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How Disney Built and Programmed an Animatronic President
An anonymous reader writes with this interesting look at how Disney created realistic animatronic figures in a time before programming languages and systems on a chip. Animatronics have powered some of sci-fi and fantasy cinema's most imposing creatures and characters: The alien queen in Aliens, the Terminator in The Terminator, and Jaws of Jaws (the key to getting top billing in Hollywood: be a robot). Even beloved little E.T.—of E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial—was a pile of aluminum, steel, and foam rubber capable of 150 robotic actions, including wrinkling its nose. But although animatronics is a treasured component of some of culture's farthest-reaching movies, it originated in much more mundane circumstances. According to the Disney archives, it began with a bird.
Among the things Walt Disney was renowned for was bringing animatronics (or what he termed at the time Audio-Animatronics) to big stages at his company and elsewhere. But Disney didn't discover or invent animatronics for entertainment use; rather, he found it in a store. In a video on Disney's site, Disney archivist Dave Smith tells a story of how one day in the early 1950s, while out shopping in New Orleans antique shop, Disney took note of a tiny cage with a tinier mechanical bird, bobbing its tail and wings while tweeting tunelessly. He bought the trinket and brought it back to his studio, where his technicians took the bird apart to see how it worked.
Among the things Walt Disney was renowned for was bringing animatronics (or what he termed at the time Audio-Animatronics) to big stages at his company and elsewhere. But Disney didn't discover or invent animatronics for entertainment use; rather, he found it in a store. In a video on Disney's site, Disney archivist Dave Smith tells a story of how one day in the early 1950s, while out shopping in New Orleans antique shop, Disney took note of a tiny cage with a tinier mechanical bird, bobbing its tail and wings while tweeting tunelessly. He bought the trinket and brought it back to his studio, where his technicians took the bird apart to see how it worked.
everybody's heard about the bird.
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This seems to explain the issues with Obama's birth certificate.
After this (*) I really don't care about Disney anymore :(
(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Movies do not need special effects to be scary.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The ancient Greeks had mechanical devices, such as animated birds, water works, temple Gods, and more, as far back as the 350's BC. By year 1 it was going strong.
greekautomata is just one listing I found.
Jobs was just like Disney: "Good Artists copy, great artists steal!" Followed immediately by "Its mine! Mine! All mine, I got me a patent! Mine mine all mine, it came 'Out of my mind'(tm)".
Indeed. Alfred Hitchcock was a master of this technique.
Indeed they don't. I think that movies that show less are more scary because you need to imagine more in order to fill in the gaps. For the same reason, books are often even scarier than movies.
while we may have not investigated the patent situation in this case the important question is did Mr. Disney do so or did he just take?
Wind-up automatons are older than the American Revolution. There was quite the fad for them, to the point where people were scamming by creating fake automatons such as Maelzel's Chess Player, which hid a chess-playing dwarf. Incidentally, Maelzel and Beethoven designed one of the first "Moog Synthesizers" and Beethoven wrote "Wellington's Victory" to showcase it. This unit was truly automated. The drawing automaton in the movie "Hugo" is an example of another popular model.
I believe that when Disney first started loading up on complex automata, they were "programmed" by tall stacks of cams. More recent models replaced some of the mechanics with compressed-air tubing, which allowed more flexibility than simple linkages. I haven't seen one lately, Presumably there are better options now.
I did see one of the air-based systems in the programming room of a company that manufactures such things. They had it hooked up to a piano keyboard. I think it used MIDI to talk to the actual solenoid valves.
In order to make money from kids they solve a whole bunch of interesting engineering and logistical challenges.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Animatronics seemed to do really well at facial expressions and general body movement. What they sucked at was walking or things that involved moving across a room. I believe this was mainly because the walking was done "on stilts"
For example, see movies like the original "Alien" (/Aliens) Was Alien pretty scary, you bet. While the Gremlins were not so scary (more of a kids movie than Alien), the animatronic creatures with real oozing fluids etc were quite realistic. Better yet, you didn't have to do "computer generated" light effects (realism is hard even nowadays!), since you got to use real light.
What sucked was movement. The chest-burster running across the table: decent but still missing on the realism. Gremlins toddling across the snowy streets... stilty and not so believable. But facial expressions? That Alien with its inner mouth sliding out inches from Ripley's face, with slimy drool and everything. Awesome, and more believable than any CG I've seen.