The Character Shop

5/2004

We've been busy! We just completed creating a beautiful Puma, Sheep, and Frog for a pair of European spots and award winning director Noam Murro. Noam had this to say about Rick and the TCS crew: "You ROCK!"; pics and details to come soon!...Meet Gus the Groundhog! TCS designed and created the newest spokesanimal for the Pennsylvania Lottery. Puppets mean Re$ult$! PA Lottery ticket sales shot up from $16 million a month to $22 million a months after Gus's debut! We've shot 3 spots with Gus, with more to come...Then there's Pedroso, Venezuela's most popular celebrity! A walking, talking, charming, Waldo®-powered Polar Bear, he's the living corporate logo for Venezuela's Empresas Polar.Polar Beer sales have also increased significantly since Pedroso's debut; we've shot 18 spots with him so far! ...Wrigley's Juicy Fruit ad features a TCS creation; a Pinata that comes to life!...A Singing Sturgeon for a New York Lottery spot...Animated, ambulatory doughnuts for International Delight coffee creamer...Grab that Eggo! A full sized French Toast costume for a pair of commercials for Eggo French Toaster Sticks!...TCS also did some subcontract work on "Aliens vs. Predator"...

6/2003

We're currently working on some character design for a Sony Film called "Racing Stripes". Have you seen our work for Orbitz? Both Creativity and Shoot Magazines gave us quite nice write-ups! A cool homage to those funky 60's marionettes shows...check 'em out!

Have you seen our Apple iMac ad?
The iMac in the store window that mimics a passerby was a rod &
animatronic puppet, built for Director Kinka Usher by TCS!

Charmingly rustic cuckoo clock figures come to life thanks to the fabulous art of rod puppetry, in one of a pair of spots for Mohawk Carpets for RSA-USA's director John Schwartzman.

We recently wrapped a 3 month long shoot on New Line's remake of "Willard", starring Crispin Glover. We created hundreds of realistic rat replicas for the film, including sophisticated animatronic versions of the hero rats Ben and Socrates, as well as other creature effects. Currently showing on TV are spots we've done for Jack in the Box, and a whole slew of new ads for Foster Farms, featuring the inimitable Imposter Chickens Tom and Bob!

We created the animatronic "psychedelic toad" for the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed Tim Allen-starrer "Big Trouble", coming soon on DVD.

Although we created him a while back, there's a new "Plato" page
that shows how we created the quirky blue alien character
for a slew of MTV commercials for client Sony!

Check it out!: This is as real as it gets! Kind of a nice human head replica on our Realistic Human Page...

We created a Rooster for California Cheese that wakes up a couple of cows a little too early! For independent film Producer/Director Regis Trigano, we created an authentic-looking tortoise for his filmed adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "Terrapin". We also did this Bud spot featuring a thirsty pair of tortoises !

So, what have you got for us?

The Character Shop is an award-winning special effects company that excels in animatronics, makeup effects, puppets, and robotics. We are well-known for our innovative, believable, dependable, and high quality work. We have worked on many feature films, including the releases Willard, Sweet Home Alabama, Dr. Dolittle 2, Dude, Where's my Car?, Mimic, Escape from L.A., Operation Dumbo Drop, Outbreak, Hook, and The Santa Clause. We've been profiled on national T.V. many times, making appearances on Letterman, Movie Magic, Entertainment Tonight, American Journal, Inside Edition, E!, and others.

We do quite a bit of commercial work, too! You know the Bud Frog spots with the frogs riding the gator, hijacking a speedboat, and getting stuck on the back of a truck? And the one where the anteater gets a Bud bottle stuck on his nose? We're the ones who created those puppets! And we're mighty proud of 'em, too! We are responsible for the sales of millions of dollars of product to consumers who have finally made the connection between frogs , anteaters , and beer!

We have created many characters for major clients' campaigns, including Honda, Texaco, Hostess, Foster Farms, Duracell, Miller Beer, AT&T, Coca-Cola, TV Guide, Heineken, and Budweiser.

You've probably seen our work many times, and may have been curious as to who created some of those characters and creatures. Maybe you're simply interested in how those darn special effects work. And maybe, just maybe, you're a producer who's technically savvy enough to cruise the Web, has a nice budget for his next big project, and wants the highest value possible while looking for that secret weapon: a facility that gives the same or better quality as the high-priced shops, but with faster delivery, better service, and a dramatic cost difference.