Sonny Tilders: Walking with Dinosaurs
Sonny Tilders is a leader in the field of animatronics engineering. As the founder and creative director of the Creature Technology Company – a finalist in this year’s Melbourne Awards – he designs and builds extraordinary creatures for theatrical productions. The most notable of these are the full-scale naturalistic dinosaurs for Walking with Dinosaurs – the Arena Spectacular, which has been touring the world.
3D design and construction was a theme for Sonny throughout his schooling and graphic design studies at Swinburne, where he took the opportunity to resolve design briefs by using models or paper construction.
“I‘ve always been enthralled by puppets,” he said. “In high school art classes I would sculpt characters from Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal. I think I enjoyed the illusion – the illusion of life as well as the different worlds you can create by using puppets.
“When you combine this with an interest in technology it makes animatronic puppetry a logical career choice. Mind you, at Mt Eliza High School, back in the early eighties I had no real concept that a career could ever be made of such a thing, least of all in this country.”
Sonny graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in graphic design in 1989. During his final year at Swinburne, he read about Mothers Art Productions, a company set up by a group of artists, sculptors and designers – including another Swinburne alumnus Shane Cargill – that made puppets, props, sets and models for film and TV.
“After graduation I spoke to Shane and asked if I could work for nothing for a week to gain some experience. I got nine years experience (and fortunately pay) before I set out on my own to seek more specialised work in animatronics.
“I wanted to do what Jim Henson had been doing in Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, creating incredibly sophisticated puppets that delivered that uncanny sense of life. It was only when I went out on my own and landed a job in Sydney on an obscure Sci Fi show called Farscape that I was able to pursue this ambition.“
The show was the flagship of the US Sci Fi Channel and was co-produced by the Jim Henson Company. Sonny’s work can also be seen in films such as Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars - The Revenge of the Sith and How to Train your Dragon and in the Australian theatrical touring productions of The Hobbit and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Sonny now heads one of the largest animatronics workshops in the world. His animatronic dinosaurs are currently featuring in Museum Victoria’s 600 Million Years: Victoria Evolves exhibition.
On 21 September 2010, along with general manger of the Creature Technology Company John Barcham, Sonny gave a presentation on the passion, creativity and hard work behind this leading animatronics business for the second annual Chancellor’s Lecture: “Walking with Dinosaurs – Inventing the Rules”.
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