There are some very good reasons that Real Steel has won an Oscar nomination for its special effects, and when I got the chance to speak with John Rosengrant of Legacy Effects, the creators of the film's incredible, hydraulic on-set robots, I wanted to dive into the details.

Here is some of what John had to tell me about what makes the FX on this film so noteworthy:

The big, and small, advances of Real Steel
We?ve been building up. We take each project and we learn from it and improve on it. Some of the advances here on Real Steel were the fact that we?ve done hydraulically controlled characters before but they were very cumbersome and difficult to set-up. From the get-go on this we knew we?d have to be able to set one of these robots up in ten minutes real time on set and be able to pull it out of frame instantly. Nowadays on a movie set everything moves very quickly and there?s barely time for the CG guys to go in with their chrome balls to do a reference pass, so no one is going to wait forever to have some big elaborate robot set up. So we made what we call ?the stealth package,? a very portable, lightweight pump that we could move around on wheels, position and get set up on the control system very quickly.

Was there one grand invention on this film? No, it was all advancing and perfecting and pushing the envelope. There were other little technical things ? learning about new urethanes that are lightweight and still strong, how to get chrome paint to stick to them. It was the sum of a lot of small breakthroughs.

The other big thing is something that we?ve been working on for years, which is our digital pipeline for creating things. In other words, a lot of our sculptors that were traditional sculptors have learned a digital sculpting program and we?ve learned to increase the speed at which you can create really cool stuff by sculpting it digitally and rapid prototyping out these parts. Each robot consisted over three hundred different parts so it was good to be able to break all of these parts down. And simultaneously, while we?re sculpting and designing digitally, we?re also able to drop in all of your mechanics virtually. We get to test if the shells are clashing on the robots, and get all of our joints and pivots done before you even build anything for real. It saves you lots of time. There?s no cutting and retrofitting on the back end and it?s all been thought out so the mechanics and parts all just slot in and work in harmony with each other.

Giving Digital Domain a head start
The minute we had the 3D assets all built digitally we gave Digital Domain a great head start. We kicked over a hi-res model to them so that they can start work with it immediately and it?s going to be accurate because what we rapid prototyped out is what we?ve given them. And then, as soon as we got a part finished, they?d come out and photograph it, and photograph us assembling it, and the finish and the paint so we were in complete synchronicity all the way through on this film. It?s really due to wonderful planning from the start.

A great communicator is also a great facilitator
There was a family team atmosphere on this. Shawn, the director, is great to work with because he?s very concise and decisive. He was never ?Ahhh I don?t know? but more ?I like that? I don?t like that? I wish that was more like this.? Boom boom boom. A great communicator like that is also a great facilitator because when you get a concrete answer you can hang your hat on it and move forward. There are too many directors who don?t want to make the wrong choice or give you the ?wrong? answer and what that does is it waters things down, by their not being bold and decisive.

Touchy feely
We went in with a concise game plan of how to pull this off. One of the important things was the close-up interface between the young actor [Dakota Goyo] and also Hugh Jackman, so we knew we needed stunt versions of the hero puppets and what would be expected of those. We knew we had to pull off the quiet pieces, and then the most violent things, and the things that would be really hard to do in CG, like the scene with Atom in the mud, and where it?s being washed off of him. But this quiet performance of the boy and the robot would be most important so we knew we needed really good control. We had to make it so that whenever Dakota made his moves, we could have Atom make his moves in response, both quickly and precisely.

The Oscar nomination... and Legacy's next jobs
The recognition feels terrific. I felt really good about what we did in the movie and it was a terrific experience working on it ? in fact, it was pretty painless as far as a big FX film goes. To have this nomination makes it just that bit more special. I have to thank a great crew here at Legacy. They worked so hard and tirelessly to make it happen. One of my guys, Jason Matthews, who became Atom on set. And Shawn of course, and all of the filmmakers. And a big nod to my mentor Stan Winston who put me in a place to even have this opportunity. We?re carrying on his legacy here, that?s the big idea.

Legacy are working now on Pacific Rim and we?re going to take on Iron Man 3 and continue our relationship with that movie. There?s also a couple more prospects that I?m not allowed to talk about just yet, but I have my fingers crossed that I get at least one of those two.

My fingers are crossed too.

Real Steel is available on DVD and Blu-ray in the US right now, and in the UK from February 20th.