Jim Henson's Creature Shop is a company founded in 1979 by puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, and Frank Oz.
It was originally created as a result of the observation that the team that had been put together for The Dark Crystal was extremely hard to recreate for Labyrinth, since the majority of the people employed on it had gone on to other projects - since they were only employed on a contract basis. This led Henson to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to create a company that would maintain a large team on a permanent basis so that the experience (and interpersonal relationships) would not be lost between each production.
The original workshop location was at Elstree Studios, but this was a fairly typical "production-specific" setup, used for Labyrinth, at the close of production, it was decided to move the workshop away from the studios. The location chosen was on Downshire Hill, Hampstead, London, which was, not coincidentally, the same street that Henson lived on.
This was in many ways a problematic location - Downshire Hill is full of very expensive houses, and some of the processes used at the creature shop (most notably the foam latex and mouldmaking) involved foul-smelling chemicals, so the group was under a lot of pressure to change locations. There were also commercial incentives to do so, since the Downshire Hill property was quite valuable.
Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines which seem animate rather than robotic. Animatronic creations include animals (including dinosaurs), plants and even mythical creatures. A robot designed to be a convincing imitation of a human is specifically known as an android.
Animatronics is mainly used in movie making, but also in theme parks and other forms of entertainment. Its main advantage over CGI and stop motion is that the simulated creature has a physical presence moving in front of the camera in real time. The technology behind animatronics has become more advanced and sophisticated over the years, making the puppets even more realistic and lifelike.
Animatronics is used in situations where a creature does not exist, the action is too risky or costly to use real actors or animals, or the action could never be obtained with a living person or animal. Animatronic systems can be implemented using both computer control and human control, including teleoperation.
