Ep 149 | Craig Caton-Largent — Jurassic Park Raptors, ET & Digital Domain

In this episode, I chat with creature effects artist, puppeteer and digital pioneer Craig Caton-Largent about a career that arguably traces the entire arc of modern visual effects — from foam latex and animatronics to motion control, performance capture and full CG animation.

Craig talks about growing up on a sheep and cattle ranch in Washington State, being captivated by the 1960s Batman TV show and then Planet of the Apes, and teaching himself prosthetics from Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook. After tracking down Dick Smith's address in Who's Who in America, he wrote a letter that led to a year of mentorship over cassette tapes and ultimately introductions to Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Tom Burman.

We get into his first job on Charles Band's Metal Storm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, working on the Olympic alien for the 1984 closing ceremonies, sculpting barnacles on Cocoon, building Spock's seamless silicone ears on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, undulating menacingly under shaving cream on Larry Cohen's The Stuff, and puppeteering Slimer's mouth on the original Ghostbusters. A big part of the conversation focuses on Jurassic Park, including the design evolution of the T-Rex, the helicopter convention moment that led to the McFadden motion base, the logistics of moving the full-size animatronic across the San Fernando Valley at night, and Craig's work as the Raptor puppeteer, including the now-legendary "head tilt" at the kitchen window that earned an on-set "It's like Alien, I love it" from Spielberg.

We also talk about Craig's twenty-year stint as the caretaker, or "doctor", to the original ET puppet, including the time the LAPD turned up at his garage door thinking he was running a crack lab while he was actually repainting ET.

Plus the story of how Stan Winston handing him a couple of SGI machines led, almost overnight, to him becoming one of the eight co-founders of Digital Domain alongside James Cameron and Scott Ross. Later in the conversation we move into Craig's animation career as a final layout artist and character TD at DreamWorks and Disney, with credits on Tangled, Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Turbo, and stories from working with Guillermo del Toro at DreamWorks. We finish on Craig's current role as Creative Director of the 3D Animation and Visual Effects department at the New York Film Academy in Burbank.

Topics covered

• Growing up on a Washington State ranch and falling in love with Planet of the Apes
• Famous Monsters of Filmland and Dick Smith's Monster Makeup Handbook
• Cold-writing to Dick Smith and a year of cassette-tape mentorship
• Arriving in Hollywood at the start of the "golden age" of effects
• First feature work on Metal Storm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
• The closing ceremonies of the 1984 LA Olympics and Ron Cobb's alien
• Sculpting barnacles and cocoons for Cocoon (1985)
• Seamless silicone Spock ears on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• The Stuff with Larry Cohen and "undulating menacingly"
• Puppeteering Slimer's mouth on Ghostbusters
• Designing the T-Rex around helicopter flight simulator technology
• Working with McFadden Simulation on the T-Rex motion base
• Moving the full-size T-Rex across the San Fernando Valley
• Building a 70lb Steadicam-rigged Raptor insert head for Jurassic Park
• Using parrots as reference for bird-like Raptor movement
• The kitchen porthole head tilt, and Spielberg's "It's like Alien" reaction
• Using Kermit the Frog's voice on set as the Raptor performer
• Twenty years as ET's "doctor", and the LAPD crack-lab incident
• ET's arm in a rifle case at JFK a week after 9/11
• Motion capture experiments and blood-spread effects on Interview with the Vampire
• A flying logo on an Amiga, and becoming a co-founder of Digital Domain
• Working with Stan Winston, James Cameron and Scott Ross
• Moving into animation: character rigging at Disney on Tangled
• Final layout and virtual camera work at DreamWorks on Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Turbo
• Lunches with Guillermo del Toro in the DreamWorks canteen
• Pre-vis on the Total Recall remake with Len Wiseman
• Teaching the next generation at the New York Film Academy, Burbank
• The unique "intergalactic award" Spielberg gave Craig for puppeteering ET

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