Help w programming electronics for diorama project

I am planning to create my animatronic chatacter show that will have 6 full size characters. Their mechs will be a blend of steel metal parts, 3D printed plastic parts, and fiberglas shells. Their movements will be all pneumatic cylinder relays since they're heavily inspired by Chuck E. Cheese animatronics from the 1980's & 90's. And I am planning to use Arduino encoding (Manchester?) to program the animatronics, props, sliding curtain motor relays, and stage lighting fixtures using midi piano keyboard, and in sync w digital mp4 video files on microSD memory cards (or USB thumb drives?) playing the CyberStar video files since the Sprite media players (from Fright Props) easily support Arduino, and its amazing idea for my DIY animatronic show project for my home arcade someday.