrow, who moved with his family from California to Burlington in 2008, said by phone last week from Los Angeles. "I was called upon to do something that was far beyond my skill set on paper, but I knew that I could do it. I knew that storytelling is equally as challenging in a small context as it is in a large one."

Trevorrow has already been to China, Paris, Berlin and the United Kingdom for premieres of "Jurassic World." The film opens nationwide Friday but gets a sneak preview tonight in Vermont when the Majestic 10 Cinemas in Williston shows "Jurassic World" as a benefit for the Vermont International Film Foundation's education programs. Trevorrow said he's happy to be "encouraging creativity in Vermont in general" through tonight's benefit, though he's disapointed he will be unable to attend.

Trevorrow, 38, calls "Jurassic World" "by far the most personal $150-million blockbuster you will see." He said he and co-writer Derek Connolly built an action/adventure thriller with elements of horror and romance, but infused the script with themes that were interesting to them. Set in an out-of-control theme park, "Jurassic World," according to Trevorrow, deals with the idea of profit as a "dehumanizing force." He said the film addresses how mankind can become numb to "scientific and natural miracles" and blinded by the constant need to be entertained.

"There's something about dinosaurs that should be very humbling to human beings," Trevorrow said. "It's something that I thought about a lot during the process and put into the film, the idea that we have existed on this planet for an extremely short period of time." With the way humans are treating the planet, Trevorrow added, that time could be getting even shorter.

He feels good about the work he did on "Jurassic World."

"It gave me the confidence to want to be a certain kind of filmmaker," he said. He noted that Spielberg is a good role model who can create action pictures with the best of them but also made an "extraordinarily brave" choice to film the racially-themed 1985 movie "The Color Purple" early in his career.

Trevorrow would like a career where he can make big movies "that allow you to live inside the brain of a creator who's a little off," he said. "I think we're all kind of functional crazy people," he said of directors. "People want clear vision and not just something designed in board rooms to sell toys." (He added, though, that he expects "Jurassic World" will sell plenty of toys.)

Trevorrow isn't surprised at his jump from small movies to blockbusters, and neither is his friend, Ryan Miller of Williston. Front man for the rock band Guster, Miller worked with Trevorrow on the soundtrack for "Safety Not Guaranteed" and visited the director on the set of "Jurassic World" in New Orleans.

"He was in the captain's chair just kind of doing it," Miller said. Trevorrow leaned on experts in 3-D moviemaking on set to help him manage "this massive aircraft carrier that it is to direct a film," Miller said.

Trevorrow exudes "a certain calm," according to Miller, with a demeanor that says "this is what we're going to do and how we're going to do it." It's been fun to watch Trevorrow navigate from a $7-million debut film to "being given the keys to the kingdom by Steven Spielberg," Miller said.

"It's been so interesting to watch someone come into their own. He took over ownership of this franchise; it's a $2-billion franchise," Miller said. "His ascent is as precipitous as any in this sort of new paradigm of 'let's pluck indie directors and have them direct blockbusters.'"

Guster starts an East Coast tour today that includes a visit July 31 to Montreal for the Osheaga festival, and Miller plans to catch "Jurassic World" from the road. "I'm so excited to be able to witness this journey for him," he said. "It definitely feels like a Bernie Sanders moment; this is our hometown hero."

Thanks to the making of "Jurassic World," Trevorrow has been away from new hometown for a while. "I've heard it's very nice. I haven't been back in a year and a half," he said. "The year before then I was there maybe about four months of that year, so it really has been something that I look at in postcards and my dreams." His wife, Isabelle, and two young children have stayed in Vermont and visited him in Los Angeles and on the set in New Orleans and Hawaii.

Trevorrow expects to be back in Vermont later this month, and hopes to make his next film close to home in upstate New York. Based on a novel by Gregg Hurwitz, "Book of Henry" is what Trevorrow called "a family drama that feels like a lost Shakespearean tragicomedy." He plans to shoot "Book of Henry" in locations across Lake Champlain including Plattsburgh, Glens Falls and Saratoga, New York.

"All right," he said he told himself, "I'll be able to commute by boat, like George Washington."

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

If you go:

WHAT : Preview screening of "Jurassic World" to benefit the Vermont International Film Foundation

WHEN : Pre-screening party 5:30 tonight; screening at 7 p.m.

WHERE : Majestic 10 Cinemas, Williston

TICKETS : $25-$100. www.vtiff.org