How to make a monster

This afternoon I attended the opening of the visiting exhibition at Te Manawa, called, “How to Make a Monster: the Art and Technology of Animatronics”. Two words can sum this exhibition up, “Oh, wow!” Since I was a child, I have always been curious about how things work (ask my parents if they remember the day I pulled the telephone apart to see how it worked!) so exhibitions of this nature always appeal. The exhibition shows the art and technology of bringing animals and fantasy to life for the movie screen as well as techniques and processes such as sculpting, moulding and the design and installation of animatronic components. If you have ever played with a mechano set or marvelled over special effects in movies, you will love this exhibition. It’s on at Te Manawa until 14th January. More information is available at the Te Manawa website.

The exhibition is from John Cox’s Creature Workshop, the Australian company responsible for animatronic special effects in movies such as Peter Pan, Crocodile Dundee in LA, Joey, Scooby-Doo, George of the Jungle 2, and Inspector Gadget (ever wondered how those gadgets worked? You can see some at the exhibition). John Cox won an Academy Award for his work on Babe.

One of the highlights of the opening was the presence of John Cox and Richard Taylor, from Weta Workshop, and their teams. This gave the amazing opportunity of allowing guests to ask, “how does this work?” After viewing one creature, I asked Richard Taylor whether he had played with a mechano set when he was a boy (the creature looked like it was made from an old mechano set!). It seems that not only he and John had played with mechano sets, but they still do. And lego. We talked about children not getting these opportunities anymore and how this is stifling creativity, with young ones coming along that have never experimented with making things work, getting hands dirty, messing about with clay, and the kinds of things kiwi kids used to play with. It’s a world-wide problem that requires creativity to overcome because, simply, there is a huge shortage in these kinds of skills. Computing power is increasing all the time, as are computing skills, but there is an incredible demand for animatronics special effects and now only five workshops in the world that can do this. Richard talked about the enormous potential for young people who do have these skills, and the huge money that they can make.

On leaving the exhibition I shared the elevator with a man and his young boy. I asked the boy if he wanted dad to get him a mechano set so he could start building his own monsters. Dad said, “no, I want to get him building furniture”. I’m really glad John Cox and Richard Taylor got to play with their mechano sets.