MovieChat Forums > Special and Visual Effects > Best use of miniatures?

Best use of miniatures?

posted 16 years ago by rnigma-1
7 replies | jump to latest

When miniatures are used well, they are almost undetectable. The Republic studio was blessed with two of the best model-builders in Hollywood: Howard and Theodore Lydecker. The brothers built their miniatures relatively large (1/12 scale) and filmed them outdoors. Many climaxes for Republic serials depended on the spectacular destruction of a Lydecker miniature.
Some of their best work is in the dogfight sequences of "Flying Tigers," where very few scenes used real planes. The wires were painted sky blue. Many Air Corps officers were fooled - that's how good the model work was.
Compare the "Flying Tigers" dogfights to those in "God is My Co-pilot," where the miniatures were not as well-built or well-staged (and the corny dialogue between Dennis Morgan and his Japanese opponent did not help). It's said that Robert Scott, the real-life pilot portrayed by Morgan, was embarrassed by those scenes.

[–] DeepJedi 16 years ago

Republic? I thought I knew my cinema but this post I wouldn't have expected! I thought for a moment you had to be refering to the Star Wars films. Certainly you'll get a lot of nominations from more modern films.

Isn't it a shame though that when the miniatures are done masterfully, only the initiated few appreciate the work, but when they're done 'badly' (and it's not as if it's an easy job), the 'whole world' has a good laugh! Think of the submarines in war movies (water is notorious for not miniaturising well).

If you wanted a nomination for worst miniatures I'd plump for the rover in the cut scenes from the start of the extended version of Aliens. As soon as I set eyes on those shots, I knew why they'd been cut!

Oh, totally off the subject but this reminds me...in Goldeneye (James Bond), there's a shot of a superfast, black train (I think it's the first time it's seen) that looks exactly like a miniature except that when the camera pulls back and pans right, it's revealed to be real. It's not often you see such an unintentional effect.

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[–] ubcool 16 years ago

the bridge blow up in true lies still looks good.
the town in dantes peak look great also
the exploding truck in terminator had me fooled right up untill i saw ho wit was done.

aliens has dated a bit but it also has some pretty damm good minature effects. so good in fact that i bet you dont even know youve seen them.

[–] jloper 16 years ago

Funny you should mention a World War II air combat movie. In the 1969 movie the Battle of Britain, there was some nice model work of the Ju-87 Stuka attack on the radar stations. (There were no flyable, real Stukas.)

Another movie that deserves mention is the miniature work of New York City in Superman II, after all, that wasn't the real NYC that was getting trashed when Superman fought the three Phantom Zone criminals.

[–] user-18049 16 years ago

Im not sure if read your post right, so sorry if i didnt, but the truck flipping over really was done, though i can understand why people would think that it would be minitures.

Some lucky git was in one of the buildings filming it: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1cq6paj9RIE&NR=1

Also some of the scene on the underground streets does appear to be 'real':
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ElGRw182e4U&feature=related

[–] blippster 16 years ago

I would say The Lord of the Rings.

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[–] ryannaughton1138-1 16 years ago

One of my personal favorite examples is Howard Hawks's "Air Force". The final battle is a fantastic blend of model work, a set footage and stock footage Plus at times I couldn't tell what was stock footage and what was model work.

[–] Ddhandarah 16 years ago

I'm not sure about best usage, but some of my favorites:

Metropolis (1927) -- The cars on the overpasses, the planes flying around, and the city skyscrapers among other things.

Svengali (1931) -- there is a 1-2 minute sequence where the camera flies over the rooftops of Paris. It's obviously a miniature, but even so it's a pretty damn cool one, designed by Anton Grot who made some pretty kick-ass expressionist looking sets in the 20s and 30s.

Thief of Bagdad (1940) -- I'm not 100% sure on this one, but I'm pretty sure that the temple sequence was done on a bluescreen with a temple miniature. Some of it was matte painting, but I'm almost certain some of it was a temple miniature. I'll have to rewatch.