How Realistic Animatronics Are Made For Movies & TV | Movies Insider

Spectral Motion has been making animatronic puppets and props for movies and TV shows since 2002. Even if they don’t fully end up in the final shot, they can make for great references for both visual effects artists and the actors in front of the camera. Spectral Motion’s head of animatronics, Mark Setrakian, takes the characters sculpted and painted by the company’s artists and gives them the most realistic movements possible. This has included making giant troll hands compress and handle objects for “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” (2013), manipulating robotic bits and foam skin to make a wolflike snarl for “Lady in the Water” (2006), and making the Demogorgon’s face petals move on the first season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” (2016). Advancements in technology allowed Spectral Motion to push the kinds of terrifying movements it gave to the animatronic White Spike puppet who would be acting alongside Chris Pratt and Yvonne Strahovski in “The Tomorrow War” (2021).

Follow Spectral Motion:

Follow Mark Setrakian, Mark Viniello, and Kevin McTurk:

MORE MOVIES INSIDER VIDEOS:
How Tom Holland Pulled Off 5 "Spiderman" and "Uncharted" Stunts | Movies Insider
How Batman Movies Pulled Off 6 Batmobile & Batwing Stunts | Movies Insider
How Costumes Are Destroyed For Movies & TV | Movies Insider

------------------------------------------------------

#Animatronics #MoviesInsider #Insider

Insider is great journalism about what passionate people actually want to know. That’s everything from news to food, celebrity to science, politics to sports and all the rest. It’s smart. It’s fearless. It’s fun. We push the boundaries of digital storytelling. Our mission is to inform and inspire.

How Realistic Animatronics Are Made For Movies & TV | Movies Insider

[nathanvalentine]

How does one get into these kind of job. The hands-on, tech-based, problem-solving stuff here is exactly what I want in a career

[captainsarcasm]

Honestly animatronics still make such cool props and can really bring monsters and characters to life. It's a shame we don't use them as much anymore, I think they'd work really well when they enhanced with the amazing CGI we have.

[robotfan]

The hand and head expressions are amazing! Definitely would love to see this technology incorporated into real Androids!

[CampingforCool]

The expressions shown at 2:44 are so incredible, I would have thought they were cgi. I didn’t even know that level of facial control was possible.

[kylewalker]

The amount of work put into making realistic animatronics really shows how beautifully complex biology is.

[kenethgellah]

They do this just to bring fun into our lives.... Much respect
Woah!! thanks for the likes guys

[hipsepipse]

I LOVE him geeking out about the new tech. It's delightful, he's like a kid on Christmas morning

[Nick_Lavigne]

The second I saw the hand i knew it was from Hansel and Gretel: Witch hunters. Such an under rated movie with great story centric effects

[Cloveristic_]

Imagine adding those in prosthetics, obviously the size of a normal human arm

[okamijubei]

Great to hear that those kind of arts isn't dead.

[ANSWERTHECALLOFJESUSCHRIST]

Gah, great work: those things even without their skin on give me the creepies with their movement. They look alive for sure.

[questieee]

Remember: Animatronics tend to get a little bit quirky at night

[shiloc]

Wow these folks are truly the magic makers!

[G]

Cutting edge strain wave drives are more than strong enough to rival most biological muscles. Problem is, they can cost up to 30, 000 USD per unit.

[petermot]

Definitely better than CGI. Great video !

[monsoon]

It's a shame they cover up all those great practical effects with CGI

[schottschott]

The animatronic looks so much cooler and it takes a really good director to know how to use them spectacularly. The cgi doesn’t create tension and scariness. Looks more like a video game to me.

[lordlem]

I'm definitely in love with robotics and IT stuff, and as much as love visual art, I'm so sad that such incredible, smooth moving animatronics, were CGI-ed af during post-production 😢😔

[DavinderSingh-crow]

Definitely better than CGI. Great video

[HeidiBird]

This was riveting. I'd love to learn how to do this!