Ultraman Towards the Future AKA Ultraman Great part 7

In this part of the story we have various miniature set pieces built to depict the Island home of UMA used across a number of episodes of Ultraman Towards the Future AKA Ultraman Great, Sydney Australia 1989.

 

This was the cliff miniature used to show the Hummer flying vehicles exiting their launch tunnel. Made by Tony Lees.

 

The clouds were lumps of dacron fibrefill perched on some fishing line strung up.

 

A small scale model was built for the wide shots of the island. The sea is some crinkled up clear plastic. In the end I think this was replaced by a digital video composite using a still photo of the real sea in the episodes which frankly in my opinion looked a lot worse.

The photo below shows the first attempt at the sky scenic art which was done by a very junior artist at the time and the cloud perspective is all funky. The photo above shows the second improved version.

 

 The creature Barrangas appears on UMA island in a plume of red smoke.

 

The creature puppet Barrangas, like all the others on the show was fabricated by a team consisting of Steve Roswell, Vicki Kite, Graham Binding, Norman Yeend and Warren Beaton.

 

 

These mountains were shuffled around and re-configured for various shots and re-used in a couple of episodes.

 

Warren Beaton out in the carpark painting the rocks and adding some "growies" for the large close up mountain set pieces. The rock formations were based on the Blue Mountains an area west of Sydney.

 

Tony Lees adding finishing touches to one of his rock creations.

 

Here is the setup for a different episode that features a flying UFO/Crab creature called UF-O. The boom arm used for controlling flying models was a modified television mircophone boom. Martin Williams (left) on the boom with Steve Newman DOP (right) and Jaime Crooks the AD.

 

UF-O had a number of forms, this being the more crab like incarnation.

 

He was also represented in a more flying saucer configuration with this small model.

Flying on wires from the end of the boom.

 

 

 

No sets were immune from the ravages of Pyro.

 

 

 

Some spectacular bangs with some nice tendrils branching off.
Pyro by Alan Maxwell and Judy Dabbs.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

More to come...

 

Ultraman Towards the Future Part 6

For one episode of Ultraman we needed some defensive hidden gun emplacements on UMA island. 

The picture below shows setting up for a shot with one of the gun emplacements. There was a single and a double gun set up that was hidden behind secret panels that opened up in the rock cliffs.

 

All the rock miniature set components for the show were carved by Tony Lees out of big chunks of polystyrene foam.  At the end of a work day he always ended up looking like the abominable snowman.

Fine foliage was shredded foam like that used used in cushions and pillows. It was shredded in old kitchen blenders, then soaked in green water based paint and dried.

  

Here I am working on the off camera side of the double gun section. The guns were made from components originally molded and cast for the aborted Total recall movie in 1987. These urethane resin castings were rocket launchers to go on the radio controlled vehicles they were building for a chase scene on mars. Unfortunately the film was cancelled before the vehicles were completed. 

I think the bases they sat on were also from this source but with extra detailing added.

 

Both guns could elevate and rotate in sync using a rod and tube, all moved by hand using the central wooden handle. The rock wall would hinge back and then slide up by pulling on the cord which goes over a pulley at the top thus revealing the hidden guns .

 

The guns were rigged to fire a tracer squib from each of the eight barrels. Each barrel had a brass tube cast inside it. All the pyro was done by Alan Maxwell and Judy Dabbs.

 

A third location for a gun was a ground based one that rose up through a round trap door that popped up and spread apart into two halves. The gun was mounted on a teeter totter parallelogram rig to raise it up and down by hand. Tony Lees (top right) is adding more foliage to the rock ledges.

 

 

The larger close up trees and bushes used predominantly plastic foliage. We purchased a stack of it choosing the types that had the smallest leaf shape available.

 

 

We also used a wispy natural dried foliage that was dyed green. The dye easily came off on your hands whenever you handled it.

 

 

Tony Lees is adding more foliage to the set. In this case he is more a green fingers than a green thumb. You can see the trap doors for the ground gun not quite in the closed position.

 

Photos are all by the model unit photographer Corrie Ancone.

Ultraman Towards the Future AKA Ultraman Great part 5

The Ultraman production purchased a collection of miniature buildings that were originally made for an unfinished version of Total Recall being made in Australia in 1987. The original miniatures supervisor for the 1987 Total Recall was Gene Rizzardi.

The miniatures had been stored in a shipping container outside in a paddock in Western Sydney for about two years. When we opened the shipping container we were hit with a wall of toxic fumes. We decided to wait with the doors fully open for about half an hour to get some fresh air to circulate before venturing inside to inspect the contents. The summer heat and winter cold had resulted in a expansion and contraction of all the glued joints of the model buildings and almost all of them were literally coming apart at the seams. They were chiefly made of acrylic (perspex) sheet that was just cemented together with very little structural reinforcement.

I gather when they were originally built they were made to be placed in a specific position in a miniature street set and not be moved again until they were finished shooting. The requirements for the Ultraman production would be that they were constantly shuffled around for different shots and stacked on top of each other to make different configurations. This meant that some sturdy timber reinforcement was required.

One of my tasks on Ultraman was to reassemble, repair and re-inforce all the buildings which occupied me for a some weeks.

 

 

The original miniatures were all made to depict a specific street in New York, namely Park Avenue. Here I am working on what used to be known as the Pan Am building  which was to be positioned right at the far end of the street.

 

You can see the side of this building had started to come off and I am attempting to re-glue it. The rest of the model considering all the small details survived surprisingly intact.

 

The picture below shows one of the buildings being used for a shattering window effect. Assistant director Jamie Crooks (left), Adam Grace (rear), Camera assistant Joanne Parker and D.O.P. Steve Newman setting up the shot.
The camera on the left of frame was an Arri SR a 16mm camera capable of 250 frames per second, a real workhorse and totally reliable. Jo the Camera assistant is hunched over the other 16mm camera we used, a Photosonics actionmaster capable of 500 frames per second. Unfortunately not so reliable and prone to jamming, but miniature explosions at 500 fps are gorgeous. 

 

 A tiny air cannon was placed behind the window which blew out a thin piece of breakaway glass with extra debris piled up inside.

 

Here I am modifying one of the buildings for the first test of the breakaway glass and pyro explosion effect. Pre-damaged floors were added in and the facade was cut away to be replaced with breakaway glass and pre-painted strips to match the existing window frames.

The test was a deemed a success and the resulting footage was used in an episode.

 

The buildings were endlessly moved about and re-configured for different shots needing a city environment. The foreground cars were 1/24 scale plastic model kits.

 

 

The creature has a 1/24 scale car kit in its mouth which gets tossed aside and in a separate close up a 1/16 scale car hits the ground and explodes.

 

 

David Tremont is prepping another building for a pyro effect. We would have to chip off the existing detailing and cut away the perspex "glass" where we wanted the damage to appear. Sections of breakaway glass were carefully reinserted  and glued into the hole then strips of pre painted styrene to match the rest of the window mullions were lightly superglued back into position.

 

 

 

Judy Dabbs the Special Effects assistant towering over the architecture with two of the small Hummers on wires hung from a boom arm.

 

 

 

This a shot of the buildings as they were originally intended. This is the Park Avenue miniature set as it was built in 1987 for the aborted Total Recall movie that was going to star Patrick Swayze. The photos are courtesy of Adam Grace who although didn't contribute to this street set, worked on other miniatures for the unfinished production.

It was all built to be used with the Introvision system which was a front projection, in camera, compositing system that could place live action into a miniature scene using hold out mattes.

 

They had also built vehicles that used Tamiya Tamtech 1/24 scale radio controlled chassis that could drive down the street. I purchased one of them when the production had a big firesale upon winding up. I also got some other RC vehicles which were based on a modified Thunder Tiger Silver Fox chassis with Marui Big Bear Tyres on custom CNC aluminium wheels. I also picked up a Tamiya 1/16 scale RC Leopard tank chassis.
Unfortunately I dont have any of this haul any more except for a NorthWest Short Line Chopper, a tool I still use for cutting up Evergreen styrene strips.

 

The buildings were 1/24 scale at the front and tapered back to 1/100 scale in the very back to make the street look longer than it actually was.

The painters on the original miniatures crew did a pretty incredible job on these buildings.

 

 

I did not work on this show myself although I did have an interview with John Stears who was the visual Effects supervisor at the beginning of the production. John Stears was replaced quite early in the production and for whatever reason the three of us who went for an interview on the same day never got a call back.

 

Its a shame this version of the movie never got completed as there was even going to be a radio controlled vehicle car chase on the surface of mars all done with miniatures. That's something I would like to have seen.

 

Thanks for looking.