If you are making a movie, and you need special props and effects, you call New Zealand-based Weta Workshops. And when Weta wants to make specialty props, they use 3D printing.
The studio makes armor, costumes, vehicles, and pretty much everything else you can think of. Weta worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and recently worked on the upcoming Hobbit films. They used 3D printing extensivly to build props, including swords and spears used in the film. In the above video, make sure to check out the huge robotic arm they are working on turning into a massive 3D printer.
This summer’s stop motion animation film ParaNorman also made news for using 3D printers. Animation studio Laika used 3D printers to create faces used in the film, which were printed in full color on a 3D Systems ZPrinter 650. Using the technology allowed the studio to have 1.5 million unique facial expressions for the main character. For comparison, in Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington had only 800 possible expressions.
Via: WebProNews and engadget
See my post in the Forums re the 3D printing of James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in the new “Skyfall” movie: http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=11539&start=0&
Movie prop-making and 3D printing would seem to go hand-in-hand…
Well… Talking about 3D printing I can say that this is the best innovation for now. Because it opens wider opportunities to all of us. Now 3D printing is maybe costing much, but in the future, after about 3-4 years when this thing will be available for everyone I think people will no go to fix theirs broken things but they will create another one.
The side that everyone can use different material to print model shows us that it is really universal thing. If we now can create real guns just from weapons 3D model, that sometime ago was 2D model.. to cookies for a christmas..or clothes..