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The challenge from Columbia Pictures: build monster size anacondas that slither, coil and
strike like the real thing. We came up with a 40-foot, 5500 lb. beast that contained
60 individually controlled vertebrae and over 40 miles of wire. It was powered by
over 70 microprocessors and a 5,000 psi hydraulic system.
What others say about our work on Anaconda:
 | "As soon as we saw his creations and began to talk with Walt, we knew we had
found our guy. He is a phenomenal engineer and creator and, really, the only one
capable of doing this." -- Susan Ruskin, Producer |
| "A spectacle like this lives and dies on the creature. And here,
'Anaconda' belts one out of the park. The state-of-the-art mix of computer graphics
from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Walter Conti's animatronic effects have created a real
creepy crawler." -- David Goodman, Associated Press |
| "Its snakes are thoroughly satisfying. There are utterly convincing
close-ups of an anaconda's head, its bright eyes glistening, its mouth gaping open to
reveal fangs, its skin glistening with a terrible beauty." -- Roger
Ebert |
| "They've created an incredible creature. It was scary being in
the scene with it, I'd begin to believe it could actually kill me. It looked so real and
sometimes it seemed to move by itself. It was hard to believe it wasn't alive, it moved so
realistically." -- Jennifer
Lopez |
| "The term ' special effect' seems completely inadequate in describing the
magnitude of the engineering work involved. As possibly some of the most complex
robots ever designed, the snakes are no more a 'special effect' than the Taj Mahal is a
building" -- Design News |
| "As moviegoers will attest, the two multimillion-dollar anacondas that Conti's
firm delivered, a 40-footer and another 25 feet long, are plenty convincing. The
circuitry needed to run the snakes looks like something out of NASA; dozens of
200-megahertz microprocessors and some 40 miles of wiring ... beware the hissing --
hydraulic -- maw of death." -- Fortune
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