John Nolan creates a giant animated robot head to promote new maker space

Date
22 January 2015

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John Nolan may have the coolest job title on earth, described as he is as “a designer and creator of robots.” An animatronics expert who’s worked on a whole heap of blockbusters (from Harry Potter and Hellboy to Where The Wild Things Are and Clash Of The Titans), John was the go-to guy when Poke and directorial team The Theory wanted to do something pretty special to promote Here East, a new maker space on the site of the Olympic Park in east London.

John created an eight-foot-high robot with a fully animated head to deliver “a chest-beating rallying call to makers and creatives everywhere.” The head took 12 weeks to develop and build, and includes 30 servo motors to give it as wide a range of facial expressions as possible. It took a 30-foot crane and a six tonne truck to get it into place on site for filming but all that effort was certainly worth it – the final piece includes no CGI and encapsulates the creative ambition Here East hopes will come to define it.

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John Nolan/Poke/The Theory: The Here East Vision

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John Nolan/Poke/The Theory: The Here East Vision

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John Nolan/Poke/The Theory: The Here East Vision

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John Nolan/Poke/The Theory: The Here East Vision

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John Nolan/Poke/The Theory: The Here East Vision

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About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

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