This is another miniature set that Adam Grace and I put together for an episode of Ultraman Towards the Future in 1989. It was a resort hotel situated by the beach which comes under attack by a creature called Gerukadon. The monster puppet was styled on a frill necked lizard. It was cable controlled and supported on a steel pole which was masked by the creature's tail. It was outfitted with a flame thrower device so it could breath fire which gets quite a work out in the sequence.
The two main towers of the building came from the aborted Total Recall movie that was being made in Australia in 1987. That movie was shut down due to the 1987 stock market crash. The surrounding buildings were originally built for a television commercial by David Tremont Adam Grace and me. These buildings along with the aborted Total Recall buildings were purchased by the Ultraman production which helped stretch the miniatures budget considerably.
The picture below shows me painting the edge of the rostrums black to disguise the gap between the buildings and the foreground beach. The beach itself was just fine white sand with a sheet of thin reflective mylar as the water. The mylar was gently rippled by some fans to impart some movement.
Below Adam Grace is airbrushing some silhouettes on the backlit windows to help break up the solid white and make it look like there is an interior. The cars on the set were a pile of 1/32 diecast toys we painted up and weathered. They were used over and over in various city settings for long shots and in the background. We also made up a number of 1/24 scale plastic model car kits for closer shots. The 24 volt figure 8 lighting can be seen re-used here as street lights mounted on poles as well as the 12 volt Phillips halogen bayonet mount spotlights.
The Palm trees were model rail kits with acid etched brass palm fronds.
This scene also had a very nice scenic art sunset sky backing. Unfortunately I don't know the scenic artist's name.
The tops of the towers were built with sections of breakaway glass. This was a brittle plastic material that came as pellets and was melted in an oven to make flat sheets. We then superglued pre-painted plastic strips on top for all the window mullions. Behind the breakaway facade was a structure already warped, damaged and painted to look burnt which would be revealed through the explosions.
The spectacular pyrotechnic effects were handled by Alan Maxwell and his assistant Judy Dabbs.
The
amount of black smoke produced from the pyro was pretty severe from a
health point of view. The studio roller doors would be opened up and a
couple of large air movers employed to try and get rid of all the nasty
fine carbon particles hanging in the air.
The picture below shows the back of the tower miniatures with the pre-destroyed structure in place. You can also see the pyro "bombs" rigged in position and all the wiring for the various charges.
The puppets for the show were made by the puppet crew consisting of Steve Roswell, Vicki Kite, Graham Binding, Norman Yeend and Warren Beaton.
Here the puppet is positioned on one of the buildings for a different scene. The sky background here has been painted with dark foreboding clouds.
Another building is attacked.
For a few shots a "little Jimmy" figure was mounted to be riding on the creatures back. It was made from a modified bendy toy.
The Gerukadon creature was designed with four limbs in a four arms type of confuguration. The director asked for some back legs to be added so it became a 6 limbed creature.
Thanks for looking.
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