- [Announcer] Some of the biggest stars in Hollywood
are some of the smallest creatures on the planet.
Real live insects like spiders, locusts, and butterflies
play crucial roles in many memorable blockbuster films.
But getting them to perform on camera is no easy task.
- Rosie, lift up your leg. This leg.
Come on.
Oh see, she did this one.
Oh, there she goes.
And that's just a little trick of putting a little pressure
on her back leg that causes her front leg to come up.
- [Announcer] That's Steven Kutcher.
He's an entomologist and the go to guy
for all things bugs in Hollywood.
He's worked with a variety of insects on over 100 films
in his career including "Arachnophobia," "Jurassic Park,"
and "Spider-Man."
- Understanding insect behavior is really the key.
It's not training them because you don't have time
to train them in the film industry.
When you work with insects, you wanna corral the insects.
You wanna be able to control them.
- [Announcer] He's used a number of different techniques
to get the bugs to move in the right direction
involving lights, air, and temperature.
- Let's say you're a bug.
How can I make you move?
Well, I could blow air at you, like 60 miles an hour air.
You're going to move.
I could light a little fire under you
or set you on something that's really hot.
You're gonna get up out of your seat and move.
I could chill down the room.
- [Announcer] For example, let's take a look
at one of the most famous and terrifying spider films
of all time, "Arachnophobia."
- The great thing about that film was it was before CGI.
So we had to do everything real except for one shot.
- [Announcer] He devised a clever yet simple rig
to get all the spiders where they needed to be.
- They would say, "We want a spider to crawl into a slipper
"from four feet away."
So I came up with this idea of invisible vibrating wires.
Chance of vibrating wires that you couldn't see,
the camera couldn't see.
But I could make the spider go directly to the spot
I wanted it to go.
- [Announcer] Kutcher's first big Hollywood gig
was on the "Exorcist II" and it involved working with
three thousand live locusts.
- There's a scene where James Earl Jones has to look
at a cage of locusts and the locusts were all on the ground.
But how do you move hundreds of locusts up on the screen?
I said, "Get a light, a studio light that gives off heat
"and shining against the side of the cage."
And they did and all the locusts moved up onto the cage
to be near the heat.
Then they took the light away.
- [Announcer] In "Jurassic Park,"
Kutcher was the man responsible
for the iconic dead mosquitoes in amber.
- So it's supposed to be a mosquito.
First, it's really a crane fly.
And I put antenna from another insect on the crane fly.
I took a bent insect pin and made it for its mouth part.
I created the wings.
- [Announcer] And he worked with a live mosquito
in the DNA Explainer video.
- So I would chill the mosquito down
so that it wouldn't move.
And then I would drip honey on it.
And then it got tumbled down with the honey.
- [Announcer] In the 2002 movie "Spider-Man,"
there's a scene where Peter Parker first gets bitten.
Kutcher was actually above Toby McGuire with a paint brush.
- And what the spider will do is it will crawl
along the edge until it reaches this part
and then it will hang on.
And I would just tap it like this which would cause
the spider to web down.
- [Announcer] While he says he rarely ever gets bitten
or stung, he takes precautions
to protect the other human actors.
In "Roadhouse 66," Judge Reinhold is driving a car
and I had to have a scorpion crawl over his shoulder.
So I put a little cap on the scorpion's stinger
that looked like the stinger so it wouldn't hurt him.
- [Announcer] And there's also a rule on set
that no bugs are hurt during production.
- In making of a movie, you can't harm a cockroach,
or a fly, or a maggot.
But if the fly flies to craft service, you can swat it.
- [Announcer] He can get some of his bugs
from pet suppliers,
but most he goes out and collects himself.
And Kutcher's home is also full of bugs, by choice.
- Right now, I have mosquitoes, crane flies, caterpillars
in my refrigerator.
The world is filled with people who do not like insects
which is a great opportunity to teach those people
the joys and wonders of all of the arthropods in the world
and how you can relate to them.
And when you understand how they work,
the world is a better place.
(upbeat happy orchestra music)
- To make the spider go, I just tap her back legs.
And this gets her to crawl up.
To make her stop, I cover her eyes.
She has eight eyes.
She's just looking for a dark place.