Ultraman Towards the Future AKA Ultraman Great part 13

Quite a lot of the miniatures in Ultraman Towards the Future experienced some form of pyrotechnics or other as evidenced by previous posts. This is a selection of other things that went bang.

 

Here I am, hammer in hand, making a modification to a breakaway structure on top of one of the buildings originally made for the aborted 1987 Total Recall movie which the Ultraman production acquired.  Steve Newman the DOP is on the right and Paul Nicola visual effects supervisor looking through the second camera bottom left.

I added the small structure at the very top which was meant to be some sort of service equipment. It had a series of corrugated aluminium panels made from fin stock surrounding a small tank structure and random nurnies all lightly glued together to come apart easily on impact.

 

 

The action was as you see here a glancing blow from a UMA Hummer which was thrown off course due to the extreme halitosis effect of the monster.

On the off camera side of the building was an electronic motion sensor that triggered the pyro as the Hummer sailed past. The Pyro effect was by Alan Maxwell. I believe it was napthalene flakes added to the black powder that provided the red rolling fireball and oily black smoke.

 

In the pictures below you can see the motion sensor and its wiring taped to the right side of the building model. The cameras were placed on the left side of this photo.

 

This sequence featured another Total Recall building that was modified with a ground floor shop. Hanging above the shop-front awning was a large scale monster foot filled with lead weights. The ground floor shop and its contents were built by David Tremont. Scale is 1/24th.

 

The foot was dropped and the pyro ensues. In the rushes the next day, the footage from the Photosonics Actionmaster camera at 500 Frames per second was pretty spectacular. The miniature shop was filled with various tiny model furniture items and a table and chairs could be seen flying out the window towards camera through the fireball. You rarely get to see all that action in the episodes as the pyro shots in the show usually cut away quite quickly. In the shot as it appears in the episode, you do see the table starting to come out of the fireball but it cuts before you see a chair.

 

TThe picture below shows the aftermath. Paul Nicola the visual effects supervisor with yellow face shield is standing behind the Arri SRII along with Joanne Parker the camera assistant. The Photosonics Actionmaster camera is on the right. Alan Maxwell responsible for the pyro effects is behind the scaffold at the back.

Here, I am in the middle of assembling a 1/25 Italeri tanker truck plastic model kit that was later filled with a sequenced pyro effect for a shot of it exploding. It was a one take affair as there was no time for making another one. As it happened the Photosonics Actionmaster camera, which was the hero camera angle, jammed right on the cue to fire the pyro and we only got the shot from the alternative camera angle covered by the ultra reliable Arri SRII at 250 frames per second. A small joke in this photo is the little jimmy figure with his head in the vice. 

 Thanks for looking,

More soon.

Ultraman Towards the Future AKA Ultraman Great part 11

 Martian Landscape

The martian landscape was another set built by Tony Lees.

 

The Martian Lander spacecraft started as another one of my own personal spaceship projects which was donated to the production and completed by David Tremont with the addition of the communications pod and the final paint finish.

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This was my original Lander project in primer before it was modified for the Ultraman production. The engine nozzles were from a Revell 1/72 space shuttle kit. I was inspired by a mushroom shaped ship I saw in a small photo in an issue of Cinefantastique magazine.

 

 

David Tremont on the set with the completed lander- seemingly asleep.

The Goudis puppet in its original form made by the puppet crew Steve Roswell, Vicki Kite, Graham Binding, Norman Yeend and Warren Beaton. It was one of the puppet creatures that eventually got re-made as a man in a suit for a fight sequence with a man in a suit Ultraman.

The cable controlled Ultraman puppet built by Warren Beaton squares off against the puppet Goudis. It was a very hot summer during the shoot and to get the depth of field for the high frame rate shots they needed a lot of light. The sun light was provided by a large Dino light, nine globes in a panel that gave of a massive amount of heat raising the temperature of the sand on the set above 55 degrees celsius (131 farenheit). There were two portable air conditioners running that failed to make any dent in the temperature in the studio. Walking into the studio from the workshop was a real shock to the system.

Goudis and Ultraman with foreground left to right, Jaimie Crooks the First AD, Joanne Parker camera assistant, Paul Nichola Visual Effects supervisor, Steve Roswell and behind him Paul Moyes miniatures unit gaffer. The people in the background I am not sure about.

 

Paul Nichola the Miniature Effects supervisor looking down the eyepiece as Adam Newcombe manipulates the Ultraman puppet.

 

This was the workshop area with the puppet crew occupying the right side corner. Visible in the picture left to right are, actually I'm not sure who that is on the far left, then Vicki Kite, Steve Roswell and Norman Yeend.

 

This was the model makers side of the room. From left to right are David Tremont, Adam Grace and me.