How the giant spider was brought to life in Sting

So when it came to crafting a terrifying giant spider for new horror film Sting, writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner was delighted to be able to turn to Taylor for assistance.

And as it happened, his initially instructions were relatively straightforward. Read on to find out how the giant spider in Sting was made.

What is the giant spider in Sting based on?

"It was pretty simple, because the thing I'm scared of exists in nature," he explained to RadioTimes.com during an exclusive interview.

"So my first conversations with Richard were: 'Look, let's not redesign it, let's just give them a spider because what I'm scared of is a spider. So all we had to do was pick the design."

Eventually, Roache-Turner decided that the particular real-world spider he wanted to form the basis for Sting's design was the Australian redback, an arachnid that he is especially scared of, which he describes as "less furry than a tarantula."

"It's more reflective, black – you know, more similar to, like, the Xenomorph in the Alien movies," he said, before going on to explain that the most vital thing was that the creature did not simply exist digitally.

"The thing I wanted more than anything – the whole reason why we approached Richard and the Wētā Workshop team – was because I wanted it to be practical," he explained.

"I didn't want a sort of digital spider running around killing people, you know? We did use a little bit of digital, but only when we absolutely had to in wide shots.

"To me, horror is a textural medium, I'm trying to convince an audience that what they're seeing is real. And the easiest way to do that is to build a real spider, and shoot it.

"And so I wanted a spider that had a mouth that could open and spit venom, and I wanted the legs to be able to paw at the actors and actually grab them. Because, to me, all the best horror films ever were the brilliant practical films, like John Carpenter's The Thing, or The Exorcist or Spielberg's Jaws.

"These are all real creatures that are actually being photographed and interacting with with real actors. And, I mean, Richard is one of the great masters of that, and to be able to work with him on this was one of the best things that ever happened to me, I think, professionally."

How the giant spider was brought to life in Sting

For Taylor, the process of creating Sting was a chance to experiment with some relatively new techniques involving 3D printing.

He and the Wētā team have been using 3D printers for a long time – indeed, they bought the first commercial 3D printer on the market shortly after finishing work on the Lord of the Rings films 20 years ago – but this film allowed them to do things they'd never done before.

"We've now got, I don't know, 35 to 38 3D printers printing all types of different materials from flexible to rigid, clear to coloured," he said of the workshop's capabilities. "We even print hyper-realistic human eyeballs on 3D printers!

"But in the case of this character, it is an animatronic puppet. So it needs unbelievably resilient mechanisms within it, knowing the punishment that the puppet would have to go through because it is a creature feature - therefore, the puppet is attacking the actors and the actors are defending themselves against the puppet.

"So, we're working with complex carbon-filled nylons for the joints, we're working with highly reflective 3D printed materials for the limbs, and then flexible 3D printing for certain areas."

He added: "We utilise 3D printing predominantly because of the short timeframe that we had to work in. And the necessity of such a very complex set of working mechanisms – motors, electronics inside the puppet. We also wanted to be able to pump venom through the fangs, spit venom through the back of the mouth.

"So we were able to incorporate all of the piping systems integrally actually into the 3D printing, which is something that we've never done before.

"But Kiah was up for it, right, he was up for us trying these techniques on his film, and letting us have free rein around that with a very, very concise brief. So, it made for the perfect formula for doing a lower budget little horror, with something quite exciting and new."

When it came to actually directing the puppet on set, this was a new experience for Roache-Turner. He explained that while he's previously made films involving zombies and demons, that tended to be very different, because in most cases it was just one person wearing prosthetics and extended legs.

"A puppet is difficult, because it's not one person," he said. "It's actually about five, really, when you really come down to it – you know, it's a bunch of people doing the legs, there's somebody thrusting it back and forward and making it move. And then you've got somebody on the controller, doing the mandibles and the mouth and the venom squirting out of the mouth.

"And so you've got to be able to direct a bunch of people at the same time, all moving in the same direction to create the effect of this creature moving. But if you're gonna do it, you want to get Wētā Workshop to create your puppet. I just didn't have any problems!"

Part of the reason there were so few problems was because, although they had relatively little time to shoot the scenes, Roach-Turner and Taylor had both done a huge amount of preparation work in advance of filming.

"It's actually kind of interesting, on this one we did a process that I'd never done on any films before, where I boarded out very specifically what I wanted the puppet to do," the director said.

"And I would send those boards to Richard and Wētā Workshop. And I'd go, 'Look, this is what I'm trying to do.' And they did a thing that I've never seen a company do before where they got the puppet, and they recreated my boards with the puppet - like, every single board - and they said, 'This is how it looks. And this is how you do it. And this was what you need to get the puppeteers to do.'

"And so, what I found with this one was that anything that Wētā Workshop had done was, like, easily doable, I could do that in 30 to 45 minutes, it was so easy. And anytime I tried to improvise or like make up stuff, it was like, I don't know how to do it.

"So it's that kind of specificity of planning that is so important when you're dealing with something like this. You know, if somebody else can do it, then you can do it really quickly on set. And that was a great process."

Sting is now showing in UK cinemas.

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