BEYOND THE GATES EP 5
For Episode 5 of Jurassic World: Beyond the Gates – Creator Edition Season 6 (published on the official Jurassic World YouTube channel) I was once again, invited to help launch the first-ever vehicle in the Hammond Collection: the '93 Jeep Wrangler. The Jeep is one of the most iconic vehicles in the entire franchise, and Mattel brought that same level of collector detail that defines the Hammond Collection figure line. This episode was built around giving it a display worthy of that standard. I designed and constructed a custom diorama recreating one of the exterior bunkers from the original Jurassic Park.
CREDITS
Client: NBC Universal
Partners: Jurassic World, Mattel, Target
Roles: Creative Direction, Art Direction, Story, Photography, Motion Graphics
Tools: Sony a7iv, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro
PROJECT BREAKDOWN
Season 3 brought a new creative challenge: build something that could stand on its own as a display piece that wasn’t just a backdrop. The episode came together across three phases, pre-production, production, and post-production, each with its own set of decisions that shaped the final result.
01
PRE PRODUCTION
02
PRODUCTION
03
POST PRODUCTION
PRE PRODUCTION
Pre-production started with the product. The Hammond Collection '93 Jeep Wrangler ships in the #12 deco with stickers for the #10 and #18 configurations. It has real rubber tires with orange hubcaps, a working winch, headlights and a light bar activated by a button on the hood, and a full set of removable parts: soft top roof, doors, whip antenna, windshield-mounted light bar, and toolboxes. It was designed to be displayed. That became the creative brief I gave myself.
SCRIPT
The episode opens with what appears to be a full-size Jeep sitting in a natural outdoor environment. A hand reaches into frame and pulls it out, landing the scale reveal before anything else is said. The Wrangler then rotates on a lazy susan while I walk through each feature, supported by tight cuts and motion graphics. The second half of the episode shifts into the diorama build, covering concept, materials, and construction before the final placement reveal. The closing is meant to engage directly with the audience encouraging imagination through their own diorama builds.
STORYBOARDS
I sketched storyboards to cover the opening hook, product walkthrough, diorama concept, build process, final reveal, and call to action. Each panel was drawn by hand to map out framing and pacing for the purpose of casting vision for the project. The boards were submitted to the NBC Universal Omnichannel Retail Marketing team for approval, keeping the creative vision and marketing objectives locked in together before production began.
DIORAMA CONCEPTS
I pitched 2 concepts including a theme park inspired photo op with the head of a T-Rex behind the Jeep. The winning concept came from digging into film reference. I wanted to recreate one of the exterior bunkers from the park, drawn to the contrast between raw poured concrete and the natural landscape reclaiming it. Three main components to build: a naturalistic dirt base, a foam concrete bunker with a detailed door, and layered tropical foliage to fill out the scene. The goal from the start was a finished piece that looks like it belongs in a collector's room, not just a photography setup.
PRODUCTION
With the concept locked and boards approved, production moved into building the diorama and capturing all on-camera content. Every element was constructed by hand at a scale that complements the Hammond Collection figure.
DIORAMA CONSTRUCTION
After receiving approval on the concept, the next phase of construction began with creating a loose mockup to determine overall size and proportions. Typically I start with cardboard or leftover foam scraps to ensure I’m not wasting materials during this stage. For this build, I ended up adjusting my original dimensions slightly to account for visual aesthetics which is not uncommon.
The bunker structure is built entirely out of XPS Insulation Foam which is a rigid, dense, and light-weight material – perfect for general hobby crafting. This build uses both 1” and 1/24” foam. For making precise cuts, I use the Proxxon Thermocut Hot Wire Foam Cutter Large Table making quick work out of creating angular cuts.
For the door, I used sheets of styrene in various thicknesses, carefully cutting them to shape using an x-acto knife. The additional details like the door hinges and handle are what truly sell the realism and scale.
Once the pieces are assembled, each surface is covered using acrylic paint. Any brand works, however, I find that when covering larger surfaces it’s more economical to go with quantity over quality. Inexpensive paint found at box stores works perfectly.
All of the door and bunker windows got a clear plastic panel covered with metal mesh, a detail that rewards close inspection. For the base I used wood filler as it includes granular bits within the paste, creating a perfect texture for dirt. On top of the surface I also added pinches of sand where the walls and ground met for variety. As the wood filler was drying, I “drove” the toy Jeep Wrangler over the surface to leave impressions of the tire tread. Those details not only help sell the scene, but also create texture that enhances the overall paint and finishing.
Fake plants from a local hobby store were layered throughout to build out the overgrowth until the whole scene felt lived-in. To keep the display dynamic, I chose to set the plants in place without any adhesive so that in the future I had the ability to change them with different plants or remove them entirely. With every build, I try keeping things flexible for this very reason.
PRODUCT SHOWCASE
The feature walkthrough was shot with the Jeep on a lazy susan, using tight cuts and motion graphics to move through the details efficiently. To elevate the platform, I created a round base out of foam and added a lip around the edge out of styrene to provide a clean finished look. Next I cut out a disc of the same diameter from a thick sheet of styrene where I would apply the fake rocks and dirt surface. Once finished the dirt disc could be easily placed inside the foam platform or swapped out for any future disc surfaces I want to create. Smarter, not harder!
POST Production
Editing this one was about managing transitions between two very different segments. The product walkthrough needed to move quickly and stay informative, so motion graphics did a lot of the heavy lifting there, reinforcing callouts without slowing the pacing down. The build section worked differently, using voiceover timed to quick cuts so the construction steps read clearly without feeling like a tutorial. The final shot of the Wrangler sitting in the finished diorama was always meant to be the closing image, the thing that makes someone want to build their own.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Big thanks to the team at NBCUniversal, Mattel, and Target for inviting me to contribute my vision and skills to this series. The Hammond Collection has set a real standard for collector figures, and the '93 Jeep Wrangler carries that forward as the first vehicle in the line.
Lastly, if you’ve made it this far and also built your own diorama, tag me because I want to see it!
