The Lost World: Jurassic Park - "props" from the Crichton book

Rymo

Sr Member
In addition to the Marksmann GPS prop I'm building from the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, I'm also working on a few "props" of items that are mentioned in Michael Crichton's 1995 novel The Lost World (the book on which the movie is based).

There obviously aren't any visual references for these items since they only exist as descriptions in a book, so these are purely my interpretations of what I imagine these objects would look like.

The first is a portable satellite phone that is mentioned in the book. The book describes it as follows:

“Arby said, "You going to use the satphone?"

Thorne paused. "The what?"

"The satphone," Arby said. "Didn't Dr. Levine take a satphone with him?"

"How could he?" Thorne said. "You know the smallest satellite phones are the size of a suitcase."

"Yeah, but they don't have to be," Arby said. "You could have made one very small. …With that VLSI com board. …You could use it to make a one-pound satphone…”

Thorne's small office was located in a corner of the shed. Inside the walls were plastered with blueprints, order forms on clipboards, and three-dimensional cutaway computer drawings, Electronic components, equipment catalogs, and stacks of faxes were scattered across his desk. Thorne rummaged through them, and finally came up with a small gray handheld telephone. "Here we are." He held it up for Arby to see. "Pretty good, huh? Designed it myself."

Kelly said, "It looks just like a cellular phone." -Excerpt from The Lost World by Michael Crichton (1995)

Here is what I came up with. Because the novel was published in 1995, I used a vintage Motorola cell phone from 1995. I re-branded it with "Thorne Field Systems" branding and logos that I created in Photoshop.
Phone1.jpg Phone2.jpg Phone3.jpg

In the book, the sat phone is used to call a character named Dr. Levine. My future plans for this device are to put in a working LCD display that says "Dialing LEVN", back-lit keys, and the speakerphone in the device will play an excerpt of the call as described in the book. I'll likely use clips of dialogue from the audiobook narration.

Phone1.jpg


Phone2.jpg


Phone3.jpg
 
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Re: The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Crichton novel "props"

The book mentions a handheld portable GPS device, but it's description indicates that it is smaller than the Marksmann GPS prop featured in the film.

The GPS device is briefly described in the book as follows:

“Thorne unclipped a small [GPS] receiver from his belt. It looked like an oversized pager. He stared at the liquid-crystal readout. "I'm not getting any signal....'” -Excerpt from The Lost World by Michael Crichton (1995)

My interpretation of the device is made from a vintage Magellan 3000 GPS receiver from 1995. I removed the Magellan branding and replaced it with "Thorne Field Systems" branding. I painted the LCD bezel and I also added a belt clip to the back of the device as the original Magellan device did not have a belt clip on it.
GPS1.jpg GPS2.jpg GPS3.jpg
 
Re: The Lost World - "props" from the Crichton book

SATELLITE PHONE KEYPAD BACK LIGHT

I worked on the Sat Phone electronics a little today. I decided to start with the keypad. It doesn't necessarily need to be fully functional, but I do want the keys to be back lit. Instead of wiring up a whole brand new set of LED's, I decided to see if I could get the original LEDs inside the phone working. I began by taking apart the phone to see if there are any parts I can re-use inside.

Luckily, I found that the keypad circuit board is a separate piece from the main phone circuit board. Here is the keypad circuit board. It has the keypad button contacts as well as 6 tiny green LED's which function as the keypad back light.
orig keypad board copy.jpg

I poked around a bit on the back side of the circuit board with a 5V power supply and I found some empty solder points that made the green LED's light up. Perfect! So, I soldered some wires to those two points.
backside copy.jpg wires.jpg

Here is what the LED's look like when lit. They don't illuminate the keypad very evenly, but this is the way it would have originally looked in 1995 when the phone was new. That small detail keeps it looking like a vintage device, which I like.
LEDs lit.jpg Keypad Lit.jpg
 
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Re: The Lost World - "props" from the Crichton book

SATELLITE PHONE LCD DISPLAY - THE CONCEPT

In addition to the backlit keypad, I also want to put a "working" LCD display in the sat phone prop. In the novel, the sat phone is used to call a character named Levine. So, my plan is to make the LCD display say something like "CALLING: LEVN."

The display in the vintage cell phone that I based my prop off of is no longer working. So, I have two options.

OPTION 1:
I could replace the old display with a new backlit LCD display, and connect that to an Arduino controller, and install some code on the controller that will display a custom message on the LCD display. I'm not going to go this direction because it would cost more than I'd like to spend on this prop, and it would also take up quite a large amount of space inside the phone enclosure. There isn't much space available inside to cram electronics into, so this option is off the table.

OPTION 2: I could make a simple "fake" LCD display. Basically, it would be a static backlit message that looks like a real LCD display, but it would be much cheaper and easier to implement.

Here's my plan: I'm going with OPTION 2. I'll print out my LCD display message on a clear laser printer transparency sheet using a font that looks like the pixelated font seen on a real digital LCD display. The text will be see-through surrounded by a black border, which will create a text mask. I'll place that text mask on a red background with light shining through it. This will make the text appear to be glowing red on a black background, similar to a real LCD display.

MOCKUP.jpg

The concept is pretty simple, so I'm hoping it won't be too hard to pull off.
 
Re: The Lost World - "props" from the Crichton book

SATELLITE PHONE LCD DISPLAY - BUILDING THE "DISPLAY" BACKLIGHT - PART 1

When it came to the LEDs for my fake LCD display, I knew I was going to need some LEDs that were pretty bright so that they'd look similar to the brightness of an actual LCD display. I was digging through some old electronics I had on hand and I found a part that had 12 high-intensity micro LEDs on it. I wired a power supply up to the part, and tested the voltage of the LEDs, and they're 3V, which works well for this project.
PART copy.jpg

The LEDs on this part were laid out in an odd configuration. I needed the LEDs to be arrayed in a row, so my first step was to de-solder the individual LEDs from the part so that I can assemble them in a layout that fits the orientation of my display.

Here's a closeup look at how tiny each individual LED is after being de-soldered from the part.
LEDonQUARTER.jpg LEDonFINGER.jpg

The two solder contacts on each LED are pretty small, so I decided to solder some connection pins to each one so that it will be easier for me to connect wires to them. First, I clamped the LEDs in my "helping hands" alligator clip thingy. I then added a bit of extra solder to each LED contact. This made it easier to solder on the connection pins.
LED1.jpg LED2.jpg LED3.jpg

And, here is what the final individual LED assemblies look like.
LED BOTH.jpg ALL LEDS.jpg

The next step will be to attach the wires to the LEDs and then attach the LEDs to the Plexiglas light diffuser.
 
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SATELLITE PHONE SOUND MODULE

The display and backlit keypad aren't the only modifications I want to do to the sat phone. I also want to incorporate a sound module and speaker so that the phone sounds like it's making a speakerphone call, complete with ringing and dialogue.

I found a small , simple sound module that can record and playback a 120 second audio clip. It's designed for "talking" greeting cards. I got this one on Amazon for around $10.
sound module.jpg sound module2.jpg

After some initial testing, I realized that the small speaker that came with the module was not going to be loud enough to mimic the sound of a speakerphone call. So, I salvaged a small speaker out of an old laptop, and replaced the stock speaker with it. It is noticeably louder and the sound quality is much better. The laptop speaker is also slightly smaller than the stock speaker, so that is a plus since space inside the phone is very limited.
newspeaker.jpg newspeakerwired.jpg

Over on the phone side of things, I removed the built in piezoelectric speaker. This is because I will be mounting the new speaker in it's place.
phonespeaker.jpg phonespeakerremoved.jpg

I also enlarged the speaker holes a bit to allow more sound through. Every little extra thing I can do to add more speaker volume helps.
holes.jpg

As for the audio that is going to be playing out of the "speakerphone", I am editing together some cell phone ringing effects along with dialogue of the sat phone call from the audio book of The Lost World.
 
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Re: The Lost World - "props" from the Crichton book

SATELLITE PHONE LCD DISPLAY - "DISPLAY" BACKLIGHT - PART 2

I have the tiny LED assemblies built for my display back light, so now I have to figure out how I'm going to power the LEDs. I decided to use the original circuit board that the LEDs were originally salvaged from. I figured this would be the easiest way to go since the board is already configured for those specific LEDs.

I plan on using a total of 8 LEDs. The original LED circuit board had plenty of places to connect LEDs, but I noticed that it looked like there were some un-used LED connection points that may be of some use to me. If I utilize those empty LED connections, in addition to the other 6 LED connections next to them, this would allow me to keep all 8 of my LEDs connected to one side of the circuit board. The importance of this connection method will make more sense later on.
originalPCB copy.jpg

In order to use those empty LED connection points, I needed to make sure they are receiving the proper power. On the flip-side of the circuit board, you can see that the surface mount resistors that would power those LEDs connections are missing. So, I soldered in some tiny surface mount resistors in those locations. Those previously un-used LED connections can now be used. And, those resistors are TINY! It took some patience and a steady hand to solder them on, but I was finally able to get them connected.
Resistors copy.jpg

Here's a look at just how small those surface mount resistors are!
size.jpg


SPACE CONSIDERATIONS INSIDE THE PHONE

As I mentioned before, there is very limited space inside the phone shell for electronics. So, if I could get the LED circuit board reduced in size somehow, then this would allow for more space to mount the other electronics. "How can you reduce the size of a circuit board?" you might be asking. Well, that's simple. Just cut off the part you're not using!
PCBsplit.jpg

Now you can see why I wanted to limit my LEDs to just one side of the circuit board. By doing that, I was able to then use my Dremel to cut off the other side of the circuit board where the extraneous LED connections were located. This left me with a circuit board with a much smaller footprint that still has the 8 LED connections that I need. No more, no less.
PCBsmall.jpg

Yes, the board still works. The board layout is very simple. The traces I cut through only supplied power to the section of board that was not needed. All circuitry on the side I kept is still intact.
 
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I finished up the LED assemblies that are going to be used as the display backlight. I first removed the plastic piece off of the header pins since I'm not going to be mounting the LEDs directly to a circuit board. I then soldered on the wires and finished them off with some heat shrink tubing.

I will be soldering the wires from each LED assembly onto the connection points on the LED circuit board I worked on in my last post.
originalLED.jpg afterplastic.jpg LEDwires.jpg finishedLED.jpg wiredLEDcomp.jpg
 
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INGEN MEMOS

In the novel The Lost World, there is a sequence where Malcom is exploring the old InGen genetics lab at Site B. The book actually goes into quite a bit of detail describing some old InGen memos and printouts that he finds.
IMG_6930.JPG IMG_6947.jpg IMG_6931.JPG

So, I made some replicas of what some of those printouts might look like if they actually existed.

Because the memos are dated from the late-80's, I printed them on a some old dot matrix printer paper. I don't have access to an actual dot matrix printer, so I printed them on a laser printer and designed them using a font that looks similar to what a dot matrix printout would look like.

I'm happy with how they turned out.
IMG_6941.JPG IMG_6942.JPG IMG_6943.JPG IMG_6944.JPG IMG_6946.JPG IMG_6945.JPG
 
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Love the faux dot matrix printouts, especially the old 'tractor' paper!

About 20 years ago, I faked up those exact same printouts. Not as well as you have ;)


-MJ
 
SATELLITE PHONE LCD DISPLAY - "DISPLAY" BACKLIGHT - PART 3

[/B]I've done some more work on my simplified LCD display for my sat phone prop. My last few posts covered the construction of the LED assemblies and LED controller board. Now I'll show the final display build. If you look back at post #6, you'll see my original concept for this display. The final product ended up being a little less elegant than my original design, but functionally it's still the same.

First, I glued my LED assemblies to a small piece of white plexiglass. The plexiglass is cut slightly larger than the dimensions of the display window of the original Motorola cell phone. The plexiglass will act as a light diffuser as the LED are very bright. I wanted as little separation between the individual LED's as possible. My goal was to have a uniform strip of bright light shining through the plexiglass. I ended up using hot glue. My original plan was to use super glue, but it didn't end up bonding well to the type of plastic I was using as the diffuser.
IMG_7119.JPG IMG_7118.jpg

Next, I soldered the LED wires to the contacts on the LED controller board.
IMG_7146.JPG IMG_7145.JPG

When the LED's are lit, there is now a fairly uniform strip of light that will act as the backlight for my fake LCD display.
IMG_7147.JPG

Next, I need to add the red cellophane layer which will change my fake LCD digits to red instead of white.
 
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SATELLITE PHONE LCD DISPLAY - FINAL BUILD

I decided that red cellophane was a little too transparent for this application. I needed something that was more translucent; something that diffused the light a little more evenly. Then, I happened to come across a roll of adhesive red vinyl marking film at work. It actually ended up being the perfect color and translucency for this project.

So, I cut a small piece and adhered it to the white plexiglass LED diffuser.
IMG_7148.JPG IMG_7149.JPG IMG_7151.JPG

Next, I designed a few LCD graphics in Photoshop using a few different fonts. I printed them on clear transparency sheets. The black portion is opaque, and the letters themselves are transparent.
IMG_7156.jpg

I then cut out one of the graphics from the transparency sheet and adhered it to the LED backlight. I chose the more segmented font as it seemed to more accurately reflect the look of LCD displays from the mid-90's. I aligned the letters on the transparency with the LED light shining through the backlight diffuser.
IMG_7154.JPG

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It looks a lot like a real LCD display, and it required much simpler technology to produce. The next step is to mount this fake LCD assembly inside the sat phone so that it lines up with the original LCD display window.
 
SATELLITE PHONE - POWER SWITCH

[/B]To keep things simple, I decided to use a single power switch to turn all of the individual components on and off at the same time. This includes the LCD display, keypad back light, and the sound module.

I first decided where I wanted to mount the power switch. I chose to mount the switch where the "SEND" button is on the phone keypad. The switch I'm using is a little to large to mount in between the back light circuit board and the silicone keypad buttons. So, I drilled a hole through the back light circuit board in the location of the "SEND" button. The circuit board is only being used for the keypad back light LEDs, so drilling out the board in this area didn't affect that function. I'm not using the original keypad contacts that are on this board.
IMG_7311 copy.JPG both copy.jpg

This hole will allow the switch post to stick through the circuit board from behind. It protrudes above the circuit board just enough for the silicone keypad button to still be able to depress the switch. One press of the switch will turn the device on. Another press of the switch turns the device off.
IMG_7315.JPG IMG_7316.JPG IMG_7317.JPG
 
SATELLITE PHONE - LCD DISPLAY INSTALLATION AND TESTING

I installed my fake LCD display into the phone shell using copious amounts of hot glue. That was about the only reliable way to secure it in place.
IMG_7326.JPG

And here is a test run of the fake LCD display and the keypad back light. These components are being powered by the on/off switch I installed earlier. I'm happy with the results so far.
IMG_7325.JPG
 
SATELLITE PHONE - SOUND MODULE MODIFICATIONS

In The Lost World, Doc Thorne uses the sat phone to try to locate Richard Levine. Levine picks up, but the connection isn't very good and Levine sounds distressed - like he may be in some kind of trouble. Levine is actually on Isla Sorna, surrounded by a pack of raptors when the call takes place. I want the audio playing out of my sat phone's speaker to re-create this call.

I began by editing together clips of dialogue from the audio book of The Lost World. I cut together only the sections of dialogue where Levine is speaking. I then added some background static to mimic the sound of a weak phone connection. I also added a phone ringing sound effect at the beginning, and a dropped call sound effect at the end.

I then connected the sound module to my MacBook Pro and transferred my edited audio clip to the sound module.
IMG_7341.jpg

The sound module was originally powered by some button cell batteries. I am going to be powering it from the same power source that I'm using to power the other components in the sat phone, so I don't need it to be powered by the batteries any longer.

I removed the button cell batteries, and I removed the metal clips that held the batteries in place.
IMG_7342.JPG IMG_7343.jpg

I then soldered some jumper wires to take the place of where the batteries used to be connected. I also soldered on some power leads which will allow me to connect the sound module to an external power source.
IMG_7346.JPG

Here is a video of my edited version of Levine's "phone call" being played from the sound module.
 
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