Academy award winning animatronics shop to close and sell off models

[Download]

In a workshop strewn with hands, feet and otherworldly creatures, John Cox has spent 30 years bringing inanimate objects to life like a modern-day Dr Frankenstein.

But now his animatronic creations have been rendered obsolete by computer-generated imaging (CGI).

John Cox's Creature Workshop on the Gold Coast is an Academy Award-winning creator of animatronics.

"I am very fortunate to have gone through the golden era, which was essentially the '80s and early '90s, when animatronics was one of the strong solutions that you could use because digital was not around," Mr Cox said.

"In 2009 the GFC (global financial crisis) hit and everyone went on hiatus for three years, but digital still got better, faster, cheaper.

"By the time the GFC was over and the Americans came back here (to Australia) to start making these big budget films, animatronics wasn't part of the solution anymore."

Gold Coast animatronic marvels up for auction, rendered redundan..

End of an era. I hope the models end up in the hands of collectors or a museum who will cherish them.

[Curls]

Poorly used CGI has greatly ruined many movies, and its sad

[GordonZombie]

Terminator 2 IMO is one of those best example films where CGI/animation is used in conjunction with animatronics to great effect, to the extent the visuals still hold up today. It's really telling when many of the effects seem bettter than in 3 and Genysis.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ltdxSd41JAU

[Curls]

The greatest thing any directer can learn is subtlety. In fact, the most subtle films are the best. If you don't know you're watching a film and instead feel like your spectating a story then you're watching a good film.

When you have a literal cartoon thing on screen all the time that looks out of place as fuck, the entire film is ruined.

The only thing CGI is, is a tool after all.

[jimbobjoe1234]

I think the biggest disappointment about the overuse of CGI would be that 2011 The Thing movie. They had practical effects lined up for it just for the studio to axe them and use CGI instead. Here's some video of practical affects being worked on for the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R8ASn25GLg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBzpT7VmSaU

They overlaid or replaced all this hard work with CGI. All that work and talent just went to waste. I bet if they used the practical to it's full potential the movie would have been better received. There was some real potential and as a horror fan it pains me to think about what the film could have been.