ELECTRIC WORD
What do Free Willy, Anaconda, and The Abyss have in common? All feature the animatronics of Edge Innovations. This year, the company's hyperrealistic dolphins and sharks are jumping off the big screen and coming to a theme park, aquarium, or resort near you. To achieve flesh-and-blood legitimacy, the Edge artists and engineers use high-performance materials like titanium and plastic composites. But the true secret to the realism is the electronics, which are now small enough to fit inside the body. "The critical thing for believability is decisive movement - powerful accelerations," says Walt Conti, CEO of the Alameda, California-based company. "You can be next to it and swear that the thing is real. So even though visitors know it's mechanical, they tend to relate to it as a live animal."
ELECTRIC WORD
The Good, The Bad, and The Evil
Light Reading
Picture Window
Rear Projection
The Red Team
Stunt Double
