>>TIM NORDELLA: Every section that we did...welded...
whatever we did,
we went through and ground everything that was sharp,
pointed,
could cause a problem with either skin,
the control wiring
or the hydraulic lines.
We made everything smooth as we could.
We didn't want to have any problems on set.
EVAN BRAINARD: Yeah, we had a lot of discussions over
what material to use.
We went back and forth between steel,
aluminum...
we even entertained composites.
Meaning fiberglass carbon fiber sections.
And it wasn't until this gentleman stepped into the conversation,
who was Armando Gonzalez,
he was our welder at the time, great, union welder.
And Stan really just looked to him one day and said,
"Well, what happens from your end?"
"What happens if it breaks on set?"
And Armando basically said, "Well, if it was aluminum,
it would be a real pain the butt,
but if it was steel, I could get right in there and weld it up."
And that was the decision right then and there. Stan said, "Then steel it is."
TIM NORDELLA: And here I am
boring the holes right now for the pins.
It took a long time to do
and we used adjustable reamers
to get to the size we needed.
But this was the way we could control it
extremely well.
That was the motion base
for the character that they decided to put him on.
The motion base would give
the body character extremely wide
movements: tilting side to side,
raising up, tilting back.
They built a WALLY.
And the WALLY was a miniature of the motion base.
>>EVAN BRAINARD: This is a small scale mock-up
and this is a one-to-one
ratio from the input device to the hydraulic cylinders.
And an interesting side is the company that made this motion base for us,
made these motion bases for like F-16 Fighter
flight simulators,
and they had never had 'em wired
directly to a device quite like this. It was always joystick applications.
We took this down to their facility and showed them this,
and all of the people in the building were lined up around the building to
come up and try it.
>>TIM NORDELLA: At the controls behind it there
in the pink shirt is Craig Barr.
He was very instrumental in the electronics of this character.
Here we have him
on the floor right now
putting in all the pieces.
All the pieces had to be
done and finished and put on.
We didn't really have time to
take things off,
so our build was basically a final build.
And Stan was there all the time,
watching, asking questions, giving directions,
things that needed to be done,
or things that he wanted to see different, we accomplished for him.
>>RICHARD LANDON: And, talk about hands on.
I mean it's not a joke,
Stan was literally putting his hands on
multiple ton structures on a regular basis
saying, "It needs to move this far.
It needs to move this fast."
It was his guidance than engineered us to ninety inches per second at the tip of the nose.
That's an EXTREMELY aggressive motion profile.
>>TIM NORDELLA: There, at the bottom,
is Lloyd Ball,
he was our hydraulics technician.
Very instrumental in making this thing come alive.
To mount this thing
to the floor on the motion base,
they actually came in and cut concrete out.
About a ten foot by ten foot span,
and sunk anchors into the floor,
about five feet deep,
to hold the motion base and the weight of this character
and what is was going to do.