Behind The Scenes

Instinct - Making the Mountain Gorillas

Instinct - Creating some of the most realistic mountain gorillas in film history at Stan Winston Studio

October 8, 2018

Creating Realistic Gorillas for Instinct (1999)

Director Jon Turteltaub engaged Stan Winston Studio to create gorillas for his 1999 film, Instinct, which starred Anthony Hopkins as a renowned anthropologist who lives among a family of gorillas and is committed to a mental institution when he is caught attacking poachers. For Stan Winston Studio, Instinct was a chance to prove, once and for all, that the studio’s artists took a back seat to no one in their ability to create utterly believable gorillas.

Jump To Section

Stan Winston’s Commitment to Matching Reality on Instinct
Last Minute Gorilla Characters and Big Opportunities
Filming Real Gorillas in the Jungle for Instinct
Using Gorilla Performers
Combining Art and Technology for Instinct’s Lifelike Gorillas

(Joey Orosco sculpts gorilla musculature over a body cast of performer John Alexander for one of the gorilla suits the studio built for Instinct.)

Stan Winston’s Commitment to Matching Reality on Instinct

The gorilla family originally included a silverback, a young black-back male, and three females — all of which would be realized by performers in suits and animatronic heads — as well as an infant, which would be built as a puppet. Prior to starting the design and build for Instinct, Winston joined Turteltaub and the film’s producers on a trip to Uganda to see real mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. Winston returned with videotaped footage of the gorillas, which his artists and technicians used as a bible in creating their characters.

(Richie Alonzo’s fully mechanized female gorilla roar head.)

“This time, unlike on Congo, we weren’t going to take any artistic license with these gorillas,” said Winston. “This was going to be art replicating life. It was very important to me to pick up on every subtle nuance of the mountain gorillas as I saw them in Uganda.” Winston’s commitment to verisimilitude extended to gorilla performance, as well. When performers were cast, Winston and Peter Elliott — the same behaviorist he had worked with on Congo and other films — had them carefully study and re-create the gorilla behaviors exhibited in the video footage.

(Stan Winston and Beth Hathaway fit spandex over the neck of Greg Figiel’s male silverback gorilla.)

Last Minute Gorilla Characters and Big Opportunities

As shooting neared, the filmmakers decided to add a toddler to the gorilla family. With the studio’s key sculptors already at work on their individual characters, relative newcomer Jason Matthews took his shot at making the toddler gorilla his own. “I’d always loved chimps and gorillas,” Matthews said. “So when I heard this toddler had been added, I really wanted to do it. I set up a meeting with Stan and made my case. I told him that I was passionate about doing this toddler gorilla. Stan understands having passion for something; and so he gave me the character — but he was very diplomatic in the way he did it. “The next day, when we were all gathered in the sculpting department, he said: ‘Okay, there’s this new character that’s been added. Who should do it?’ And he kind of gave me a private wink. Then he said, ‘Jason, how about if you do this toddler gorilla?’ And I played along with him. ‘Oh, that’d be great, Stan, thanks.’ He didn’t let on that I’d been up in his office the day before, campaigning to get this character, which was really cool of him. So I got to do that gorilla toddler — and to this day, I am as proud of that as anything I’ve done at the studio.”

(Jason Matthews details his toddler gorilla sculpture.)

Filming Real Gorillas in the Jungle for Instinct

Once on location in Jamaica, the Winston crew, Turteltaub, and director of photography Philippe Rousselot were all like-minded in their commitment to shooting the gorillas just as they would appear in a National Geographic documentary — camera-shy and hidden among the foliage. “As we’d learned in Uganda,” Winston said, “the way you see gorillas in the wild is that you hardly see them! We also saw that gorillas don’t really move very much, and that’s how we shot them for the movie. I give Jon a lot of credit for shooting our gorillas in such a naturalistic way for Instinct.”

(The family of gorillas, on location in Jamaica.)

Using Gorilla Performers

The gorilla performers included John Alexander — who had portrayed ‘Digit’ in Gorillas in the Mist — as the lead silverback, and the diminutive
Verne Troyer as the gorilla toddler. Troyer, a relative unknown at the time, would later gain celebrity as ‘Mini-Me’ in Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).

(Performers David St. Pierre, Verne Troyer, and John Cameron in between takes during a rehearsal shoot in Los Angeles.)

“Because Verne was so small,” recalled Jason Matthews, “I would actually carry him on my shoulders through the jungle where we were shooting. We could just step over a ten-inch root on the ground, but that was a big deal for Verne. I spent most of my time on that shoot taking care of Verne and puppeteering the toddler gorilla head.”

Combining Art and Technology for Instinct’s Lifelike Gorillas

The Winston gorillas in Instinct were so authentic, few people viewing the film ever realized that the animals were not real. “One of the greatest compliments I got from a friend,” said Paul Mejias, “was when he said: ‘I saw Instinct. Which were the real gorillas and which were yours?’ That said it all.”

(The male silverback gorilla sculpted by Greg Figiel.)

(Kirk Skodis (left), Lynne Watson (behind), and Richie Alonzo (right) assist performer Jay Caputo as he dons the female gorilla suit.)

(Winston with Joey Orosco’s silverback gorilla during a test shoot in Los Angeles.)

“The combination of the art and technology that went into our gorilla heads and suits,” added Winston, “the gorilla performances of the actors in those suits, and the fact that they were shot in a natural environment resulted in some of the best gorilla work I’ve ever seen. We’d had to go through a learning curve on Congo. But with Instinct, we nailed it.”

-Jody Duncan

Excerpted from THE WINSTON EFFECT: THE ART AND HISTORY OF STAN WINSTON STUDIO

Courses with the Creators of Instinct

More Gorilla and Ape Stuff at Stan Winston School: