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.

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...