Paul Taglianetti is a film producer, photographer, and writer who has worked on many iconic films as visual effects producer and coordinator. He currently teaches digital media at Mission San Jose in Fremont, CA — one of the most prestigious highsSchools in California, with previous film classes held at Quinnipiac University and Idyllwild Arts Academy.

We recently had a conversation about Relic — which he worked on as visual effects coordinator at VIFX — and he kindly provided some previously unpublished behind-the-scenes photos from the movie, which you can see below.

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Paul said: “what you’re looking at with these photos are sculpts provided to VIFX (video Image) of parts of the Kothoga from Winston Studio. I believe this is the claw from the front leg. You’ll notice the string we used to “grid” the shape so it could be digitized. We used this technique to make sure the CGI model matched the full scale puppet built by Winston.”

He also gave me these wondrous pictures of the completed Kothoga suit during production:

Special Thanks to Paul Taglianetti for providing this invaluable material! Be sure to check out his Facebook page where he posts about the filmmaking craft and his past career.

Also check out my original article about the Kothoga and Monster Gallery.