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The Ultraman production purchased a collection of miniature buildings that were originally made for an unfinished version of Total Recall being made in Australia in 1987.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.