Star Wars Episode III Nute Gunray Alien Head Animatronic Lip synch

[petrietri]

"Is-a Quveen Amidhalla Herrserf"

[TheMarkz0ne]

looks like my ex wife

[Albekizan]

neimoidians were criticized for Asian stereotype, because of the accent. but they don't look Asian, right?

[GregOrca]

@Albekizan

Silas Carson was actually trying to do an eastern European Accent.

[greatstealauto]

"Where are those droid-eekas?"

[penisMaskdancer]

thats a cousin of mine

[ps3specter]

Nute was an underrated character from Episode 1. He's got to be one of my favorite aliens.

[1legomaster]

Thumbs up if you think the picture of this video scared you.

[caspapin]

Can someone tell me what those alien people were called in the phantom menace that had like some metal shit on their faces and spoke like robots.

[Kzzori]

@caspapin are you talking about dugs? (sebulba the pod racer guy who was like anakin's rival or something was a dug)

[heddbo]

loooool

[mercurymadhatter]

better than cg

[TERACEPHIL]

awsome work....

[Jokerprodution]

one of my favorite charachters in star wars!

[dilophosaurus122]

Nute gunray

[TheLordmewtwo]

piccolo!!!!

[samjarris]

The mouth moves well.

[DrLeonardBonesMcCoy]

Creepy

[joeduncan08]

throw on some tentacles and you've got Davy Jones

[GregOrca]

@joeduncan08

Yeah, I've always loved "The Monkees" but I think I think Mike Nesmith was cooler because his mum invented liquid paper!

[joeduncan08]

@GregOrca

Actually, I was talking about Davy Jones from Pirates of the Carribbean, sorry, should have been more clear!

[GregOrca]

@joeduncan08

No worries Joe. I was only being silly by pretending to misunderstand!

[godbluffvdgg]

@GregOrca Robots suck and so do you. gregorca. Go pedal your disinfo elsewhere. We Americans are on to you sycophantic fops.

[GregOrca]

@godbluffvdgg

Roflmao

[inqueling]

Wow, that is some crazy awesome craftsmanship there! Was the classical music in the background there so everyone could keep at least the appearance of sanity during the long hours?

[GregOrca]

@inqueling

Ha! thanks. Actually I'm a Beethoven fan so that's my favourite Beethoven's 9th symphony choral finale in the background.

The "appearance" of sanity comment is spot on! I think most of us on that show were certifiable nutters anyway.

Once when we were making the Ewan McGreggor stunt dummy late after mid-night we were sure sure it started moving by itself when we talked to it.

The real Ewan gave us a wide berth the next day when we told him.

[hallo1778]

could you pls make a making of vid

[GregOrca]

@hallo1778

The production show a bit here: watch?v=4z_k24HPUSg

[DakotaMontgomery]

You should DEFINITELY post a video of this without the skin. Gosh, if only Disney used this technology for their animatronics' heads'. The animation in the bodies themselves are flawless... but the lip synchronizations could be improved. Anyways, great video. I can't wait to work with Disney Imagineering building this kind of stuff.

[DakotaMontgomery]

You should DEFINITELY post a video of this without the skin. Gosh, if only Disney used this technology for their animatronics' heads'. The animation in the bodies themselves are flawless... but the lip synchronizations could be improved. Anyways, great video. I can't wait to work with Disney Imagineering building this kind of stuff.

[NotoriousBIG1997]

someone payed alot of money to create this

[mkkumbia]

no...ma,....mes...ke chingones estan la neta

[UberWagen]

Are you using VSA or what software?

[GregOrca]

Have a read of the info under the "subscribe" button.

[adriana55454]

mmmm sta muy bn echo !!!!!:)

[Esurname]

Wow! That is fantastic , how many servos did you need for the lips, Im trying to produce the same level of expresion for my robot head. What material are you using for the face? Im using Tinsilgel 10 . well done!!

[GregOrca]

Hi. The lips use about 12 servos. You could use half that but would lose the option of making assymetrical lip movements and Elvis sneers etc.

The skin was good 'ole fashion foam latex. The earlier ones from Ep 1 and 2 were silicone but we thought the foam would work OK and be lighter for Silas as we were using a much greater weight of sevos than before.

[Esurname]

I thought so!The latest version of my robot head needs two extra servos on the lip corners to make the lips smile more effectively and bring the cheeks up slightly . I am going to switch to smaller servos for this subtle addition ,as I am running out of space on the lips and need to keep the face as light as possible. Thanks for replying.!

[hshugos1]

awsome looks real

[Subaro0o]

damn thats better than disneyland

[CBright7831]

Fun Fact: "We have my lord" and "Yes, he landed a few moments ago" were deleted from the film but are still in the comic book adaption.

Nute is one of my favorites from the prequels.

[alienboy1029]

Thats great work of art

[52lego]

omg

[LockPicksPlusdotCom]

How do you make the eyes blink? Looks like some kind of clear skin over the eyes?

[GregOrca]

Hi, the lids are just vacuformed translucent plastic shells with an ordinary blink mechanism and fast acting servo driving them and short lever arms for speed.

They are meant to resemble the nictating membrane of birds and reptiles but are really just milky looking plastic.

They are top and bottom lids that meet in the middle of the eye. The eyes didn't turn in the first 2 movies so we didn't bother for this show either.

His lip synch would look much better with a moving tongue I think.

[cuponooDels]

That is amazing. The best animatronic I've seen so far.

[RobohX360]

I'd take that over CGI any day.

[manwhoooo]

I thought Nute's face showed a lot more emotion in Episode 3 - it's a shame we didn't see more of him. My favorite villain of the prequel's, personally.

[kylehickman1]

Greg, you do spectacular work. It's a shame Nute Gunray's role was cut down to next to nothing in Episode III, as the technology has improved greatly since his first appearance in Episode I. That first line of dialogue in the video has amazing "emotion" in it. It's really too bad that line in the film was heard but not really seen coming from Nute's own mouth - not close enough to see your hard work, at least.

[GregOrca]

Thanks.

The Nemoidians I think are sort of sleazy characters and I'm not too worried they weren't used too much. They are sleazy and weasel like and not so appealing as a more deliciously evil baddy who you love to hate. But they were a good idea as the sort of detestable and yet naive characters who could be manipulated by Palpatine.

Silas was a great guy to work with and nice to know the voice coming out of the mask belonged to the guy wearing it.

[abitofwhimsey]

wow, was this really used in star wars?

[GregOrca]

Yes. this is the head and dialogue from the last film Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith. This was filmed in our creature workshop in Fox Studios building 54 in Sydney, which is now the location of vfx house Animal Logic.

The same workspace where we built the wookies etc was refitted and filled with with computers and I later worked on the Happy Feet orca scene in the exact same spot.

[abitofwhimsey]

did you make this yourself? Id love to see the internal workings of it

[GregOrca]

I made the control system and programmed the dialogue and Sonny built the mech. A human head fits in there so all the mechanisms for speech only have a centimetre or so space between Silas and the rubber skin.

Sorry, we weren't allowed by contract to take any pictures of our stuff for StarWars, but I took this vid anyway as we needed to test the faces on screen.

I'll post some vid later of my Mon Calamari Background Senator character who also appears briefly in "Revenge of the Sith"

[abitofwhimsey]

wow this is amazing! look at the eyes blinking, they look so real!