How the animatronics were brought to life in Five Nights at Freddy’s

We sat down with FNAF director Emma Tammi and lead designer Robert Bennett, who told us how they brought the animatronics at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to life on the big screen.

Five Nights at Freddy’s has scored a highly-anticipated film adaptation after nearly a decade running as an esteemed video game franchise.

The prominent horror games are best-known for their titular villain, Freddy Fazbear, as well as his crew of fellow animatronic animals who hound the protagonist — usually a security guard running the night shift at a kid-friendly pizzeria.

The games capitalize on the uncanny discomfort from our childhoods at joints like Chuck E. Cheese. Many of us have vaguely unpleasant memories of the animatronic rat and his buddies, who would occasionally take the stage to perform pre-programmed songs with jerky movements.

Since Freddy and the gang are huge parts of the FNAF series, it was imperative to get the murderous animatronics perfect for the film. We got to speak with director Emma Tammi and the man behind the mascots, Robert Bennett, about how they brought the creatures to life.

Robert Bennett reveals “biggest challenge” bringing FNAF animatronics to life

“I mean, anytime you take something from the digital world and bring it into the real world, there’s always room for interpretation,” Bennett told us. “But in this particular situation, we wanted it to be as true as we possibly could. It was definitely challenging, but I mean, that’s what we do. That’s what we live for.”

FNAF’s animatronics are huge, hulking mechanical beasts that, despite their apparent bulk, are capable of moving swiftly down hallways and eviscerating unsuspecting security guards.

When asked if the team endured any challenges translating the animatronics from the games to real life, Bennett said one of the biggest issues they faced was staying true to their designs while simultaneously allowing for certain movements and adjusting for suit actors in the film.

“I think taking a 3D object in a video game, and making it texturally right and look right in the shadows, which is a big part of it — making sure that they function correctly,” Bennett said. “There’s a lot of areas where we have to lengthen it, or shorten it to get the actor in, or to make it more comfortable for them. Even though you have to make those adjustments, you still have to stay true to the original shape. So I think that was the biggest challenge, overall, for each character.”

FNAF animatronics had multiple versions for the film

According to Tammi, the team didn’t feel intimidated by the large movements the characters make in the games. In fact, they were able to perform those actions in real life by creating several different versions of each mascot — be it a suit that would hold a performer, or a fully robotic version.

“We had so many different versions: suit performers and full animatronic versions,” Tammi explained. “Then sometimes it was a mixture of that, where there’d be a suit performer, but there’d also be animatronic arms. And, you know, it was a lot of mixing and matching, as you say. So that gave us a lot of flexibility and versatility in terms of exactly what moments we were trying to create and how to execute that. So actually, I don’t think there was anything that we didn’t feel like we could ultimately do.”

According to Bennett, Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were mainly performed by actors in a suit. However, the team also created animatronic versions of them to use in certain situations. However, for Foxy, the team decided to go fully animatronic — so when he needed to move around, Bennett claimed it took six performers to make him “come to life.”

“Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica were mainly suit performed, but we also had an animatronic version of them that we could switch from one to the other,” he told us. “So if the animatronic was just standing on the stage, not really moving, it could be the full animatronic. But then if it was Freddy lunging at somebody, you’d want the suit performer. Foxy was different, where we wanted to be able to see through all the decay and the holes. So we made him a full animatronic. And when he was up and going, it was six performers to make him come to life.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s is available to watch in cinemas on October 26 and can be streamed on Peacock.