The Making of JAWS Pinball

Stern Pinball·video·10m 48s·analyzed·Jun 25, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

Keith Elwin's Jaws pinball uses innovative mechs, licensed audio, and themed storytelling to recreate the 1975 film.

Summary

Stern Pinball's official behind-the-scenes documentary on Jaws pinball design reveals Keith Elwin's approach to adapting the iconic 1975 film into a story-driven playfield experience. The video showcases major design achievements including a moving fin target with carbon fiber composite backing (claimed as first in pinball), an animatronic shark mech, upper Orca playfield, video modes with 3D effects, and custom Richard Dreyfuss callouts paired with original John Williams score. The team emphasizes recreating the film's '70s aesthetic, thematic progression from anticipation to confrontation, and Insider Connected online integration.

Key Claims

Carbon fiber backer on fin mech is the first composite part used in a pinball machine
high confidence · Designer explicitly states 'to my knowledge is the first composite part in a pinball machine' regarding carbon fiber backing for the moving fin target
Richard Dreyfuss recorded custom callouts and bought the designer donuts during California recording session
high confidence · Designer describes meeting Dreyfuss at recording studio and notes 'he bought me a bag of donuts' during the session
Accelerated wear testing on the fin mech ran for 6-7 months before sign-off
high confidence · Designer states 'we do a lot of testing on our products...that ultimately ran for about 6 to 7 months before we finally signed off'
Keith Elwin designed game with story structure mirroring movie narrative (anticipation then confrontation)
high confidence · Designer explains 'half of the game and half of the movie is the building of the idea that there's a shark under the water and then the other half of the game is that you're battling the shark'
Limited Edition includes interactive speaker ring lights that respond to gameplay events
high confidence · Designer describes 'speaker lights that are on the back panel' on LE version where 'the speaker rings will mimic what the LEDs are doing on the playfield'

Notable Quotes

“to my knowledge is the first composite part in a pinball machine”
Jaws designer (presumed Keith Elwin team member) @ ~5:45 — Claims industry-first technical achievement with carbon fiber fin mech backing
“half of the game and half of the movie is the building of the idea that there's a shark under the water and then the other half of the game is that you're battling the shark”
Designer @ ~9:30 — Articulates core design philosophy aligning playfield progression with film narrative structure
“he bought me a bag of donuts”
Designer (recording session with Richard Dreyfuss) @ ~3:10 — Personal anecdote from prominent actor interaction during voice recording
“it's a Keith game everything Keith touches is gold”
Secondary speaker (appears to be colleague) @ ~14:50 — Industry validation of Keith Elwin's reputation and track record
“you're going to feel like you're on the Orca and that you're hunting alongside Quint and if you're not quick you're going to get bit”
Designer @ ~15:20 — Describes intended immersive player experience and thematic engagement

Entities

Keith Elwinperson Richard Dreyfussperson John Williamsperson JawsgameStern PinballcompanyOrcaproductInsider Connectedproduct

Signals

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community_signal: Insider Connected online progression system (shark teeth collection, Bounty Hunter Rank minnow-to-great-white, unlockable great white 8-bit mode, social rank comparison) integrating competitive leaderboard infrastructure
high · Designer explains Insider Connected features including shark teeth redemption for challenge modes, rank advancement system with minnow/great-white progression, and social comparison functionality
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design_philosophy: Early shark mech iteration (open mouth scoop) abandoned because shark visibility was poor ('you could not tell...where's the shark'); redesigned with upward-moving carriage to bring shark closer and more prominently into player's view
high · Designer describes problem-solving: 'we built that mech but you couldn't see the shark at all you could not tell I'm trying to solve that big where's the shark it's coming at you it's in your face that necessitated building a mech that moved the shark up closer'
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design_philosophy: Upper playfield (Orca) deliberately designed with immediate exit from shots to prevent extended time at top; intentional flow design emphasizing quick routing back to main playfield rather than trapping players
medium · Designer describes Keith's layout philosophy: 'any shot you made successfully on this immediately took you off it you're not going to waste much time out there because every shot leads to a drain so it's part of the flow'
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design_philosophy: Narrative-driven design mapping film story structure (anticipation/threat phase followed by confrontation/battle phase) onto playfield progression and mode sequencing
high · Designer articulates 'half of the game and half of the movie is the building of the idea...then the other half of the game is that you're battling the shark' and describes this as intentional parallel to movie arc

Topics

Moving fin target mech design and carbon fiber innovationprimaryAnimatronic shark pop-up mechanism and design iterationprimaryLicensed audio (Richard Dreyfuss callouts, John Williams score)primaryUpper playfield (Orca) layout and shot design philosophyprimaryVideo mode development with 3D effect and retro aestheticprimaryInsider Connected online integration and progression systemssecondaryFilm-to-pinball narrative adaptation and thematic designsecondaryLimited Edition exclusive features (speaker ring lights)secondary

Sentiment

positive(0.92)— Consistently celebratory tone throughout; designers express pride in technical achievements, successful collaborations, and player reception at CES. No critical or negative commentary. Emphasis on innovation, craftsmanship, and thematic authenticity creates strong promotional narrative.

Transcript

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it's always fun to do a game based on you know a famous monster or creature so uh it was kind of right up my alley way everybody knows about Jaws I mean it's like the biggest Blockbuster ever I love the story of the movie it's really interesting so it's summer Amity Island 1974 Brody's first day on a job is Sheriff and you know everything's going normal then suddenly this dead woman shows up on the beach and it's a shark attack and that's basically where we're jumping into the movie to just you know kind of bring this world to life in the pinball machine Keith did most of the planning his idea was basically to make this more like a story where you're playing through the movie and you're seeing different parts of the movie as you're playing the modes it's pretty cohesive everything works together really well just it feels very Jaws anything in the game that looks photo realistic and like as if we're trying to match the realism in the movie we had to sort of make it look like a 70s movie so like the fish finder the behind the fin cam all of that stuff we had to put like a70s grain over everything to make it look like it belonged with Jaws the entire package has that campy 7s Jaws feel we got Richard dfus doing the call outs and the coolest part about that is he bought me a bag of donuts so I flew out to California to meet drus we met a recording studio and we changed lines back and forth and it was really cool working with them we got three barrels on it okay so we drink to our legs we were so fortunate to get Richard drus to do custom speech and we got the main theme song the original recording from John Williams and we were able to get another great track that we were able to cut up into two or three pieces to use in other parts really brings the game to to life and with authenticity because you're hearing the actual sounds from the movie a Shar fast fish this Shar swallow you home this game is kind of team elwin's latest attempt at taking some traditional pinball elements moving targets upper playfields kind of putting their own new unique spin on it my first thought was to put a moving fin Target in a machine so basically a moving drop Target that can move around and simulate jaw swimming under the water so this Mech presented sort of unique challenges right we needed a fin that can move you know across that Arc we needed a pop-up Target and then because of of that pop-up Target effect we actually needed to work on essentially shrinking the depth of a standard uh pinball standup Target so a couple iterations and we actually landed on this carbon fiber backer which to my knowledge is the first composite part in a pinball machine you know we do a lot of testing on our products putting them through accelerated wear testing that ultimately ran for about 6 to 7 months before we finally signed off and improved the mech for commercial e so hitting the fin has a lot of rewards which is good because it's such a dangerous shot so you got to the flippers into the fin and you know get it to drop which will uh bring the actual shark Mech out of the Playfield I feel like half of the game and half of the movie is the the building of the idea that there's a shark under the water and then the other half of the game is that you're battling the shark and that's exactly what Sheriff fro did in the movie yeah so the iconic scene of Jaws is the end of the movie the climax of the movie where Chief Brody's got his rifle and sharks coming at him in the water and it's the smell you son of boom right so that's kind of where Keith and I started right we need to give the player that experience The Logical pinball Mech to do that is a scoop right you need a an open mouth you need to shoot the pinball in there we built that Mech but you couldn't see the shark at all you could not tell I'm trying to solve that big where's the shark it's coming at you it's in your face that necessitated building a Mech that moved the shark up closer to the player more out of the Playfield more pronounced and then we did a bunch of iterations on the shark busting out from the bottom of a boat and that's where we landed on this guy there's a carriage that moves up and down on a DC motor with two switches and now because we're not shooting into the mouth we're shooting into the shark kind of his lower chin lines up with the play field so when the player interacts with it um there's a switch in here to detect hits pops up punch the shark goes back down into the Playfield that's kind of the progression that we decided on software controls everything in the game the shark coming up is a moment in the game but we add a light show we had sound effects we had call outs so you feel that excitement while playing shoot our boat in the middle of the Playfield was a kind of a Newton design that I tinkered with where you can shoot the ball from different angles and hit different targets in the back there's a scene in a movie where Ben Gardner's boat is just trashed and the shark had apparently been there so you're seeing it happened in the game and the sharks attacking the boat and when you do hit the ball you kind of see a little surprise is underneath the ball when you do hit it that is Ben Gardner's boat with his head bouncing around inside there hitting a bunch of things so basically you know you're setting sail you grab your Chum Bucket you're throwing the chum in the water and as you do each time you hit the bucket you're filling up the chum line so we wanted a way to keep track of how many Chum hits you needed to bring up the shark so we came up the chum meter which is just a series of LED lights and as you hit him it goes from this cool blue water effect to this Blood effect effect which is this cool little RGB effect we have in this giant insert it's a shark in the water we need the water to light up right and that tied in perfectly to the chumming rules progressing Chum blood through the water so here we have the upper play field it's basically the Giant toy if you will early in the conceptualization of this game the very first thing he laid out was Orca Playfield on the back left facing the player we entered the Orca from this little ramp over here you come down and kind of side lines through here to your flipper from here you have three shots the big thing Keith wanted when laying this out was any shot you made successfully on this immediately took you off it you're not going to waste much time out there because every shot leads to a drain so it's part of the flow it's part of the rules but you're not up there for 20 minutes at a time flailing away at something Keith was playing the game and realized hey if you hit the wave ramp into the upper Playfield hit the upper ramp there it will come down in such a way that you can quick shot the fin and we kept iterating and iterating and iterating and making that more and more fun you know we we have all these sonar effects these LIF Rings these fishing reels these ship wheel Spinners you know those are all round what if we lit up the speakers and tied them together the Le has these really cool speaker lights that are on the back panel so the speaker Rings will mimic what the LEDs are doing on the Playfield when you're doing the fish finder you're doing the sonar mode the lights on the speaker Rings actually kind of follow along with the game as you hit the Chum Bucket they gradually fill in red as more and more Chum enters the water they're very interactive and very cool if you are logged in inside or connected during the gameplay you can earn shark teeth you can redeem these shark teeth for a challenge mode earn a certain amount of shark jaws and you advance your Bounty Hunter Rank so this is your online rank you can compare your rank to your friends uh you start off as a minnow and you work your way all the way up to your great white you get enough of these shark teeth and it unlocks a special mode where you can actually play as the great white in kind of this 8bit world basically the tables have turned and you are the aggressor in the movie you see you know the kids on the beach playing this game called killer shark so I thought wow we got to do something very similar to that uh' be very cool to have a video mode I've never had one in any my games the video mode was one of the coolest things to work on in this game because it had like the r feel from the movie we made a prototype early on of the video mode that was basically just cut Sprites from the actual slide that was used in the' 70s and everyone loved it we we just couldn't stop playing it so we're like hey you know what we should take this a little bit further add levels to it and maybe we can even make it 3D because you know jaw 3D is one of the the movies in the quadrilogy setting up two cameras uh just at like slightly varying angles and then you tint one cyan one one red and offset them in the video and it ends up popping out you do not need a pair of 3D glasses to effectively play this game but it is super cool it was really awesome that Jaws was debuted at CES it looked like everyone was having a lot of fun I saw people start multiball I saw people laughing at some of the humor that we threw into the game I mean I think people are excited about Jaws because it's just always been considered one of the greatest movies ever and uh hopefully it'll be one of the greatest pinballs ever you're going to feel like you're on the Orca and that you're you're hunting alongside Quint and if you're not quick you're going to get bit first of all it's a Keith game everything Keith touches is gold and there's a shark that pops up out of the Playfield so yeah it's one of those just Timeless great themes that works well for pinball I think show the way home I'm TI I to so you want to know what it takes to make a pinball machine going to need a bigger cat file