Animatronics

[AndyJones]

Not really sure were to put this topic, so mods feel free to move:

 

We have just had the Tweenies in, and I was really interested in the anamatronics that went into the heads (each head was worth �£75,000 apparently!)

so I was wondering were do you learn about anamatronics, I don't want to become an expert, mainly just interested in how it works.

 

regards

 

AndyJones

[dbo45]

I think that Wimbledon School of Art cover anamatronics in there "Technical Arts Special Effects" BA

 

If not a search on Google bought up this

 

HTH

 

Ian

[Tomo]

Also Mechatronic Engineering, but I suspect that a degree-level course is not what you're after.

 

Incidentally, for when you go Googling, the word is spelt "Animatronics"

 

Jim Henson's Creature Shop and the possibly-defunct BBC Visual Effects Dept are/were two of the centres of excellence - they may let you have a look around if you call them.

 

Rex Garrod does a fair bit as well - he's a nice chap, and will almost certainly be happy to have a chat.

He does a lot of lectures and other events around the country, so he'll probably be doing one fairly near you sometime this year.

 

Moderation: Topic title fixed

[cedd]

Rex Garrod! Blast from the past! He built Brum, the remote controlled yellow car from the kids tv series. He is indeed a guy who knows his stuff. He also builds painfully violent robots (remember Casius from the first series of Robot Wars?). If you need CO2 person launchers, he's the man!

[itinerant baker]

Neill Gorton and Millennium Effects did some nice stuff on Torchwood, specifically the weevils head, as well as stuff for Dr Who. If you have a look at the Torchwood mini site there should hopefully be some of the 'making of....' videos still available to view.

[w/robe]

I don't know about the tour costumes but the original Tweenies were made by Neil Scanlan. As you will see from the website they always appear to be incredibly busy but they may be willing to show you what they do. They are based in North London but they sometimes abandon their studio and move to where they are filming.

[Don Allen]

There has also been the BBC Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts http://www.abc.net.au/beasts/makingof/anim.htm that have articles on how the animatronics was done.

 

We recently had Walking With Dinosaurs The Live Experience http://www.dbmagazine.com.au/400/iv-WalkingWithDino.shtml tour Australia and had lots of tv shows on how the larger units were made and controlled. A person drove the "sled" that the large dinosaur was mounted on, several puppeteers had models that they moved (like voodoo dols) to control the servos in the dinosaurs and other technicians had radio control units to control eye movements etc.

 

A very expensive operation. Outside of Disney, the BBC and ABC seem to be the ones to get funding for large animatronics projects.

[Jivemaster]

There were some maplin animatronic models, do they show any of the pic programming or circuitry?