1. The law of distance. The greater the distance between the audience and an animatronic character, the more you can getaway with in terms of believability. Distance will determine everything from the quaility of make-up and hair to how many character movements are necessary to be convincing. In the early Disney animatronics, Walt would never let audiences within 30-40 feet of a life-like human character. Consider the early Lincoln attractions. Abe was located high on a stage - far removed from direct audience contact. Disney knew that Lincoln’s early animatronic movements were not technically sophisticated and distance would help masquerade those limitations - thus increasing believability. More recently, the Madame Tassauds attraction in the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas has installed an Elvis animatronic utilizing the Law of Distance - hoping to increase the believability of that character.
http://lifeformations.com/2. The law of time. The shorter the time animatronics are veiwed the less sophisticated a character needs to be. Consider a typical animatronic dark ride application - if the audience is traveling in a moving car at a fairly rapid rate of speed, eye blinks and eye turns would not be a character requirement. Those kinds of movements wouldn’t be seen, appreciated, or add to the experience. On the other hand, the longer a character is seen by an audience, the more sophisticated it needs to be – if the audinece is watching a historic animatronic figure tell a two minute story, the audience is going to notice if the eyes do not blink or the arms never move.
3. The law of numbers. The more animatronics performing and/or the more movements each character has increases the total audience “attention” holding time. A single character can only hold an audience for a short period of time without revealing additional movements (surprises). However, multiple animatronics allow interaction between each other and the variety of personalities generally increases the effective performance time. With multiple animatronic characters interacting, it is easier to set up a good/bad or right/wrong relationship. That relationship generally helps with Law #7.
4. The law of non-human. Non-human animatronic characters are not judged as critically as human life-like ones. No one really knows what a talking beverage bottle, animated garbage can, or singing chicken is supposed to look like. Hence their movements aren’t judged consciously or even unconsciously by your audience. You can get away with fewer movements and take some real risks with what they do and say!
5. The law of surprises. Revealing surprises helps keep audience attention. Those surprises can be additional animatronic moves, special effects, or just some unusual animatronic act. LifeFormations applied this technique on the award winning IAAPA "rapping clown" with his pelvic thrust and cigar that actually lit up and emitted smoke. Disney’s Will Rogers animated figure that performed a lasso trick is another example of this technique.
6. The law of singing. Audiences are addicted to animatronic characters that sing. There is something mesmerizing about things that sing that aren’t human. We have witnessed this phenomena consistently in various venues. For instance, Honeywell had Lifeformations design and build an animated hospital operating room for a medical administrator’s trade show - a relatively conservative audience to say the least. The booth stopped visitors dead in their tracks and the message was burned into their brains with music and singing by the animatronics. People were leaving the hall singing the songs while humming Honeywell’s praises. A side note - Honeywell gathered over 100 qualified sales leads during that show compared to 5 the previous year!
7. The law of personality. Scripting, voice talent, and personality are critical to animatronic character believability. All of these components go hand-in-hand to form a character’s soul. We urge clients to think first in terms of a distinguishable personality when concepting an animatronic character. If the personality is not a given inherent quality, we then urge them to think in terms of famous personalities to reference. We often ask, “if your character could be a film or television star - who would it be?” That identification generally helps set the character design process in motion and makes both the scripting and voice talent selection easier. Be sure to use a script writer who understands the animatronic medium and a voice talent that can bring life and personality to the narration.
8. The law of brevity. Brevity in performances is your best friend - leave audiences wanting more. We encourage clients to limit any presentation to a minute or less per animatronic character. This law is simply the most difficult for client’s to understand. They typically have an hour of content to share. We constantly remind clients that audiences don’t remember much and the secret to being a bore is to tell everything. Note: The law of brevity can be broken by carefully and skillfully incorporating laws 4, 5, 6, and 7. Remember - if the audience stays around for an additional performance - you just received the equivalent of an Academy Award for Animatronic Performances.
9. The law of scale. Changing the size and proportions of things helps create audience interest and grabs their attention. For instance, make things that are small, big. For example we designed and built an animatronic talking house for Honeywell’s Trade Show booth that stole the Homebuilder’s show. The six foot long house came alive and talked about all of the places in a typical home that Honeywell products can be utilized.
10. The law of the edge. If it’s appropriate and possible - go over the top with your character - push the edge. The beauty of animatronic characters is their ability to do things that other media can not and repeat that ability over and over - flawlessly. We encourage clients to push the limits. Show people something they’ve never seen. Be audacious! Have the spirit of P.T. Barnum! It’s show business. Make it funny. Make it crazy. Get their attention! Deliver the message! Risk nothing - gain nothing! Joan Rivers once said ”Most stars play it safe because they have too much to lose. Superstars are the ones who throw caution to the wind; improvise impulsively; go for the high note. Superstars give it everything they’ve got and hold back nothing at all. In a word, the difference is guts.” Have guts - get edgy!
