Hummer Launch Tunnel
This was another miniature designed and constructed by me and Adam Grace. It was built in much the same way as the underground hangar and using the same materials.
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The practical lighting was slightly different in that it used small 240 volt fluorescent fixtures. These small tubes were made to look even smaller by wrapping a piece of black camera tape around their middles making one light look like two. Down the centre of the runway embedded flush into a channel was some commercial building installation lighting, again of the 24volt variety. This had 4 separate lighting strings in it so you could make the lights chase each other though I don't think we used that feature in the show.
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| Photo Credit Corrie Ancone. |
At the starting end of the tunnel was a exhaust fan detail piece that was part of the Total Recall miniatures haul as was the roof piece over the rotating beacon. The rotating light consisted of an oval shaped mirror at 45 degrees which rotated on a large hollow bearing which was motorised. Through the middle of the bearing we shone a lamp gelled red which reflected off the rotating mirror and cast a rotating beam. Warren Beaton who ended up at the Weta workshop helped me engineer this.
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| Photo Credit Corrie Ancone. |
The same Linear bearing tracks were installed so the Hummers could travel down the length. A special carriage was built for the camera so it could also travel down the track following or ahead of the Hummers. Everything was towed by an endless loop cable in each track. It was
powered by a motorised shaft at the far end that had a variable speed
drive.
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| Frame Grab from the making of video showing the motorised cable shaft. |
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| Frame Grabs from the making of video showing the camera on its carriage. You can see an Everready Dolphin torch either side of the camera providing some fill light as the carriage travels along the track. |
The camera and Hummers did not have to travel fast down the track as the camera could slightly undercrank to make it seem faster. As the linear bearings ran so smoothly it didn't require high speed shooting. This also meant that longer exposures could be used and extra lighting was minimal.
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| Frame Grab from the making of video. |
Two special Hummer models were constructed that had gas flame jets coming out their engines. An aluminium casting of the hull was made and fitted internally with a small gas cylinder, burner nozzles and valves to control the flame, all put together by our Pyro and physical effects supervisor Alan Maxwell.
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| Photo Credit Corrie Ancone. |
The Hummer
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| The original Japanese designed Hummer aircraft design. I do not know who the designer was. |
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| The three view of the original Japanese designed Hummer. Note it was called the Ichthyonis on this drawing. |
The Hummer aircraft was designed by a Japanese concept artist and I thought it was a pretty cool design. Unfortunately the large curved bulbous canopy proved too much for the live action unit to cope with when building a full size set so we were asked to re-design it with a more enclosed cockpit. A few of us had a go at it and David Tremont's version was preferred by the producers and the Japanese Effects overseer Mr Koichi Takano. You can see my rejected re-design attempt below.
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| My (rejected) re-design concept art based on the original Japanese design. |
As I recall, since David Tremont ended up re-designing it he was assigned to build all the models of it. There were two sizes, the larger 1/48 scale one seen in the UMA base hangar photos and a smaller one, probably half the size, used for distant shots. The larger Hummer models were 370mm long 300mm wide and about 130mm high.
The four photos above are courtesy Norman Yeend who was one of the monster puppet team on the show and still has an original Hummer model.
To be continued...
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