Cinemagic #02 (1979)

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)

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7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


AbovlII: From Tall" Drl"er. with . . . .U.tlcblood and. 80re by the le8end.ry Dick Smith.Smith· . own formul . for blood. . . . .keupand. Ib M I. de.crlbed. In lbl . I• •ue onpage 28 . Right: SF FU.. . Production.· newlogo ts cr_ ted by Er a• • F.rino • . . en h. . . .workJog wlth .n O.bel'TJ . rum.tlon . tand.

Left: ....odel . . .ker ... ualclan .nd

co .. poaer. KeDnelb W.Lker de ten .•• ep-by- .tep ca .e biatory of •.. .odel . p . ce. hJ p in the mU1og .W.lker·. lIlode.1 HlcenUy _ OD

flrat prize. In th e ~ t c I I ..category. t the. InteraatioaalPI_tic ....odel .,..· Society COD beld.in Rlchlllond . V• • The eo-__Uo n

regutsrly dr. .. ... odeJen from the

... ern United

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Editorial 4 Don Dahler and Dave Ellis

comment about the SF Short Film

Search entries

Filmmakers'Forum __ 6 .A regular department devo ted to

readers' comments about

filmmaking, their problems and

solutions

ContestWinnersThe results of the SF Short Film

Search

BuildingYour 9 SpaceshipStep-by-step construction history

by modelmaker Kenneth Walker

Producers 'BulletinBoard __Latest news of our readers productions

A Flash 24 in Space _The creation of a new logo for SF

Film Productions

TheCrimsonEffect__

Number2

28Dick Smith's formula for realisticblood

BuDding

Your OwnSmokeGenerator 32 A simple method of generatingsmoke for miniature set and title

effects

Close.up_ 33 Put your smoke generator to workmaking light beam effects anddazzling tit les

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


@vzid'.Publlahed by:

O'QUINN STUDIOS, INC.475 Park Avenue SouthNew York, N.Y. 10016

PubU.be .. :

Norman Jacobs/Kerry O'Quinn

Founder of CINEMAGIC and

Editorial Con.ulunt:Don Dohler

Edltol'·In·Chlef:

David Hutchison

DealgD Director:

Robert P. Eric ksen

Dealgner:

Elaine Ashburn-Silver

fiIlaoaglD9 Editor:Bob Woods

EditorialContributor.:Kenn eth Walker

Dan TaylorDick Smi th

ArtSbff:

Lau ra O'BrienRobert Sefcik

A• •oclate Publisher:Ira Friedman

A• • . . .nt Publi.her:Rita Eisenstein

F.". Ad>'enloing inlor""""",,, 114 Friedman, lIilaE($<.nstefn (212)689·2830

ClNEJIIAGIC publWw><! q ....ne<ly by Q'Q/JINN

STUD IOS, INC., 47 ' h lk ,'wen .... South. Ne ... yo,k.N.Y. l00!6.1SSN"OO9I).}OOO. T h i . i . _ N u ~2. Volume I. Content i. :.:lo C"?yrlgllt 1919 byO'QUINN STUDIOS,mc. All right> ~ . . , , , , e d _ Rep.lnl

.... repI<.d""tion in pcort <If in '"""'" without ... i \ ! ~ np."",l • ,,,, (,om II><: p,,\>Iishe,' i$ SI<klly lo,t>,,w,.n.

C!NVOIAG/C . , e ~ p t . "" ''Sj>Of»ibilily 1 >f ,,"1<>1 iel'mall\ltcriPlO. f>h.oIoo, "" or Olltef m " e r ~ ! s . . I>u! il

/ r e e l a ~ . , , ~ m l t t o l s 'If,. lICtomP<l",ed 1>.1' srll·add ._ d • ~ m p o d w v e l < > P f ' . lhey willl>e U<iOUSlY

cONi"","" ~ r u l . if n « ~ U i I ' y . ,,,luroM. Prod"",",bd"",Il•• d not ""UfUri!y en\l".ud byClNEl<\AGIC. MId .o y _itw, e"p,,,,,ud in ~ l l " , " , 1COI'Y .r e no ! ne<_<,lY ! ~ 01 CltiEl"lAaK;.$ub¥:'ipti<>n .5.99 "" " ye¥ { f o ~ ' \uueo)<k'"",",d jn u.s . C.ro.da .1><1 ~ i r o , f < > t ~ I ~wt>ocrlptio<l. In O.S. f<!odSoo!y./'Ww .ubK.lp·

Ij""", ~ n . _ I s . 1 > < I ~ m n g e 01 add"". >hould ><o " ' ."d ! , ~ l y 10: ONf)o\AGIC. O'QuI"" SICldi4s.I<\<:•. 47!iP . , k A v ~ n ~ S o u t h . N e ... Va,k.N.Y. 10016. Print""ln

U.s .....

4

With lots of publiCity generated in STARLOG. FUTURE LIfE. CINEMAGIC

and other film magazines, we had only a rough idea of how many

entries to expect for the 1st Annual SF Short Fi lm Search. Atotal of I I I films passed through our mailbox, through our pro·jectors and-more importantly-through our minds. It was quite an experience,often exciting, often terribly dull, bu t when the prejudging sessions ended afterour final , fou r-hour screening on Sunday, April 8, 1979, one thing was clear:there is a huge interest in amateur. fantastic filmmaking.

However, as exciting as the actual numbers are, some ha rd realities must bediscussed here. Although the 16mm entries were generally well conceived andexecuted (probably due to more experience on the part of the filmmakers), theSuper·8 entries were another matter.

With 80 Super-8 entries to try to judge and score objectively , we saw thesame mistakes about 65 times too often. Many of the films ran between 40

minutes and as minutes (1) each, with the faults becoming more painfully obvious to the point where a competantly made film was elevated to a rare joy.Next year, we hope that mosl entries are "rare joys" and in order to providesome guidelines and helpful hints, here is a list of the major problem areas evi·dent in the majority of this year's Super-S films:Shots Held Too Long-Sure, your mi n iature looks neat and your animatedcreature has charm_ but don't dwell on i t and ruin the pace of the overall scene.Learn to cut to different angles, actions and reactions, Audiences don 't carehow much work went into 8 complicated set-up if a particular shot is too long,Aim Too Long OveraU-Stay away from overly long "explanatory" dialogue("'You see. this is how the th ing-a-ma-bob overreacted and caused radiationwhich made the grasshoppers grow so big . . _." ) Use short, snappy dialogueand imagery to "explain" complicated th ings; even if they are complicated ex·planations, they won -t seem that way. Learn to edit scenes down to only what isabsolutely necessary.

Learn To Lighl-The biggest drawback to most of th is year's films was flat,uninspired lighting_ Part of this problem may be due to the fast. Ektachrome

films and fast camera lenses, but those sort of modern-day advantages should

make it easier to get the lighting effect you want, rather than being an excuse to

"get by" with the least amount of light. It takes some t ime and experimentationto achieve intriguing lighting effects, but it's worth the extra effort.

Use a Tripod-A hand-held camera constantly shaking and j iggling wouldgive The Crawling Eye a headache! Hand-held shots have their place, but mostly

they are out o{place in a polished production.

Acling- There's l ittle credibility to a \3-year-old " professor," or an 18-year-oldstarship captain! Let kids play k ids, and get adults to play adults.Sound-A good soundtrack can enhance a mediocre visual; a poor track canruin a perfect visual! Get used to the basics of recording and try for a uniform

level and " feel" to the sound for each film . Try to recognize distortion and do

your best to eliminate cl icks, pops, wind-noise and other pitfalls inherent tosingle-system sound mov ies_ If you choose to put your sound track on open reelor cassette tape, stick to a simple narration or musical background_ Without

some sort of syncing mechanism, dialogue will neuer work on a separate, tapedtrack (and some of our entries proved thai ).

Be Original-Sure, the term "be original" is a cliche, but so were half of thefilms entered. If you're stuck for a good idea, find someone else who has one.Filmmaking is usually a collaborative art, and if you're going to work hard for amonth, or a year, on a film project, spend a week or two in advance on anoriginal, imaginative script. A good fi lm begins with a good sto ry, and if it's nota good idea or story, it's probably not worth filming.

Remember, we are not here to discourage creative filmmaking_ We only wantto see each and every filmmaker improve his craft, to be proud of his finishedproduct, and to know that he has done everything possible to create a good

amateur movie. The winners of this year's Short Film Search didn't have extrafancy equipment, just extra fancy ideas and imagination .

Finally, we'd like to say thanks to George Stover, Gary Svehla, Pam Dohler,Don and Mary Leifert, Del Winans, Bill Littman and Sylvia Starshine who, during the course of several weeks, helped us to prejudge and select the finalists.

-Don Dohler and Daue Ellis

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


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7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


In Defense Of""ToothJl'lcks AndRubber aand. "

. . . While recently living in theLos Angeles tHee, the "film

cepltel of the world," I was ableto see, first·hend, some of theprofessional film modelingtechniques thet are currently be·ing used In the great profusionof sclence·flction and fantasyspace films being produced out

there. And, to put It bluntly,!

wes somewhat surprised at $Omeof the professional modelers' lit·

titude.s; that the use of state·of·

the ·art technology Is the onlyway to fly. The older, tried·and ·true modelbullding techniques.which have been called " bytoothpicks and rubber bands." 'seem to have .somehow gone bythe wayside, and have beenrep laced by the great techno·logical i m p r ~ m e n t . s of epolty(listing resins, silicone rubbermo lding techniques and the like.It Is a.s if the currenttechnological boom in the film

industry has made It almostmandatory to spend the mostmoney to buy the latest model·fabriceting technical ad·

vlloces . . . and in the meantime,practically abandon the oldermethods of scratchbulldlng,used with greel effect up until

practicelly the present time bythe mejorlty of film·orlentedmodelmakers (not to mention

amateurs), thus effectively leaving the "o ld school" modelers,with their seemingly old·fashioned techniques end ways,out In the cold.

I'm sure most people whohave this magazine In theirhands have read stories of the"old Hollywood," when manyspecial·efrects technicians and

modelmakel"3 did their worklargely by the "seat of theirpants: ' Fantestic result.s werea c h ~ using no fancy com·puter controls, no monstrouslyoverblow budgets, Just hardwork and YdIl. These pastmasters pretty much did whathad to be done with therne.terial.s at hend. In the newHollywood, a.s it appears to me,this Is no longer the case; it Is a.s

if the older materials and techni·ques of yesterday have been laidaside In favor of whlltever newtechnology Is IIvallable at themoment. Of course, I edmlt I

6

Modehn.ker, musician snd composer, Ken Walker eppU.s

s urface detailing to his spec_hlp ro r CJJIIVIlAGIC,

could have received a somewhatbiased view of the current Hollywood trend toward super.technology, as my tours throughthe studios were almost elt·elusively through the better·known. better·equipped facilitiesout there. But I very firmly

believe that there is still value Inusing the older techniques andmethods, where the quaiity of thefinished product depends on the

handiwork and skill of the in·

dividual techniciarv'artisl, no t 00

his materials. Do no t misUike

this for a condemnatioo oftechnical advancement; Iwelcome chenge as much asanyone else. M.y quarrel is withwhat I sense to be a ch2Inge in at·titude among "modern" film

modelers, an attitude whichseems to say that knowledge of

technical advances is worth,perhaps, more than modetir19skill. I disagree with this notion.It all reminds me of the days of

(the original) King Kong where,even though the Kong modelItself WllS e product of the then·new foam·rubber technology,the model of the sea·going ship

In the film , the ship which car·ried the intrepid elO:plore rs toSkull bland, was created melnlyfrom "cardbolord and brns

e5CUtcheon pins," a "toothpicksand rubber bends" technique if

there ~ r was one. And thismodel was superbly realistic onthe screen, which is really theimportant th ing . But somehow,l

do n ' t b e l ~ that the currentHollywood technology-orlentedsyndrome would allow such " Inferio(Rcraftsmanship to be used.

It ITIlIkes one feel as if a college

degree In chemistry and elec·tronies is whet is now required to

build rno<tels. And this Is quite ashame, since elO:cellenl model ing

Is a reflection and a resul t of thesIciJlof he modeler, no t of hismaterials.

Ken Walker5421 Silbert RoadNorfolk, VA 23509

Readef3 are /nulled 10 carefully ex·emine end comment on Mr.

Walker's uety detailed Miele on

"'The Toodlpkk end'RubberBand"

schoolofmodel conslrucllon

this I5sI.Je's COl.Ier slory.

Smoke Effects. . . Try this fo r a realistic and In·cltpensive way of making billowysmoke. Go to your local hobbyshop or chemical distributor

and pick up ammonium chloride. Heat it over an alcoholburner, etc., but not in the directflame. You can use an old

spoon. Also, do not use too

much of the ammonium chlo·ride, since a Uiblespoon could fiJIyour house with "smoke"-nevcr

use it indoors.David Kramer37 04 Mount Vernon Rd.

Sebastopol, CA95472

Lift -off Tecbnlque. . . n the course of my film eltperiments, I came upon a way tomake a rocket launch thatdoesn't look like iI's beir19 pulledup by a string. This should bethe last effect done with therocket. Build your leunch dand some sort of background.Piece the background direct lybehind the ~ d and make a thin

incision from the bottom up to

five inches from the top of the

background. On the side of therocket glue aT·shaped piecearound five inches long. Now,thiS is the tough part; turn theset entirely upsidedown. Findsome way of suspending the setand tack the background. if us·ing canvas or a similar material.to a flat board on the floor or

your table. Plaa! the 'T ' piecethrough the front of the incisionand slide it up. Hold it UghLPlace your Cl!lmera upside downand begin to eltpo5e. When youare ready fo r l if t·off, simply letgo of the"T' piece. Be sure toplace something like a pillow at

the bottom to cushion theimpact.

A smoke effect is achieved by

placing" small smoke bomb in

the end. The m o k ~ should '('111

down simulating the lighter·then·air effec t seen in .s-ctuallaunches.

If the instructions are fol·lowed. you will re<:eive realisticresults that will leave yourfriends open·mouthed. I wouldreally like to hear about the \Vayyou use this effect.

Joey Niedbala32 88 Sk ipper Dr iveVirginia Beach, CA 23 452

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


CONTEST WINNERSThe SFScience Ficlion Short Film Search

These are the winners of the

first annual SF Short Film

Contest. Final judging tookplace at Balticon on April 15

with STARlOG publisher Kerry O'Qulnn,

C!NEMAGIC editor David Hutchison and

Wade Williams of Mossman-Williams

Productions , Kansas City, acting asfinal judges. Don Dohler lind David

Ellis headed up the team that spentmany hours screening the entries for

the first round of eliminations. Theirfirst-hand reactions are the subject fo r

this month's guest editoril!li on page 4.

STARLOG -2 6 will include II feature on

the winners with more behlnd·the

scenes stills and interviews with the

filmm1lkers.

8mm:Grand Prize AbducUon Raymond ::;an

loro. Holley, NY

8mm Science Fiction:Arst Prize NighJ.speed. Mark Sullivan,Columbus, OH

Second PrIze Aliens William Clyne,fraser, MI

Third Price Dr. Romayo's Zombie Em·pire Richard Geiwitz, Baltimore, MD

8mm Horror I Fanu.y :First Pr ize Godzilla's Interview BledeGelentine, Alexandria, VASecond Prize Midnight Fanwy WilliamGowdy, Canoga Park, CAThird Prize Dr€am Killer Mark laRue,AatRock, MI

8mm Honorable Mention :Galactic W.m: Mike Lanzetta, Milford,MIRigel-7 Syndrome Terry L Hornsey,Alton, ILSorcerer's Duel Mark Hann<:lh, Delton,GA

Captain enna ton from Prom.o p o ~ .

16mm:Grand Prize At The Movies Carl Surges,Milwaukee, WI

16mm Science Fiction:Arst Prize Ful.uropolis Steve Segal,Richmond, VASecond Prize inleslines From Space Pat

Carroll, Sliver Spring, MDThird Prize Promo Spot Jeffrey W.

Johnston, Oregon City, OR

16mm Horror I F.n . . .y:

First Prize The Fight. Game David W.Renwick, Northville, MJ

Second Prize Elixir Pa t Cannon,

Chicago. ILThird Pr ize Grog John Dods, NewBrunswick, NJ

16_Honorable Mention:

Monster Monster Steve Segal, Rich·mond, VA

2002: A Space Odyssey Michael H,

Okuda, Honolulu, HIThe Sleepeater Woody Welch, LosAngeles, CA

7

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


...... Filmmakers'

orum

BucklngTheOdds .. .. . . These unique creations are

the work of Zin (short fo r Dzin·

tars) Mezulis, an artist andsculptor residing in Toronto,

Canada. Zin's whimsical cha-racters should be an inspiration

fo r any of us who fuss and fume

over the "rigors" of SC\.Jlpting adetailed model in ciay. because

these pieces , believe it or not,

lire made of stoneware-and

they life all one piece sculptures!!li n Melulis, born in Sussex,

g 1 ; ~ m d . ""<:IS first taught to use

htmdtools by his father. This ledto an unyielding desire to meke

"things" and entertain localneighborhood kids by creating

elaborate puppet shows.Although he attended an a rt

school, l in found formClI educa-tion to be distrllcting ("I was aclassic truant and unde r-achiever."), so he rejected school·

Ing In favor of real·ll fe exper·

ience. For six years Zin traveledth roughout Europe. the Midd leE."st, Asia, Africa Dnd Central

and South AmedcD. But his trll '

vels we re IIbruptly halted: hebecame seriously ill, was pu t in·to a hospital fo r several monthslind finllily had to have a kidney

trllnsplan t in March of 1976,Zin has bucked the odds,

though, and is now enjoying IIthriving demand for his unusual

stone and metal sculptures." I initially beglln in stoneware

because of its recogni t ion as alegitimate Drt form by galleriesand collectors, since each piece

How to Create

00u9ual. EerieSpecial EffectsWith Blackllghts

. Here's Dn ideD for unusual ef·fects with models, min iatures

selSand titles: blacklightcine·

matography! The only materials

you need are an XL or similar

camera capable of using high·

speed Ek tachrome 160 film,

fiourescent paints and , of

course, some black lightlamps

(bulb·types will wor k well inmovie lamp reflectors).

Essentially, al l you have to do

Is paint your animation model or

,

Stoneware, goo tall ,

is one of a kind l ind not repro-

ducable," Zin says. "'And being

se lf·taught, I developed many

tricks for rendering in high detailand I've found that because if s

technically difficult to fire the

kind of thing I do, I don't reallyhave much competition."'

It takes l in two to three weeksto create one piece; and he is

swamped with wor k these days,

one of the main reasons why hecan't get heavily into another

love-an imation and special·

effects fi lmmak ing. Neverthe·

less. he hopes that one day the

right opportunity will come

along where his particularabilities will be applicable to a

feature mo tion picture.Zin's sculptures. wh ich are

sold to private collections

around the wo r ld, have been eK'hibited throughout Canada and

the U.S.Don Dohler

miniature set·pieces with the

desired colors of fiourescent

paints, turn on the blacklightsand shoot! You don't need ca n·

ventional white (3200) light fo r

this type of shooting and, in fact.the white light will spoil the bril·

liant effects of the blacklight

glow.Titles can also be shot under

blacklight. One way is to paint

your lettering right onto a piece

of glll55 and position the title in

front of a rellT·projected slide of

a background scene from your

film. An even easier method of

this super· irnposed t itle look isto blackl igh t a color photograph

(using white light) and position

BackwlodlogFlaw?. . ,[ j ust received your premiere

issue of CINEMAGIC and love it!

But one thing in it disturbed me

greatly-the article by John

Cosentlno on backw ind ing

Supe r·a. I found al l his advice

correct. Yet, when I presentedthe solution to my father (he be-ing II man who understands themechanics of how things work),he told me about Mr .Cosentino's and the entire

Craven production's one fatalflaw.

When you want to super, you

must put masking tape on thedrive disk to prevent It from

rota ting. Now the tape is rorcibly

stopping the drive disk, correct?If so, does this not put a stroinon the drive motors? If iI's true,then, in t ime, the camera would

break , due 10 the strain on thesystem. It may take months,seasons, a year . . . who knows?All I'd like to know is: what can Ido about it? My camera is arelatively cheap GA F XL 120.

Secondly, when you super·impose people a'galnst little cave

sets, for instance, must the pe0-

ple be photographed against a

black screen to prevent a'·ghosted "' image? My camera

does not have a through· he· ensviewfinder, so how on E."rth can I

blend Images without overlap-ping supered objects?

Remember,l have lliow budgel

Doug Vorlsek

12 Arden LaneMatawan, NJ 07747

your title glass In front of it . Inboth cases, the low intensity of

the blacklight will no t cause theslide or photo to be washed out,

and since your're shooting w ith

high·speed film, both the bright

flourescent titles and the back·ground will eJ(pose IIdequately.

With some eJ(pe rlmentation,

cinematography can

new avenue of. lind the

I

to standard

Steve Polwort

78 7 Portland

Collinsville, IL 62234

AulhOf" John Cosentino replies:'"Yes, the tape forcibly $lops the

cameras drive: disk, but as I

understand the mechanics ofSuper·8 camera motors, the

molar's shaft keeps ttuning freely

with only a very minor strain (If

any al all) since a slip clutch isIncorporated into the molor·drioe

disk design. The purpose 0{ a slip

clutch is to prevent damage to the

motor should the drive disk ever

becomejammed. I am not a

camera designer or repairman and

therefore cannot guarantee malevery Super·8 camera euer made

has a slip clutch capable of pro.lecling its motor, but it is logical to

assume so. Personally, I haveused this backwlnding technique

far the pasl ten years with a

Super·a Canon (also on occa·sion with a Kodak and a fulex); I

haue never had one spci:k of rou·

ble with the cameras molars. If

you are still worried. the best ad·vice I can give you is to write the

manufacturer concerned or lalk 10

a repairman about your camera.As regaJds Mr. Vorisek's sec·

ond lItld third questions. it would

take a whole al1.icle to answer

them in detail, but uery brie(ly

without gelling Into beam splitter

effects, two projectors, travelingmalles. etc • . . . Yes, people

should be photographed In front

of a black background. Theminiature set must also have adark area to "super'" the people In·

to so as to avoid a 'ghost·image.'

Laslly. wi thout a reflex camenl it

is almost impossible 10 do exacl

aligning of multiple exposures.

Reloading Slngle-S• . . For practically all space

shots J hllve taken Kodach rome40 (which hilS eJ(ceiJent gra inquality) into a darkroom andtrllnsferred it into a Fujica car·tridge, With the Fuj ica camera I

have complete backwindlng cap-ability. Blending these effectswith Jive action and some an ima·

tion (for computer·simulated

graphics) I have nearly com·

pleted my film. High Frontier,which features an O'Neil\esquespace stati on, and a stargate se ·que nce at the c! imaJ(.

Jerry Genco

13 6 Oakvlew Ave.Maplewood, N.J. 07040

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


@jk'1MIfCOVER STORY

BuDdingYour

SpaceshipA detailed step-by-step case history_

By KENNETH WALKER

Tome, making models (or

"building mi niatures," as

we mode lmakers like to

say) is more than just a

relaxing hobby: it is an outlet forcreative x p r ~ i o n in three-dimen·sions, and gives one the feeling of

sharing in the present creative explo-sion of Hollywood special effects. It fo l lows from this that a true model·ing/special-effects fanatic l ike myself

would want to go that one step furtherand actually design 8 model from theground up, without relying on co m-mercially bought kits or other p e o p l ~designs at all. (If sculptors and painterscan do it , why not modelers?) I wantedto build a really s ~ c u J a r . omi ·nous, war·ready spacecruiser, using as

orIginal a design as possible, with

working raygun lights, cargo bays thatopened and dosed, etc.

From the start, I plemned on usingmy model in some way in a Super·8 or

16mm science-fiction film opus. And

this ultimate use was actually theguiding factor in the model's overtJlIdesign and construction. I didn·t realize

at the time lhtJt what was plarmed to bea three·ta-four week labor of lovewould turn into tJ year· long project.As the months of part·time

assembly of my model progressed, Ifirst became fascinated and then tota llyabsorbed in the quest for a model Iwould be retJlly proud of; one thatwould look as realistic as possiblewhen viewed on the screen.

Certainly I could have finished themode l in a month or so, just to see it

completed; but the more I worked, the

more I saw that I could improve andadd to the model. just to.give it that ell.'tra bi t of realism. Th is additional time

and effort paid of f In a model that,when seen on film, looks like an enor·mous battlecruiser, but is in reality anlS-lnch.long conglomeration of wood,

plastic and cardboard.

Initial DesignMy main idea for the spaceship

model came from a single drawing I

Autbor and modelm.-ker Kennetb

Wa lker, whUe In Lo a A.ngelea .

made back. in 1976, and my inspirationfor that came from-believe it or nOI

the shape of a front door house key! Ithad the perfect "spacecraft" configura·tion: sharp angles, a large "body" and aprotruding front section. From thatone small drawing I decided to make afull·size ·'blueprint"· of the basic shape

of the model. This was rather detailed,since I was planning to take my partsmeasurements from i t Basically, it

showed the outline of all the differentangles, levels and outcrops the modelwas to have. I should mention that Iwas doing a lot of rough sketches of

changes that I wanted to incorporateinto the ship, concurrently with doing

the blueprint. These sketches includedsuch things as pra<:ticallighting p l a ~ment (including internal wiring

schemes), movable-and removable-sections of the model and general·'fay·gun" placement. This Illst area was

a phase of design and construction thllt

I gave a lot of time to, since I wantedarmament pltJcement- much of it

prnctical and working-to blend in

with the overall design of the ship.A few tips before starting construe·

tion of a scratchbuilt model; Build it as

large as you reasonably can. A largermodel can usually be made much

more realistic· looking, since it is easierto add small detail to, and the "scale"of your detailing and painting canmore nearly equal the scale of themodel. (To show what lengths pro film

modelers will go to for realism: DerekMeddings' Supertanker "miniature"from The Spy Who Loved Me was 63feet longl) My own model ended up be ·

ing 18 inchl!s long, and I found that af·ter finishing it that it should have been

about 24 inches long. A larger model

is much easier to photogrnph: it will fillthe film image while being that much

farther from the camera's lens, and willtherefore be easier to keep in focus,And you'll want to film your miniature

with as wide·angle a lens setting as

possible; this approximates "realworld" perspective distortion.

PrIor to Starting ConstructionAs this model was going to be: the

most complexly designed thing 1hlIdattempted up to this time, I reasonedthat some preliminary thinking-about

materials, techniques, tools needed,etc.-certainly couldn't hurt, andmight prepare me for unforseen diffi·

culties. My first order of business wasto buy a motorized hobby saw (the Oremel Motosaw, available from hobbyshops for the stiff price of around $60).

I knew I would be doing a lo t of com·plex. sawing of balsa wood, and figuredthat such a fine piece of equipment

would come in handy, if only to speedup the sheer bulk of the proposedwoodcutting. This was probably thebest investment I made, as this sawcame in handy for practically every

type of cutting job, Of course, motor·ized equipment like this is not essentialto the making of an e)(cellent model:

,

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the skill of modelbuilding lies in the....,modeler. not in his equipment. But I

Imust d m i t that this saw and my mo·torize!!! hobby drill (from S e ~ r s . forabout $40) made life a lot easier,

These two major expenditures out of

the way. I started th inking about theproper glues o ~ , As most of myproposed model would be made out ofca rdboard. balsa and plastic, I decidedon one of the water·soluble white glueslike Elmer's. The reason I usually

prefer whi te glue over regu lar (tube-type) plastic cement is that the former

does not react chemico!llly with styreneplastic sheeting, and can be wiped off

The _pa .. e plec_ o f .. . te

t .o.rd hlive been cut Into I.yers.Note. the. .uppor t ro d a t right.

in case of a mistake. True, a much bet·ter weld could be made with plastic ceo

ment. but it seems to invllriably get onthe outside 01parts where It doesn'tbelong, and ac tually etches its way into

the plastic before it can be cleaned off.White glue presents no such problems,and holds well enough for most jobs;besides, it's thicker acts as a

sealant. For cementing small details,however, whi te glue is more troub lethan it's worth.

Two more types of adhesive aredefinitely worth mentioning. About

three·quarters of the wo!ly through theconstruction of my model. I "d is·covered" Kodak 910 SupergluePlastruct Plastic Weld cement liquid

that comes in a jar, and is available atmost hobby shops). Both have provento be indispensible; I only wish I hadknown about them when I started on

the model. Plastic We ld cement can bebrushed on a plastic part with a small

artist's brush, and creates an actualweld between two pilisti c pieces that isalmost stronger than the materiali tself-and no glue "streamers."

Perfect for joining very tiny details to asurface with practically no mess.

Kodak 's 910 also allows you to glue

semi· rigid plastic sheeting over roundedforms In the space of b o u t 5·10seconds drying lime-practically im·

possible with normal plastic model ce-ment. My main use for this stu ff,though, was in sticking small plasticdetails to A) previously painted sur·faces, and B) to non·plastic surfaces,

10

where ordinary plasli c cemen t wou ld

nol have worked.Al l glues, however, share one qual·

ity: They are excellent for some ap·plications, poor for others. Unfor·tunately, there is no such thing as atruly univerSllI glue (even Supergluehas its limi tations). Match your

adhesive to the materials you are us·ing . For example, to join two pieces of

balSll wood together you would use aglue with some type of water base

(Elmer's). since water will absorb intothe grain of the wood itself and createa very strong bond when dry. And havea damp sponge handy when working

with white glue. as you'll probably be

using your fingers a lot to rub glue of f

of the places where it shouldn't be; andif i t dries on your fingers you'lI end up

transferring globs of dried glue 10 thesurface of your model. Q· tip swabsmake excellent "wiping cloths" to getexcess white glue out of normo!llly inac·cessable pllICes. (Any dried while gluethat remains on a plastic surface canbe easily "erased" of f with a pencileraser.) No matter what type of glueyou decide to use, be sure to take apiece of sandpaper and roughen up theback of any plastic sheeting you will beapplying . . . l helps the glue to do abetter job of bonding.

Since yoo might be using many di f·ferent liquids in the construction of

your model (fiberglass resins, glues.paints. etc.). it's best to pick a suitablebrush for each substance and label thatbrush for its one purpose on ly; this willkeep the bristles in better condition.

I also gathered together.!ln lIssart·ment of X·acto hobby knives. handSlIWS and the like. plus many different

types of SlIndpaper.

Assembling the Basic StructureSince th is article concerns the build·

ing of a spaceship model to be usedso lely for filming purposes, certain de·sign, detailing and painting schemesho!Id to be worked out-schemes thatare somewhat exclusive to such a useof models.

The basic substructure of my modelwas constructed of matte board-thickcardboard-which is available at anyart supply house. The ship's main form

was built up in "levels" of this matteboard: large pieces were cut to eKact lymatch the basic shapes ou tl ined on thelife·size blueprint. then blocks of balsawood were glued between the layers to

separate them the correct distance. At

this stage of construction. the model

was really noth ing more than sepa·rated. horizontal pieces of cardboard.But this "skeleton structure" was thepart of the modellhat had to be thestrongest , in order for the model to

hold together during subsequent film·

ing and rough handling. This SlIme··building ·in ·levels" technique can be

done with plywood tak ing the place ofthe matte board, but the increase inweight may offset the advantage of theextra strength. Basic matte board is ac·tuall y quite strong.

How I was going to final ly supportmy spaceship model during filming'

was something that I had to fig·ure ou t at the very outset of construc·tion . in order to make any mounting

poinls."n integrll l port of the: model,Rlther than something j ust added on asan afterthought. I immediately scratch·ed the idea of using string or wire tosupport the model, because even themost Hinv isible" thread or wirestrand

tends to show up in the fin ished film. I

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


wanted the model to be supported veryfirmly, by supports that would not bevisible to the camera at all, My methodwas to build a long. hollow, rectangular"socke t" that would run the wholelength of the ship, into which would goa support rod made of hardwood (thisis the poor man's '·self·indexing"mount), This support socket wouldthen allow the mounting of the shipfrom either the back or front, to

facilitate holding the model i n the dif·ferent positions it would occupy infront of the camera. In other words. Iwould mount the ship from the rear if Iwanted to photograph it from the front,

and vice versa, thus hid ing the supportwith the model itself. Of course, Iwould also need to cover the pro·truding support rod with black velvet,so that none of it could be seen-as

when photographing the model fromthe side-and then strive to keep themovie lights off of it as well.

Obviously, this support socket need·ed to be built into the model at an ear·Iy stage of its construct ion. I did this by

tak ing my first major m2ltte board tem·plate-which happened to be the onethat ran down the horizontal "center"of the model, s l i c i it into an upperand a lower part-and laying my wood·en support rod on it. then simply build·ing the socket iUOtJfId the rod byenclosing it in balsa wood glued to thematte board. Then I simply slid thesupport rod out of its temporary "coc·coon" while the glue dried, I wasamazed at the strength of this struc·ture; my support rod scheme is sostrong that I can lill my ship at any an·gle for fftming by simply rotating the

support rod itself. (i.e" by tilting thecamera tripod head that I had clampedthe support rod to).

Once the problem of supporting themodel was taken care of , I began theactu2l1 construction of the ship. My

original plans called for several work·ing lighting systems to be locatedthroughout the model, for ray·gun ef·fects,engines, "conning tower" lightsand so on. This meant I!lying out theinternal wiring for these lights andbuild ing electrical hook·up points nearthe exterio r of the ship for feedingpower to the bulbs. Since I would be

moonting my ship from both the frontand rea r, I decided to put in identicalpower hook-Up points at both places.This meant running two sets of iden·tical wires throughout the model.Some of the lights, however, needed

only one electrical hook-up point,since these lights would be seen only if

the can-oera were looking directly atthem, These included the "engine"lights (wires were run to a separateelectrical plug facing the front of theship) and the front "headlight" (wireswere run to the back of the ship only),TIle electrical wire I used, Radio Shack

two-c:onductor, 24-gauge "speaker

wire" (50 feet for about $1.50). [ chosefor its flexibility, which makes it perfectfor getting into small places.

I decided to use "miniature" phoneplugs and sockets for the hook-uppoints themselves; they're availablefrom Radio Shack also, Since thesockets are meant to be mountedIhrough holes cut into th in, natmaterial like sheet metal, I needed to

devise some way of permanentlymoonting these things rigidly to my

model, in a very small amoont of

space, and somewhere away from 'theactual surface of the model where theywouldn't be seen. Using a small alu·minum plate drilled with holes for thesockets was out of the question, sincethere was really no way of rigidly

moonting a piece! of metal to a balsa·wood·and-cardboard structure thatwould withstand the pushing in and

pulling out of electrical plugs. So Idecided to make a small flat plate outof l/l·inch· th ick plastic sheeting, drill·

ing hol!!s into it for the sockets_ I thenglued this plate into a long deep slot

cut into a pil!Cl! of balsa wood; thisbalsa constructIon was then glued to

one of the! matte board levels at thefront of the ship (near the mounting

point), and more balsa was butted up

and glUl!d against th e top of th e plasticplate wher!! it mI!t the next highermatte board level. This made: for a verystrong electrical socket support, and!oince there was no metel involved. the!

sockets were all!!lectri cally isolatedfrom each other. The rear hook·up

points were simi larly built and in·stalled. While running all the wiring tothe lights themselves, I found that I had

to cut "tunnels" into many of the balsa·wood support blocks located throughout the armature of the model; thiscould have been avoided had I plannedmy construction better,

After the electrical wiring and sub·structure of the model were completed, I started building up the outersurfaces of the model. I envisioned my

ship having many angular, tWisting,sharply defined details, without anytru ly rounded surfaces at all. To me,roundness signifies a soft. gracefullook-which was exactly what I wantedto avoid. since this was to be a mas·

sive, powerful space bauJeship, not enaerodynamically designed glider. Thecurving, twisting 21ngles of my model(known as "developed surfaces") wereconstructed by first building of

balsa wood between the mette boardlayers at all of the edges where any twosurface planes were to meet-similar

10 walls being built between one floor21nd another of an open·faced building-and then gluing "Silkspan" overthese supports. (The wood that wouldbe in actual contact with the Silkspanwas carved down to almost a knifeedge. Ihus forming a perfect support to

" fo ld" the surfacing material over.)

Don't skimp on the number of wooden rib supports for the Silkspan-yoo'lI

need one everywhere the surface issupposed to change direction. Silkspan,21 paper·type material, is one ofthe products used to cover the wings of

flying model airplanes; it is available 21t

most hobby shops and is very inexpen·sive. A square yard costs about 45<:(that's enough to completely cover two

small models), For gluing this stuff to

balsa and cardboard, you can use ei·ther white glue or dear model·airplane"dope," a thick lacquer product avell·!lble at hobby shops, My method of

creating the surfaces out of Silkspan

The . ssembly or the v. r iousle ve ls with wood block . p.c::us.

was to build each single curving surface of the model separately, cutting asepara te piec:e of Silkspan for everyopen cavity that existed betwl!en thewooden support ribs. Start at a singleplace on the model, and branch outfrom there as if you were building a"hoose of cards." only the C!lrds here

are the adjoining surfaces·to·be. You'llbe using one small side area of a pre·viously "built" surface to glue the nextadjoining paper surface in conjunction with the remaining woodensupport ribs around the new open cavi·ty. Th is is much e2lsier and logical inpractice than it sounds on paper. Thistechnique even works for curved,twisted angles and surfaces! In other

words, the wooden support ribs neednot all be the same height or length. or

even parallel.Each time I finished gluing a section

of Silkspan material over an open cavi·

ty -over the surrounding wooden supports and leaving 00 side of the material unsupported-I wet it with water.This caused each piece to actuallyshrink and to pull tight, getting rid of

any wrinkles still In the material andproduced a very tight. smooth surface(the whole object of using the Silkspanin the first place). Be careful oot to gl!t

any glue on the large fla t expanses ofSilkspan prior to the wett ing process.because it will not dry and stretch cor·rectly; use glue only around the edge!sof the material that will come in contact with wood or with other surroond

ing (already-stretched) Silkspan areas.11

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Which brings up one other important efforts on it, since there is almost no-

detail: Each wooden cavity must be t h r r r ~ p t a d i c . i ! l l that can be done. About ,covered and "stretched" o n e - a t · a · t i m e ~ r e e - q u a r t e r s of the way through con·if you cover all the spaces at On<;f! and struction of my ship, I found that I hadthen wet this large surface a r ~ as one to go back and "repairH some of thepiece, you'll find that any dried glue model's dried and shellacked Silkspanthat Is holding adjacent overlapping due to too many wrinkles . . . the resultpieces of Silkspan to each other will of my not checking the stuff dose

elso be practically impervious to enough the first time it was applied. Iwater-which means that these small either repapered over the first layer. or

areas, when dried, will not have tried to fill in the go!lps with modelingstretched with the rest of the piece, and putty. Neither of these emergency

so will cause a lot of wrinkles o!Ind de- measures worked very convincingly, sopressions in the surface. j!'or this I finally ended up gluing thin plasticreason, apply and wet the Silkspan sheets to these areas to give them a flatpieces one at a lime. You'll find thzlt surface. When you're not careful theany glue which happens to ge t on first time through, it simply meansthese already·stretched surfaces will more work later on: you can't fix anot cause any problems. And bear in mistake by making more mistakes!mind that this stuff is still paper: wo!ltch I used masking tlIpe to build up thethat you don't poke your finger curving angles on the underside of thethrough it. ship's ·'snout." I begl!Jn by cutting o!I

Tbe woode n . upport . t lckIn_ r t e d in to th e model .

Another, perhaps easier, method of

Silkspanning is to wet each piece of

material before it is glued Of shellac:eddown. This techniqueworks equally

well,but

is messier.After the Silkspan material has thor·oughly dried, it will need to be totallycovered with more model airplanedope to build up its thickness andstrength: around 15 or so coats wereneeded on my model to give these sur·foc:es 0 semi·rigid strength-rigidenough to glue surface details to later.

When planning out the areas youwant covered with Silkspan don't at·tempt to stretch it across sp&ees IM tore smaller than about ¥_ inchsquare-the material will not stretchenough to make up for wrinkles, etc.Other surfacing techniques should beused-or at least tried beforehand,

By the way , I've found that thequicker Silkspan dries, the tighter itstretches; so I used one of those hondoheld hair dryers-on a /ow heat setting!- to speed the drying time. You canalso dry your dope cOo!ltings this way ,which will allow you to build up 15coats in no time. And don't expectyour coatings of dope to hide any wrin·kll!S tho!It are still in the material ; infact, wrinkles are slightly accentuated.So If you end up with a wrinkled pieceof c:oated Silkspan, you'll have to tearit of f ond start over: don't waste future

12

number of l/_·inch·wide strips of tlIpe,whose lengths were slightly longertho!In the distonce between the twosepllroted horizontal motte board lev·els(templotes). Then I o!Ipplied these

strips of tape to the two surfaces, thuscovering up the gop between the lev·els. 1slightly overlapped each piece of

tlIpe, ond in the end had "built up" acurving surfece thzlt would hzlve beenvery difficult to make any other wo!ly. Ithen coated this mosklng tlIpe surfacewith mo!lny coatings of dope, to give it

more rigidity o!Ind to hide the overlap·ping tape ridges. (You c:ould use fiber.glass rl!Sin for this.)

B6 id6 Silkspanning the surface of

my model. I decided to carve large ir·regularly shaped outcrops and suchout of blocks of balsa wood. This

meant finding 0 way to give a verysmooth surface to a wood IM t is essen·tially porous. full of many $ITIo!I1I

""vo!llleys" in the groin. A magozine arti·de I happened to read at the time men·tioned thot balsa could acquire 0smooth, glass-like finish by be ing C:Oo!It·

ed with a stuff c:alled "polyester sand·ing resin:' FIberglass resin is anothername for it. It's basically the sc:. ne liq·uid that is brushed over fiberglasscloth, the material used for c:overingsurfboards and for making speedboats.Gloss resin, which Isn't really thot ex·pensive-o!Ibout $2 .75 for a pint can,enough to cover several whole models-can be bought ot hobby shops undervarious names, When dry and sandedwith very fine sandpllper-- 220 grit or

higher-it does produce a verysmooth, almost plostlc·like finish on

well·sanded balsa wood. Naturally,polyester sanding resin gives a greatfinish to surfboard·type fOo!lm if that iswho!It you've carved your model out of

. . . but not. to basic styrofoam. Theyore two different animals: glo!lss resinwill eat into styrofOo!lm! Watch that youdon't get it on muc:h of anything else,either. I tried brushing a C:mlt on oversome of the doped Silksplln mo!lteriall

had c:onstruc:ted earlier, hoping theglll55 resin would make this stuff evensmoother. Well, just the opposite oc·cured. The resin's instruction'ssaid notto use it over shellac (dope), but Iwllnted to for myself-unfortunate·

Iy. This produced e "melted slag"" lookon the Silkspan, which necessitatedeven more work to correct! Perhapsthe resin could produce o!I nice hard fin·ish when epplied to fresh Silkspan. al·though I never tried this.

Interestingly, some top Hollywoodpro modelmokers came the entirebasic: shape of their models not out of

balsa, but from another imported woodknown as ""plIttemmaker's wood,whic:h is said to be infinitely more carv·eble and SlIndable than balsa, Andthen, instead of using this Cllrved pieceitself liS the model's basic structure, amold 15 made of it (similar to e moldbeing made of II clay lInimation modelfor later fOo!lm c:asting); but instead of

filling the two halves of the finishedsilicone rubber mold with liquid fOo!lm

rubber as one would for on animotlon

model, 0 liquid epoxy is used in con·junction with a layer of woven fiber·glass c:loth (which is a finer grade of

material IM n regulor surfboard·typefiberglass doth) . So actually, many of

the Hollywood models one ~ s on thescreen are pretty much one·pieceepoxy castings, IIB·inch thic:k or so,with holes and such drilled Into themfor lights, etc:.

After you've applied one or twoCOlIts of gloss resin to lIlI of the ex·posed wood ond motte board on yourmodel. you'lI most likely need to sal'ldthe surfaces sl ightly to get a really

glass-like finish . I mo!lde sevellliminiature sanding blocks for this pur·pose, some no larger than II, inch x 1inch. For SlIndpllper [used -220 grit allthe way up to extremely fine -600 grit.I use 3M·brand 'Wetordry Trl·m·ite."o!Ivoliable at most well·stocked hzlrd·ware stores. Surprisingly, mony hobbyshops do not stock this paper. By theWllY, some modelers even wet theirsandpllper to get the smoothest possl·ble finish on their models: this is up to

you. With my homemade sandingblocks, I was o!Ible to get into the tiniestnooks and crevices, which is importantif one 15 looking for e professional·typeglassy finish.

A wooden . upport db I. place d. t th e Junc:tlon o r any tw o lIurface •

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The elec:trlu.l harnu _ &. ru n to the f ront "headUghb "prior to buDding up th e front of the model.

Although most of the compound an· (a{!er the doping step Is complete) andgles on the surface of my model were wipe it off. This should comp1etely fill

easily c r e a t ~ using the wooden ·r ibs in the crack, leaving what looks liketechnique, I had to devise a different one cont inuous surf&ee.method to create those angles thatwould meet another surface concavely.ElIch of these new surfaces was bui lt

by first cutting out an appropriate ly

sized sheet of Silkspan material (withenough extra material to slightly over·lap t ~ surrounding areas). One g eof thi5 Silk.spon WtlS then glued to along, thin strip of hardwood (l ike apopsicle stick), one ~ of the stick

having been sanded down to e knife·like edge-necessary for the new sur·face to "wrap around" the piece of

hardwood, creating a sharply delin·eated line where the two different planesurfaces would be meeting. My Searsmotorized hobby dril l-with a sandingdrum attached-made quick work of

these knlfe·edged wooden parts andp r o d u c ~ some very sharp edges. Youcan also create these by using regularsandpaper: glue or tepe a 5heet of

sandpaper to a flat surface end run thewood over it. The next step wes to gluethe knife·edged wooden stick (with theSilkspan atteched) to the well of thespace that I wented to cover, meking

sure that the knife edge of the stickwas

exactlyup against the edjoinlng

plane surfece line. At this point theSilkspen wes still wevlng freely In theair. After the stick had dried in posi·tion, I wet the Silkspan end li t the sametime glued it over ell the remllining

wooden supports rT\lIklng sure to get it

liS tight liS possible. Use Elmer's or

clear dope for this. When the entireconstruction had dried, 1I flat, tight sur·fece had been produced. Then I proceeded to COdt the new surface with

dope. If there happens to be a crackalong the line where the two Silk·spanned surfaces are meeting, simply

squirt some whi te glue on the crack

BuUcllng the""Bomb Bay Ib y Gun"

The "Bomb Bay Ray Gun" (hereafterthe B.B.R.) is the term I geve to the sec·tion of the underside of the ship that Ihad designed to fold out of the model

(hence the term "bomb MY"'). ThIs WoM

to be a type of powerful ray gun, with aworking light to simulate its "rey eye"

I found it neceSSllry to build themain body of the model lind the B.B.R.es separate units, In order to speed

construction i!lnd detlliling of theB.B.R. I envisioned it having meny

interior details, whkh me2!lnt that Icouldn't have done this type of workon it had I gone ahei!ld lind built theB.B.R. into the ship et the beginning.Building in the lighting system wouldalso have been overly difficult this way.And, since I hadn't reelly worked out

the complete conflguration of the rllyDnd its method of "lIppearing"' out of

the bottom of the ship, I could design-and change designs-as [ went aiong,

The first order of business, beforestarting work on the B.B.R. sub-unit it ·self, WllS to design and build the holeor bay in the bottom of the ship from

which the B.B.R. would emerge. Inkeeping with the overall design of themodel, I wanted this opening to be

shDrply angular; I thus chose a pen·tagon shape for it. This hole needed to

be buil t at the outset of tlH! model'sconstruction, since when the B.B.R.was retracted into the ship, it would beoccupying space nellr meny interiorelectrical wires, and near the model'smounting rod coccoon. (Actually,these three construction schemes-the

bomb bay rey gun, the internal wi ringand the method of building mounting

points Into the model-all had to be

designed Sim ultaneously, so that theywouldn't interfere with each other.) Theone constant idea I wanted to incor·porate Into the 8 ,B.R. was that it

should fold down out of the shIp, from

hinges elong its rear; and that, whenfolded up into the ship, it would appearas just part of the continuous surfaceof the ship's underbelly.

The first step to building the B.BRsub·unit WllS to design lind construct

the ray gun light source itself. (By thistime I had a feirly good idee of what [wanted the final B.B.R. to look like.)The front (visible) part would be arounded hemisphere, like l in eye. This

WllS cut out from part of a clear pli!lsticoval·shaped hemisphere I bought at alocal arts·and·crafts store (these lirenormally used for enclosing decou·page kits, dried flowers, etc). To cut aportion of the hemisphere lIway from

the surrounding plasticWIIS a some·

Removable top glvu ac:c _ _ to

" RaJ' G _ " and .older points .

whDt difficult lDsk.I first taped the hemisphere down to

1I piece of matte board, on which I haddrawn two para.llellines. These lineswere my cutting guides, liS I WllS goingto use my motorized hobby

saw-whose blade isaround three inch·

es long, longer than the height of heplastic hemisphere Itself - to cut

through both cardboard lind, ebove it,the plastic of the hemisphere. Thismethod worked quite satisfactorily,since the S21 w'S blade was perfect ly li t

right engles to the cllrdboard cutting

guide.To the convex (front) side of this

piece of plest ic hemisphere I addedvery thin horizontal strips of flat·bleck·painted masking tape. 1bHe stripswere placed close enough together sothat only very thin strips of the plastichemisphere were showing through.Behind this ph!!lStic I wanted severalbright lightbulbs, to "'beam" light out

between the tape strips. The bulbs Ichose to use for this (and for most of

the other) model 's lighting w@reGen·

13

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


eral Electric (GE) -233 and -222 (focused) bulbs, available at hardwarestores. These are very bright whenhooked up to just one flashlight bat·tery, and you can usul:llly increase thei rbrilliance by hooking another batteryup to them in series. (Test this schemebefore you seal such bulbs up insideyour model.)

For the " ray eye " I used two GE

- 233 bulbs and one - 222 focusedbulb in the center, for the "pupil" of the

ray eye. I built balsa wood mounts forthese bulbs by carving out a circulartrough in the wood blocks, and tapedand glued the bulbs into these troughs.Since there would really be no way of

getting to these bulbs once the B.BR

A e bulbs. The entire hemisphere can·struction was then enclosed in sheetplastic on the top. bottom and sides.whose d imensions exactly fi t those of

the pentagon·shaped hole already cu t

in to a section of the bottom of themodel.

To create the hinges for attach ing

the rear of the B.B.R. to the hole in themodel. I used several layers of maskingtape. and simply taped the back of theB.B.R. to the outside of the moder! un·

derbelly. This tape would be coveredover with plastic sheeting in a laterstep. Be sure to use enough layers of

masking tape (or other super·stickytape), as I found out that. due to repeat·ed flexing, the tape hinge became

" Bomb b.y Ray Gun . . ._mbly mounted Into th e model with ray "eye" vis ib le .

was sealed to the model itself. I decid,ed to solder wires to the bulbs. andforego the use of sockets. When at,tempting to solder II wire to one of

thc:se GE bulbs, you'lI flnd that themetal (brass. I think) of the bulb casingitself will not "eccept" the solder. WhatI did was to teke some fine emory

metal sanding cloth end polish thesmall solder points already on the bulb,melt'a little extrll solder onto thesepoints-quickly SO as not to harm thetiny interior wires that connect to thefIIament-and solder my wires tothem. The speed with which you do

this is important, since you run the riskof damaging the alr,tightness of thebulb. (You'lI know If this has happened:the bulb will immediately bum out

when hooked up to your battery,)Between these l ight sources and the

inside of the plestic were several differ·ent colors of dear acetate to diffuseand color the Ught. The frosted plastic Iused was "Lenscreen" (avllilable fromEdmund Scientific Co., EdscorpBuJldlng. Barrington, New Jersey08007). The colored acetate is alsoavailable through them. I found that,when working with such short distances between the lightbulbs and thediffusion material, several 5efJlU41.edlayers of Lenscreen were needed in or·der to reduce visible "hot spots" from

14

weak as time went by. You might alsotry a stronger plastic·based tape. Whatkept the B,B.R, firmly concealed in thebottom of the ship was simply friction

between its parts and some of theship's internal wood and plastic struc,tures; the B.B .R. was built to somerather exacting tolerances especiallyfor this reason,

In an earlier stage of the modeJ 'sconstruction, I had buil t a section of

the top of the ship-the arell right overthe B.B.R. assembly-to be removable.since I would need to get to the B.B.R.In order to "push it out" of the under·side of the ship on·camera, to make it

appear to be a huge motorized struc·ture. This Is also how I hooked up theB.B.R: s electrlclll lighting wires to the

Inside view showing hemispheresbape of p . . .Uc...,. "eye,"

main power buss that had already b ~ nbui lt into the ship. By the way. as I wasfitting the B.B.R. assembly into thebottom of the model, I found it necessary to tie the electrical wires already inthe model into bundles, to help keepthem out of the way of the interiorparts of the B.BR This necessitlltedbuilding small wood "t ie·back" supports inside the ship to keep the wirebundles from hanging free. and gettingin the way.

This may sound obvious, but whenyou first begin designing your space·ship model, you should take into ac·count how you are going to supportthe model in its later stages of con·struction, so lhal you can work on ii ,paint it, etc, without breaking of f or

denting anything previously applied.My own model, as it neared comple·tion, could only be rested on its top-

or mounted from one of the twomounting points, of course-because

the tape hinges I used on the B.B.R,assembly weakened with age andrepeated flexing. I could no t rest the

weight of the model on th is area. es thedetails on the outside of the B.B ,R.

happened to ju t out from the bottom of

the ship even when the B.B.R. was

retracted into its bay, thus pushing theassembly into the body of the modelfarther than It was meant to go. As youcan see , logical mounting points for

your model are a must, and come inhandy as you work on it.

BuDding Wing ·Tip f t .y Gun.Since my interest in special effects

had been largely formed from seeingGeorge Pars Waro{the Worlds when Iwas young, I knew that I wanted to in,

clude in my model some type of Mar·tian war machine· ike wing·tip rayguns, and that they should be blood·red in color.

To bui ld these ray guns. I first se·cured a GE - 233 bulb into the hoi·lowed·out recesses along both sides of

the ship. at the outside tip of the mod,ers "w ings: ' between two levels of thehorizontal matte board templates.Since these bulbs were in there to steyfor better or worse, I soldered perma,nent wires to them, which were led outto both the front lind rear electricalhook.up points of the model. I then

covered these glued· n bulbs with adeep-red piece of acetate filter (but no

diffusion material). Then. for the ectualexterio r "red crystlll raydome." Iscrounged up an old bicyde reflector,and cut It Into pieces to fit over thebulbs, (This stuff was extremely hard to

cut into small pieces, because as soonas my motorized saw cut through theplastic, it heated up and we lded itselfback together egain!) Most b icyclereflectors are actually made of trans·parent-but prlsmed-plastic, with no

actual mirror·like reflector material atall. After this cutting had been done, I

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


found it necessary to slightly sand

down the interior angled renectingside. Unless you sand of f the ':tops" of

these small reflecting prisms-not ailthe way-there will be certain viewingangles where you won't see any light

coming through the plastic, no maIlerhow strong the IIghtbulb is behind it.

For each ray gun. I butted two smallpieces of the renector up against each

other at about right angles (after bevel·ing their common edges) and glued

them together and to the model. Thelast step in the n ~ y ' s construction wasbuilding up surfiKe detail around them

to hide tiny seams.

TheEnglneaMy first attempt at making the en·

gine compartment utiltized the Silk·span·and·wooden·ribs technique lIgain.

But this engine design just did not look

aesthetically pleasing, and the Silk·

spanned areas sagged too much any·way. So I scrapped this unfinished con

struction and redesigned the engine

area to be a series of norizontal plates

stretching across the entire rear of themodel, similar to the grillwofk on afuturistic automobile,lt was a rather

simple structure to make, from th in

balsa sheets coated with fiberglass

resin, each plate being separated by a

thicker piece of recessed balsa paintedblock. The only tricky part to building

it was making it fi t the empty area thathad already been "buil t in " in the rear

Removable engine uni t give . a eee • •to r_ r mount an d e1ectr1c:a1polnu .

of the model. Some work was involved

here, getting the engines to exaclly fitthis hollowed·out area. but still be

semi- loose enough that the entire engine sub-unit could be pulled out away

from the ship, The engines were built

as a separate construction wh ich could

be pulled out and removed from the

model by loosening two recessedscrews. This scheme was necessary in

order to get to the rear electrical hook·

ups and the rear mounting point forthe model,

For the actual blazing "engines"

themselves, I used six tiny lightbulbs

evenly-spaced and recessed into one of

the spaces between two balsa plates,These 1.5-volt lightbulbs are about

one-half the size of GE -222 bulbs,

are very bright, and ueIY inexpensive

(20 bulbs fo r $J_OO!) from PolyPaks. amail-order electronics company (Poly

Paks, P,O, Box 942, South Lynnfield,

Mass. 01940). Thi s company stockshundreds of electronic and mechanical

items of possible use to modelers and

effects enthusiasts. Each bulb in the

"eng ine" was in its own socket. in case

one burned ou t and needed replacing,

All of the bulbs were wired in parallel,

and it was quite a trick getting wiresbehind the bulbs to fi t into the very

small space that W/:lS left behind the en·

gine unit (this is one of the reasons whythe engine unit must be secured to the

model with screws- the wiring is

packed in so tightly, it acts like a

spring. trying to force the engine unit

ou t of its recess), Nothing much could

En g in e unit bide. rear mount h o le ,I E ~ vhlw of e ngine la m p .,

be done about this problem, though,

as there was simply too much stuff in·side the model at this point to carve

out any more space for the enginewires.

I powered this string of lights with a

small AC transformer from Radio

Shack to supply the necessary lowvoltageJhigh current for the bulbs. I use

a 120-volt AC-to-6.3·volt AC, 1.2 amp

transformer for this-the higher theamperage, the more bulbs you can

hook in parallel and still retain & bright

light. (Actually, if you put two and two

together, you'll realize that I would

easily have burned out my string of

lights if I had powered a true parallel

string of 1.5·volt bulbs with 6.3·volts,Rather, the lights were actually two

parallel groups of three series bulbs

each. This seemed towork fine with the63·volt transformer.)

Other good light sourcesyou canuse for modelmaking are red andgreen Light Emitting Diodes (LED's).They're solid·state electronic devices,actually, so they'll never wear out if

operated from the correct voltage: andthey're very small, perfect for model

work They're available at Radio Shack

and from PolyPaks,Getting electrical power 10 the en

gine unit from outside the ship in a

manner thai wouldn't be visible to a

camera taking a shot of the engines

was another problem. The wires coo·

necting the engine lights together were

soldered to a "mini phone plug" which

was left sticking out of the back of theengine unit, This plug could be insert·

ed into an appropriate jack that hadbeen included in the cluster of rear

electrical hook·up points on the model.

And wires were run from this jack to

another jack, the actual input powerpoint for the engines, located &Iong the{ranI of one of the middle "wings" of

the model, concealable with & remov·able plastic piece. Thus the power In·

pu t jack was not visible from the rear

of th e ship, and the engine un it ilSelf

could be unplugged from its jack

easily.

Surface DetaUlng

Practically every model's actual

Rear of fln r- hed model withe ngine . "bladog)"

Fr o n t _ e tlon constructe d e ntirely

o f bil.l.. wood,

realism comes from the tiny detailingof its surfaces, With many models, this

is the most time-consuming portion of

the construction, and probably themost visua ll y important. Basically,

adding surface detail to my model fol

lowed this basic scheme: [ used styrene

plastic sheeting-available at most

well·stocked hobby shops- to create

the first basic surface of the modeJ,using thicknesses of .010 inch, .020,

.030, .040, .060, and .080. This last isabout as thick as can be cu t with scis·

sors; any th icker lind you'lI prob&bly

need a motorized hobby saw. The

thicknesses you'll want to use will depend on the size of your model, of

course.

I l

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Close -up of deul l log with 8Uk.pan on r ib . and pla . tl c k it pa ru .

Keep th e thickness of your model'sdetail in scale to the size of the model

itself. In other words, you wouldn'twant really thick plastic plates on a

model that is only six inches long. Insuch cases it might be more realistic to

paint the plates on (using maskingtechniques and slightly differentshades of paint). and not use plasticsheeting at all. Let real·life objects be

your guide: The surfaces of an oi l tank·er's hull and the wing of an airplane arecomposed of plates, but they are sothin In relaUon 10 the size of the objectsthemselves that you really can't seeany surface "thickness," per se, only

the visible effect of the plating. Theplates on real objects are butted up

against each other very tightly. Al l thatis/lClually discernible is the dirt, oil,

rust, etc. filling in the seams between

the plates. So keep detail thickness inrelation to the "real life" size of your

model; and build your miniatures as

large as possible to help eliminate

these problems,I cut the plastic sheeting into various

large areas, to be butted up againsteach other on the model's surface.(Another te<:hnique, known as scoring,can be used to make one large area of

plastic look like it is composed of

many different adjacent pieces. Al l thatis necessary is to take an X·acto knifeblade, break of f the tip very slightly,and use the back side of the nowsquared-off blade to cu t a line into theplastic where one "plate" is supposedto be butting up &gainst another. Use astraightedge to get perfectly smoothlines. This technique is used frequentlyin Hollywood to save t ime-and theresults look greet.)

An interesting trick that can be done

with styrene sheeting is to boil thepieces in water fOf' about 15 secondsuntil they start to bend along theirlengths. You can easily make "curved"plates this way, if any of the g lues

you're using simply will not hold the

"

piece to the model as it is. The technique works on plastic sheets up to

nearly 1116 inch thick. You don't need

to exert any force on the plastic

pieces. . .

they will bend by them·selves while they are in the water, andyou can remove them at any time tohelt the bending process.

Before cutting out the larger surfaceplastic plates, I usually drew what design I generally wanted to see right on

the model itself, with a pencil. (A light

spraying of nat-white paint on your

basic model will allow the pencil marks

to show up more clearly.) This way, Icould d irectly visualize whether thesurface plates and shapes I had in mind

would work or not, end I knew the pen·dl marks would later be painted overanyway.

After the thin plastic sheeting hadbeen cu t and applied to a great deal of

the surface of the model in varioussquare and rectengular shapes. I cu t

more shapes (again, generally squaresand rectangles) out of very thick plasticsheeting. beveled ell the edges to a45° angle with en X·Acto knife andsandpaper, then attached these to

selected areas. This gives the appear·ance of massive raIsed plates. On top

of these, as well as practically every·where else, went smaller and thinner

pIeces; squares, odd shapes, etc. (Notethat it's impractical to try and bevel

such thin pieces.) Don' t make your outside details too /hick, or the model willstart I.ooIdng like e model. Some of the"plates" I glued on were very thIn andno larger in size than 1/8 x 1/16 inch!Remember that the thickness and sizeof detail depends on the size of your

model; the bigger it is the thicker you

can pile things on and still not hide themodel's ovef1l l1 shape and appearance.

Obviously, you can't stick surfacedetail just anywhere on your model;instead, try and attach your

plas tic plates. et aI, in a semi·definite "pattern" that accentuates the

overnl l i ines and design of your ship. Imade a point of not including " round"

shapes in either my overall design or in

the surface detail, to keep my shiplooking coldly "angular," the way I hadorig inally intended it to be.

Don't be afraid to steal ideas from

other sources as far as detail goes; I'vefound it very helpful to have photosconstantly in front of me of the modelsin 20 0J, Sllenl Running, StarWars , theMothership in Close Encountersetc. to

refer to the way in which surface detailrelates to the model's overall appear·ance. Such photos are practically abook in themselves on profeSSionalsurface detailing. You might also wantto refer to photos of actual aircraftand spacecraft. They exhibit a definite"plate·bulld.up" surface pattern, com·

plete with rivets! And note that some

panels and plates on the Real McCoysare of a Slightly different intensity of

color, due to manufacturing variations,etc, something to keep in mind during

your later peinting stages.

8urf .ce deuU . and plate .foUow the Un_ o f the model.

Surface details donol have to besymmetrical-that is, identical on both

the right and left sides of the model.The models In 200 I, for example, hadalmost a completely random surfacedetailing. Of course. the overall shapeof your model should be symmetri·cal-unless you happen to want to

build some many·sided object with

random features throughout. Anyway,don't start putting tiny details on until

you 've gotten the major portion of

your model-Including preliminarythick detail-pretty coherent looking,and following some basic pattern.

Probably the most difficult pUisUc

shaping I had to do was in making the" raised beveled surrounds" for the underbelly triangular light ports. Each of

these had to be made from one pieceof plastic (I didn't want any seamsshowing between two or three glued·to

gether pieces) and that meant carvinga triangular·shaped hole out of eachpiece, and beve ll ing the small amount

of plastic that was left. Aside from slic·ing into my finger with my carvingknife several times, work proceededsmooth ly, if slowly. I started an initialho le into the pieces with a small drill

bit, then placed e piece on my hobby

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


View s ho w • • 11 gro .. cleblllDg

prior to ( ( ~ t CCNll of paint.

saw with the saw blade going through

the hole; in essence I was cutting thehole out from the Inside. And consider·ing each piece was only about 1/2 in-

ch x 3/4 inch, this was definitely a

delicate operation. somewhat h i ~ r e dby the fact that sawing through s t y r ~plastic at such 8 high rate of speed

generates so much heat that the plasticmelts back together again right afteril'!; \,;ul. Th e hole cO\Jld probobly neve

been cut ou t with a chisel.shaped hob-

by knife driven straight down, but

would have taken much longer.When you're satisfied that your

model has the overall prel iminary

" Iook" that you had in mind, start ed·ding on tiny details gleaned from abunch of commercial model kits.

Make sure you don't pick ou t pieces

that are too familiar· ooking; I made

this mistake-using gas tanks from II

German tank model-and my youngnephew picked them out fo r what they

were! Which meant taking those parts

off, needless to SlIy. I personally try to

stay away from using commercially·

bought model details, just to have total

contro l over the way my models willlook. Although, there is cerUJinly noth·

ing wrong with the technique-It is a

well·worn story of how the main modelin TV s BaltJeslar. Galactica is covered

with practically nothing but plastic

model ki t parts. And the results are ob-

viously excellent. You would be sur·

prised, though, at how many common

household materials can be used for

detailing your model-even movie

film. with its sprocket holes. especially

when cu t into odd ly.shaped pieces.

Detai ling is definitely a time·con·suming process: but an abundance of

detail is what makes a "scratch·bullt"

mode l appei!lr so rea listic when photo:

graphed. I was adding surface detailright up until

the actualpainting

ofmy

model; every time I would take a fresh

look at it I wou ld see a bare area thi!ltneed a little more fixing up. It's vitally

imporUJnt to keep looking at your m0-

del objectively, i!lhd to be somewhat

ruthless if necessary in making correc·

tions, modifications etc. to your al·

most-complete model. The results will

no t only please you, bu t others as well.

I purposely stayed away from putting

any frilly, spindly details on my modellike antennae, details that might stick

out from the overall shape. As I envi·

sioned doing some possible film "roto-

scoping" of my filmed model later on,

such detail would have been difficult to

outline and opague·in on the rotoscope

eels.

After applying about as much deta il

as I could stand to the model, I gave it

a preliminary-and thin-coa.t of flat

white paint, to gIve me a better idea of

what the model and its detail looked

like up till now. This step showed me

where more detail was needed, and

also made ~ bolder outlines of theship and its many large appendages

stand ou t clecter in relation to eachother, and to t ~ ship as a whole. (Up

to this point, the model looked liked

the conglomeration of materials and

parts that it reelly was-but painting it

al l in one flet color gave the model thelook of -wholmess.l

My one big mistake in giving theship this pre liminary paint coat was t ~point ibelf. "fter consulting at thenearest hobby shop, I decided on "R f ,

S" " P e r f e c t " · b ~ n d paint which has e

polyure thane base, and wes supposed·Iy the only paint that would stick to the

various materials on my model Without

reacting to ~ m So I thinned the pain tto about 10% (so it would pass

through my airbrush) and geve the m0-

del its flat white coat. So far so good.

And just as [ hed hoped, all the Uttle er·

rors In the surfece of the model

jumped right out et me, now that I

cou ld notice them. I found that the m 0-

del needed more detail. and some ma·

jo r protrusions and such to further the"whole" look. I also discovered that I

needed to recoat some of the surface

balsa wood parts with more glass resin,

since the greln of the wood was still

showing through. And this was THE

BIG mistake.The new coat of resin tumed out to

be highly reactive to the chemicals in

the polyurethane paint. . . and the

paint buckled, chipped, peeled end

every other thing imaginable. I found

that these wrinkles could not be sand·

ed away, so I ended up applying plasticsheeting and other details to almost all

the Sflkspanned areas to hide the

wrinkles1This is not to condemn

Silkspan, polyurethane paint, or

fibergless resin; rether, watch how you

combine these materials. Anywey, efter

this first coa.t of white paint, other little

errors were apparent, such as depres-

sions in the Silkspan here and there(some of which were filled in with

"modeling putty," called Squadron

Green putty end aveitable in hobby

shops, which is similar to the stuff cer

body repairers use to fill in dents): andsmall cracks between adjoining sheets

and parts of plestic, which were fixedby squirting white glue on the crackand then wiping it off, leaving a filler of

sorts. I imagine this might raise a feweyebrows among professional model·ers, but it worked for me. By the WZly,

modeling putty takes fiberglass resinvery well. This is a good way to give

those repaired surfaces a glassysmooth finish after the putty has been

sanded down (lind nothing is more bor·

ing than sanding down modeling putty.that stuff is tough)!

I should add that, before applying

that preliminary coat of white paint. it

was necessary to "mask off' certain

small areas of the model so thet the

paint wouldn't reach them-the ex·

Carving th e "nl_ d bevelled surrounds" rrom on e piece or plastic,

17

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


posed lights, mllinly. I could have donethe masking with tape and a sharpX·acto knife-and a lot of patience- bu t instead dedded to use somehobby stuff clllled MicroMask, which islike a thick c1ellr paint, lind is watersoluble. Just spread it on with a smallartist's brush lind let it dry. You're nowready to paint. To get the stuff off,score the edges of the IIrea and lift it

of f either with tape pressed against it ,or by scraping it of f with II chisle-type

X'lIcto blade. It comes off easily. (In apinch. you could probably use liquidlatel( as your masking medium,)

P.lntlng the Mod e lThe bllsic premise to be remem

bered when painting lIli of the tiny su r·face details you've put on your modelis that you'll wllnt them to show up oncamera and not be hidden against auniform background co lor, This meansyou will have to a r t i f i ~ i l l i l y "enhzlnce"the painting of the details, This is rou·tinely done to Hollywood models (wit·ness the aging lind roughing·up given

to the Star Wars models.) But tostart at the beginning: To do liS good ajob of painting my model as possible, Idecided to spend the necessary moneyand buy lin "airbrush," wh ich is simplya controllable version of a spray paintcen, that also happens to put out afiner mist. Its one great advantage isthat it allows you to mix your ownpainl colors, since you aren't tied downto using only the sprlly can colors thatare commercilllly available, And of

course it produces a much superior

painted surface than one obtained witha brush: no brush strokes. Airbrushes

(and complete kits) range in price fromonly $10 to more than $90, dependingon how many extra features you want. Ipersonally decided on a Badger brand'200 ki t , which sells for lIbout $39, ad·

mittedlya rather steep price to be plIldby someone on a l imited budget (like

me!) But as [would be using mine forother projects in the future, I thought it

a wise investment. Th is airbrush has lin

adjustable spraying width lind lImount.The $10 Badger airbrush ki t for be·ginners will probably give you a decenttool for applying overall coats of paint.but will not give you the con tro l neces·sary to put tiny swaths of color on your

models-like engine el(haust bums

and the l i ke-since it isn't an a4juslableairbrush.

You'll be needing regular paintbrushes that are as small as the workyou will be doing with them; my adviceis to invest in some very fine·tipped lI r·tist's brushes. The few dollars extra youspend here will be more than campen·sated for in the amount of time and

frustration saved from repaintingbotched·up areas due to too-big a plIintbrush.

Have enough paint on hand! Don'tget caught short, while airbrushingwith a custom color especially, like I

did. Having to re·mix a custom plI intcolor to exacl1y match what was

sprayed on before is II nightmar ish job.It's makes much more sense to havemore than enough paint on hand lind

ready to use.

To give my finished model its firstreal coat of paint. I mixed up a customcolor from various sh&des of fllIt greyand !lrP.Y.1lrown Humbrol hrand hobbypaint. It's more expensive than Testor 'sor Pactra Enamel, and is only lIvllilableat well-stocked, major hobby shops,But it seems to have a finer "g rllin "than other hobby paints, and thus

gives your model a truer "to-scale"paint job. It also goes through air·brushes easier. I chose a medium valuegrey color for two reasons: to make thespacecruiser look more like II NlIval

S ide vie w pr iOf t o a fl na l coat of 9fa]" paint .

IS

armament ship; and because I wantedthe surface reflectance of the model to

be near that of an "18% grey card," agrey cardboard photographer's toolthat helps determine proper exposurefor II photo. As I was planning on dupli.eating some of my filmed footage ofthe model later on, I wanted to havethe model as properly exposed as p0s-

sible on the original film . And whatbetter method than to have the modelitself reflect light back to the camera as

if it were a "neutral" photographicsubject.

After this base color was airbrushedonto the model-in several separate.light coats-I mixed some darker,

Model on AUppor t fo d abou t to

fe(:eive a coat of paint.

more metallic colors using Pactra Enamel. They make realistic steel, "'/er,and aluminum colors, which can be in·termixed. These slightly darker colorswere brushed into the recessed areas of

the model, to sort of enhance thenaturlll shadows there. Other selectedareas were plIinted different shades of

grey, to break up the monotony of thefirst bask grey coat. A lo t of individualtiny surface details were treated thiswily lIlso, to make them stand out. The

areas around the "wing.tip ray guns"were given the only non-grey co lo r onthe model, since I definitely wllntedthese weapons to be visible. I mixed up

a custom gold color, with steel andIron colors mixed in to take the sheenfrom the gold paint. These paintedareas were then heavily sprayed withstreaks of airbrushed f1at·black color.to give the impression that the rayguns hlId definitely seen some actionin outer space. This same black waslightly sprllyed all over the ship - no t

randomly, but in steaks, along whatwould be air·f1ow lines around the sur·fllce outcrops. This step gave themodel the look of having travelled in

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Painted model Just prior toairbrush "streaking."

war·to rn environments.As can probably be surmised, I used

many paintlng techniques that afe

used when modeling r m o r ~ waf ve-hicles an d the like. After all . th is spacecruiser model was supposed to be atool of war, an d needed to be painted

accordingly. (Besides, the grey shiplike color scheme gives model an

earth-based military referf!nce point, so

It's somewhat easy to ima g ine It being

a weapon of war.)

I sloyed away from ptlinting onything

on the model II pure dark black; suchdark areas would present too great IIcontrast to be photographed, andwould come out looking like absolutevoids on film. In foct, my entire color

scheme as fa r as light lind dark shades

were concerned was "compressed" In toa range that was around the neutralgrey color of the basic paint ob.

After painting, the final step was torub.some black and brown charcoal(like chalk pastels) on my finger or aQ.tip , and rub this over the edges of alot of the surface details and outcrops,This is a time-consuming and delicatejob, but it causes the details on themodel to stand out that much more

starkly from the background, WhIchbrings up an interesting point: modelsthat are made for filming pur·poses-and thi s definitely applies toHo llywood models-are usua llypainted in ISJ1 e x t r e m e " way: that is, no

really subtle colors or shades are used(they get lost when transferred to film ,)Instead, thecotors and detail paIntingare deliberatedly enhenced, so that

when seen in reel life the model lookslud icrously banged·up. But on film thisiso't the c::a:se; the model takes on a

' I l I ' e a ~ look. So don 't besubtle when weIIIthering and aging yourownmodet

Comment.sAfter working on my model for

nxx t: thdn iIt year, lind in fou r d ifferent

Completed model with .urf .ce . t r ~ k l n g .nd edging.

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residences, I'm happy to say that I'mrather pleased with the way it tumedout At times I was ready to give up on

the whole project ou t of frustration atthe mistakes I was making, and at my

inability to devote mo'e time to themodel (I desparately wl:lnted to see It

finished!) But I persevered, I:Ind thefinished model is a faithful rendition of

what I envisioned it would be,It is my opinion, after scratchbulld·

ing a model from the ground up, thatother I'1'1Odelers interested in doing soactually forego reading most of theaveilable books on model construc·tion, and simply get to work buildinghis or her model out of materials that

seem appropriate. My reason for feel·ing thi s way is that I personally learneda great deal from building my ownmodel my own Wl:lY, without resortingto most of the commercial books onthe subject. Certl:linly, I mademistl:lkes . . . but they I:Ire mistakes I'mnot likely to make again, since I nowhave a " feel" for the materials andtechniques I used. lessons which I

could not have picked up from any

book. Of course, I ca n't take totalcredit for learning everllUng on my

own-some of the material I learned

about by pel}lsing through magazines(like oldCINEMAGIC 'S!).and from

thumbing through books in my localhobby shop. But I would say that study·ing pictures of other" modelers' effortswas the most instructive "book learn·

ing"l received.Let me again stress that my methodof stratchbuilding is only one of many

possible ways of do ing it. The methodyou will want to use will depend on thematerials and tools available to you,how much time and money you wantto spend, lind. of course , your ~design. Don't neglect the use of every·day materials and even household ar·ticles when building your model; if youfind a salt·shaker that looks somewhatlike the " Iaser·activated thermonucleardetonated device" that you hed envi·sioned. then use it as such! But

modified. of coursel 01

Two views of Ken Walkel" s finished s paces hi p . Left: The s hip s tanding onI ts bot tom . Below : Notice the a lrbrus hlpg , giving a bla ckis h , w_the . - ed look .

•

omlnC

NEMAGIC ·3 will be on sale in September with a feature story on

robot construction. Clear step-by·step details and diagrams will

enable you to start adding your own marvelous electronic props to

your SF/fentesy films.Gadgets for special effects-inexpensive and readily I:Ivaiiable-witl be

examined.Plus all the regular departments and special features.

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


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We published the orJgmalCINEMAGIC lor six years, and during that time we

presented dozens of exclusIVe ph oto.features and how·to articles on makmgyour own special effects films . II you had to buy the separate issues of

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Fully tndexed. FILM MAGIC IS wntten by ftlmmakers who have Ined o!Ind

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7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Producers',

U InPlease forward annOUllcements of (lim projects in curre.nl

production ornear complellon 10; CfNEMAGIC. c/oO'QulnnSiudios, Inc. 4 75 ParkAvenue Sou/h, New York,NY 10016. Please include a photograph of some phase of

lhe production if possible.

Darkworld. Scoutship pilot ve ntures into the fant<!lsticvoid beyond a black hole end encounters a very differentEarth. Producers: David Kinnick. Mark Houghton, Thea

Cedar, Chris Brown. FX include reaT ·screen miniatun!!s.

Super·B. Running time: 12 minutes. (David Kinn ick, 1405Grand View Drive, Berkeley, CA 94705.)

Time Car , The. Time t raveler journies to the prehistoric

age in his automobi le. Producer: Les Studios Tessier.WriterlDirector: MarcTess ier. SpKial effects: Cram Reis'

set-stop.motion, maltes, o p t i c ~ l s . Cast: Eric Duchesneauas the time traveler. Supe r-B. si lent. (Les Studios Tessier,540 lOB Avenue, Drummondville, Quebec. Canada.)

Convention. TwilighI Zone·li kefan·tasywith a twist ending. Producers:

Dave e ~ t t y and Richard Geiwltz.Origi·

nal music:J im FoxandJohn Abernath y.Makeup:MarkSupensky . Camera:Paul Medlock. Lighting: Bob Goald.Cast: Ken Luchs, Christine Green,Richard Mack. Bob Fleishman, StewartRosenberg, Murrayand Kae Sarubin.16mm sound.Color. Runn ing time: 5minutes. (DaveGeatty ,3912 McDonagh

Rd ., Randal lstown,MD 21133.)

Starllre. One man sets out in his faster· han· igh t ship.Star/7re, to explore the outer reaches of the galaxy.Includes animation , space flight scenes, explosions, double

exposures, etc. 8mm, colo r. Runn ing time: 15·20 mi nutes,(Ronll id WlIyne Bell, 3740 Lauria Rd .• Bay Ci ty . MI48706.)

Domain of the Dragons, Three men are stranded on

a p lanet when their starsh ip crash lands. They are attackedby a weird creatu re until only one is left. Model animation

with lIerial brace. doub le exposu res lind five anima ion

models. Producer/SFX: Mark Penman. Sync sound : Todd

Co tt on. Cast: John Kuhndrat, Steve Cloud, J im Troxtell .Techn ica l assis tance by pro-animll tor Dan Cherney. (MarkPenman, 322 Cherry Val ley, Amherst. OH 4400 1.)

StarSase : Omega. TheMarcons .an evil warring race, plot to destroyElIrth'smost far·reach ing ins tallationand only one being can stop h ~ m .Employs elttensivemin atu re/modelwork, Producer: Dave Landoni and Sob

Hinckley. DirectorlSFX: Ko rvid Nizzari.Super.a,color, sound. Running time:

32·35 minutes. (Korvid Nizzari ,38FortSquare, Gloucester,MA 0 1930.)

Wild and Furious. Kung·fu spoof. Producer: Barrier Productions. Cast: Robert Beltz, Morgan Bowen, Tim Murphy,Randy Fillmore. (Robert A. Beltz, Merced, CA.)

22

Tollman II. Live ·action space adventure. Executive Pro·

ducer: Martin Lindsay. Supervisi ng Producer: Dan Goo kin .Special effects include: miniatures , pyrotechnics, video ·tape inserts, ti t le animation , Super·a. Sync sound . Ru nning

time : aO·90 minutes. (Epic Productions. 9395 Harritt Rd .·227. Lakeside. CA 92040.)

Hunters. The. What k ind of world would i t be if dealh

meant nothing? This is the world of the 22nd century,when young Sandra Cunn ings rellllzes how permanent it is.

Producer: CrystalaxiLazerous. Director: David H. Bowen.Cast: Meg Stauber. Thomas Staudahaur , Janice Salo,David Bowen as the /!Issassin. Super.B. co lor. stereo. Running time: 20 minutes. (David H. Bowen. 1029 13th S1.

North, Virginia. MN 55792.)

Holy W an , Re lig ious fa rce. A war be·tween the Jewsand the Christians inouter space. Producer: Global Fi lms.Miniatures and stop·motlon lInlmlltlon.

Regular·a, color. Runn ingtime: 10minutes. (C raig Bisgeier. 400 West EndAvenue. New York, NY 10024).

Frankenstein. Amateur version pla yi ng of f the classictheme. although not Identical. Producer: Georgetown Uni·ve rsity Film Club. Written and Directed by Nick D·Alesan·dro. Cast: Val Deale. Pat Conron, Helga Stoess, KevinCamenares, Lydia McShane and Stephen Cashin as the

monster. Single-8. color. sound. Running t ime: 14 minutes.

Bra ..

Brax, greatest warrior of al lti me. battles the wizard Sanzabar andZemuria, a one-eyed monster.Producer: Fantasy Fi lms. Script : KeithBecker. Special Effects: JosephFreund. Effects include stOp· motion,

rear projection composities. Cast:Kei th Becker, Don Jones. BillGegan.

Regular-B,color, separatesound track.Running time: 15minutes. (JosephFreund, 23 Georgetown Road. Borden·town, NJ 08505.)

The Pentacle of Aeregarr. Sword and sorcery epic.15th century prince who, with the help of his father's knightsand the castle wizard, set out for the lost island of Aeregarr,

seeks a magical pentacle which (according to a mysticoracle) will cure a disease tha t is threatening his father'skingdom. Special effects include: matte paintings, opticaleffects, miniatures, stop-motion creature conjured up by asorcerer to battle the &dventurers. 16mm. In preproduction.(Bill Boles, Livonia, MI.)

Hockey Wars. Comedy/Fantasy. Producer: Dude-A·PeakProductions. D irector/Specia l Effects: Tom McCluskey.Cast: Lance "Regg ie" McCluskey, Kerry McCluskey andone hoc key team. Filmed on location at the Klond ike

Ice Arena. Special Effects include stop·motion and front

projec tion. Budget: $135. Supe r·B. sound. color. Runningtime : 10 minutes. September '79 release. (Tom McCluskey.117 Sunset Circle ·43, Benicia, CA 94510.) 01

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


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A Flash In SpaceCreation of he SF Film Productions Logo

Filmmaker Ernes t Farino prepares th e -various matte. an d .rtwon. created for th e rumlng ofth e SF FUm Product ion. logo . Farino baa . good d_1 of _perlence producing animated spots.

By ERNEST D. FARINO

A

s part of STARLOO's ne w

plans for theatrical film production, SF Film Productions was created. Kerry

Q'Quinn approached me about producing a logo sequence that would in·troduce their fi lms (in much the same

manner as the MGM lion and others).He roughly storyboarded an idea

that began with a bright, intense,nebulous energy field in space, dottedwith burst ing stars and crackles of

lightning. A prominent bolt of lightning in the foreground would form an

"S;' which would drift back, slowly ra-

tatlng, followed by a second lightning

bolt forming the companion ''P' shape,

also drifting back. These letters were to

appear white hot-almost to the point

24

of being illegible. They would meetand join in the middle background,and as the "SF"' slowly zoomed forward, small pinpoint lights would pop

on, vaguely spelling out the words"Film Productions" beneath the "SF"

Then, in a burst of light and lens flare,this chaotic galactic atmosphere wouldtime-warp to a normal space setting'with the "chrome-finish" SF Film Productions logo in its final color form.

About a week's time was spent preparing all the title graphics and mattes.The actual SF Film Productions logowas supplied by the STARLOG offices to

insure fidelity to their logo and consistency with their other uses of it (letterheads, advertisements, etc). From this,I made the required mattes and Kodalith sheet negatives_

The background nebula effects werethe most problematic, and I was initially unsure exactly how to proceed in

creating an interesting visual appearance on a re latively low budget. I

originally considered aiming a 35mm

high-speed camera (for a slow-motioneffect) down at a clear plastic dome

about two feet in diameter; waterwould shoot up inside the dome, andby triggering flash bulbs during

photography and manipulating color

and clarity during subsequent opticalprinting, we might have generated afairly abstract, continuously swirlingenvironment. But the whole arrangement was too expensive a proposit ionand somewhat impractical.

I fina lly settled on building a doublecolor wheel consist ing of two 9 dia-

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


meter 1/8" thick dellr plexiglass discsmounted on parallel axles so theycould rotate and overlap each othe r.

My assistant, Curt Hardaway, then attached co lor gels, bits 01 colored glassfrom broken so ft drink and beer bot·ties, end pieces of translucent plastic,A studio quartz light with a snoot wasset up behind the co lor wheel so that adirectional beam of light would shinebetween the axles and through the area

where the two discs overlapped_A slideprojector lens was strepped betweenthe snoot and the color wheel to fur·

2

J

4

5

6

7

8

ther collimate the beam of light. and

the complete unit was aimed at a rearprojection screen. The 35mm MitchellReflex camera was locked down on theother side of the screen, and in en

otherwise totaJly darkened studio, thetwo color wheels were animttted ,rotating in opposite directions. Earlier,118· increments had been markedaround the outer circumference ofeach wheel li S a guide ror consisten t

animation. (The whole lIpparatus couldhave been motorized with II chll!n dr ivebut that would have required more

time and money and wasn't reallynecessary.) After consulting some

previously processed tests to insureproper exposure for such an unusual

1. Nebula background] 1 of fo u .top. l l t 8 I l 0 colo . .una filmedOD animation . t and with aUght

rotaUoD movement and co n ·nect.ed with 48 · f .ame matchedd J_o l v_ .

2 . StaUc perlpberalatarrleld.

Starlleld made b, . peclllng ou tp lnho l_ In em u . on aide ofbWnk (opaque) abeetnegaUvefilm, aad sbo t Ncll l i t onanboatiOD stand .

3 . Srn.alI atmospbe..-e IJgbtnJngflImed a t random In 6 ·8 f ....mecycle ,

4 . Main Ugbtning .5 . "S" abape fllmed with fo g

flltftr an d o v e n u r ~ d ~ o o mIn g back and ..otaUng.

6 . Second . - I n lightning,7 . " F" ahape alao filmed aoomlng

baclr. and rotaUng .8. Random aurburs t plnpolnt.a.

bole In hlack paper ahot with

.ur ilter.9 . "SF Connect Burat"-ama1l6v

bulb filmed with atar filter a t

point where "S " and "F" ap ·pear to connect In middlebackground,

10. Complete "Film Product lona".pel led ou t In . . . . .U dota,filmed coming on tw o a t a t imewltb ata . and fo g rUter com ·binatlon .

11. Su r ·ahaped "lena na .egraphic."

12, RIng·abaped " l en . flaregraphic."

13 . Normal SF Film P ..oductlona

logo.

14 . Surfleld behind SF logo .Cluse acruUn,. will r ev_ I mat ·ted a r_ In cente . tha t con form. to SF logo to preventhleed.througb of au ra .

lS . Matte of rl m ·ablne. Thladoe.n · t appear th l . wa, In

final erred , but photog .aphedhe .e to IIlu ..... e overall .r_

of .-Im·ahlne .16. Repreaentatlve frame of .-1m ·

.h lne . Sl i t animated behind

.-Im-.h lne matte _ en above( -15) .

17. Sparklea on SF logo, ahownal togetber here bu t animatedIndividually.

Image, we shot about 400 frames of

color wheel effects.The resulting film was not exactly

the""casc:ading flow of erupting color"that I had hoped for, so I continued tomodify and add to this segment.

•

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Although swirl1ng color effectsmelted in and out of ellCh other

throughout the scene, the supplemen.

tary lens used with the color wheelcaused a predominant repeating pat·tern to appear slightly off and belowcenter. By mellns of the Oxberry ani·mlltion stand, I had planned all along

to bi·pack print the color wheel ef·fects onto the composite negative thatwould have all the title graphics, butnow, !lither than rely on this single col·or wheel film. which was intentionally(and luckily) much longer than needed,I broke it up into two sections lastingthe length of the intended scene. Thefirst segment was synced up normally,but the second strip was nipped over

and then tails·to·head, to take advan·tage of the off·center color wheel ef·fects and double the lIpparent colorwheelllctlvity. (See Appendix A.)

But even so, these color wheel ef·fects wouldn't have sufficed bythemselves for the desired nebula en·vironment. so I retrieved some materialoriginally m&de last year for a lV com·

mercial. For that project I h&d neededa very surreal "sunset" to appear

behind a miniature mountain/castle. Aslide made up of red and yellow colorgels h&d been projected onto wrinkledsilvered Mylar at a 45 0 angle to a rea rscreen, and the resulting abstractshapes h&d been photographed onto

35mm slides to later rear projectbehind my castle miniature. I only usedone slide for the job, but for the SF

logo. I selected four different slidesfrom the leftover takes and ordered8x 10 color reversal prints. These, then,would supplement the color wheeleffects.

With graphic material assembledand colorl density corrected positive35mm prints of the color wheel effectsready and prepared with leader and

sync marks (and after having run a bi·pack wedge test for exposure and filtra·

26

Ove rlapping color wh _ l c ons truction ,

tioo and wedge tests on all co lor gelsand graphics), work on composiling thesequence on the Oxberry was ready to

begin. Two passes were first made, bi·packing the separate color wheelstrips, p r i n ~ i n g them directly onto thedupe negative in a straightforwardmanner. They were printed intentional·Iy dim, and are somewhat subtle In the

final sequence. The third pass can·

sisted of the color 8x 10 photos of the

surreal U sunset" shapes, animated in eslow (3 increment) rotation and blend·ed with 48-frame matched di$SOlves.This completed the basic nebula ef·fects and the e n h a n < : e m e n t s · ' end titleeffects remained to be edded.

The "enhancements"" consisted of is

static periphery starfield, randomsingle stars twinkling very hot with astar filter, and small random lightningbolts which had been rendered on celsas a six·frame cycle. Almost at the lastminute(a week or so before compositing), I recalled that I still hed e24·frame cel animated comet thatzoomed lICroSS the frame, originelJyproduced for yet another lV commer·

cial. I decided to stick this in for added

nebula effect. and to breek up the timein which the ··5·· end ··F· drift back.

All of those effects. of course, weremeticulously charted and plotted on

exposure sheets. All multiple pass re-

quires careful documentation to insurecorrect timings and synchronous ef·fects. So, on a predeterm ined frame,the ma in lightning bol t was added and

the ""S" was animated drifting back.This action required zoom motion,rotation and N·S movement (whichmoved the "S" from dead center to

slightly above center for its proper finelcomposition with the "Film Produc·tions" title). The "S" was animated to

its '·stop" position and mesked off: thecamera was backed up to the properframe, the second lightning bolt add·

ed, and the "F · was animated back In

the same manner, though rotating inthe opposite direction. At that point,the "S" was once again revealed (now

both "5" and 'F ' were visible) and theforward zoom motion was shot withthem together (avoiding potential ··slid·iog"" of one letter against another if

they had been zoomed on separate

passes). These letters were open, dear

shapes filmed slightly overexposedthrough e fog filter to ge t an intense,glowing white. In this way, the letterseffectively '·burned in·' over the back·ground, appearing opaque without theneed for traveling mattes. The camera

wes backwound again for the exposureof ··Film Productions:· Earlier, smalldots had been applied within the

typeset letters of '·Film Productions"and a Kodalith negative was made, so

Oxberry a nimation stand se tup fOJ"bl · pac k printing o f nebula bac k ·ground • SbJ"fleld on table blocksf la", l ight for th is photograph.

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


The Crimson Effect:Realistic Blood For Your Films

By DON DOHlER

Although emateur filmmakers will take grellt eliTeIn producing e meticulous

optical or mechllnlcal effect

-such liS a stop-motion model or astarship cruising through the cosmos

- there is one makeup effect oftentaken fo r granted: blood. How easy It

seems to merely pour on some storebought "stage" blood or red posterpaint, espedelly when an uptight actor Is sitting rigid during the appli·celtion-end anx.ious to have it over

with!

Unfortunately, readily availableblood fluids yield less than realistic

results on the screen, since theygenerally tend to look too bright.red.

Two recent feature films, Taxi

Driue.r and The Deer Hunter-both

dispillying pretty gr8phic violence

required a gTellt deal of realisticbloodh!ttlng. The producers of these

mu lti·million·dollar films, natuflllly,wouldn't dare skimp on something as

simple, but important, as the bloodeffects. So they clliled on the tllientsof Hollywood's most respected make·up artist, Dick Smith, to make surethllt the blood we saw on the screen

looked like blood. In cllse you didn'tknow, Dick Smith is the man who

brought us the fllbulous mllkeupcreations in The Exorcist, The Pictureof Dorian Gray and will soon send

chi lls up our spines In the upcomingmovie, Altered States.

Fortunately for all of us, Smith isan avid CINCMAG IC fan and Is kindenough to share some of his profes·sional experience with us in thesepages.

Here are Dick Smith's tried·andproven formulas for creating movieblood guaranteed to set your au·diences squirming . . . .

BLOOD MADE WITH KARO SYRUP

AMOONTOF RED YELLOW KODAKCLEARKARO ZINC OXIDE FOOD COLOR FOOD COLOR PHOTO-FLO· WATERI Pint lh Level Tsps. I Oz. 2lfz Tsps. IOz. IOz.I Quart 1 LevelTsps. 202. 5 Tsps. 20z. 20z.2 QUi!lrts 2 Level Tsps. 40z. 1 Oz. + 4 Tsps. 4 Oz. 40z.3 QUlIrts 3 Level Tsps. 6 Oz. 2 lf:z Oz. 60z. 60z.1 Gallon 4 Level Tsps. BOL 3 Oz. + 2 Tsps . 80z. 80z.

D1c:k Smltb In hi s studio demonstratas . blood effect on tb e bead boUt fol ' . _quence of J'hS'Sentinel.

28

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JIUXING PROCI!DllREPut the zinc oxide into bowl. add

en equal emount of willer and stir IntoII peste. Add the measured emounts

of red lind yellow food colors and stir.Add a little of the Karo lind stir untll1tIs well-mixed.

Pour thIs mixture into a container

which Is larger than the final amountof blood ; that is, if you are makingthree quarts of blood. your containershould be a gallon jug . This Is

n ~ e s s l I r y because once the formula Is

mixed, It must be shzIken prio r to

each use in order to re·mix the con·tents, which tend to separate while sit·Ung.

Add the remaining IlImount of KaTO

to your container and sho!lke well.Finally, add the amount of wollter

specified. mix thoroughly and you willhllve blood with normal conslslenq

(thickness).

-I(the blood will not be used In the

mouth, the Photo-Flo can be added.Photo-Flo Is e wetting agent whichmekes the blood now over surfeceswithout beading end helps it to soakInto febrlcs natU'relly, like ree l blood .If you use the Photo· Flo, shake yourmixture more gently than otherwise toavoid excess foaming (ceused by the

Photo-Flo). And remember: do not useblood with the Photo-Flo in the mouth!

ADDmOftAL IIIftT8

Food Colors: Most red food colorsare similar. but the yellow ones vary.Eh!ers yellow stains white paperlemon-yellow, while Schilling. Mc·Cormick and Crown yellows are moreorenge.lfyou don't use Ehlers, edd

only one·ha/fthe amount of yellow In·dlcated in the formula .

Zinc Oxide: 'The type referred to In

the formula is the pure powder form(U.S.P.) obtainable from e druggist or

chemical supply house. In the smallamounts used it is harmless. and itadds some opacity to the blood.

Darker Blood: Although the for·mula above matches true blood. Itmay look too bright when used on

white materials. Use about 35 drops ofgreen food coloring per quart of Keroblood to darken.

Thinner Blood: If you want e thinnerblood to pump through speclal·effecttubes. use the same formula-withthe Photo-Flo-but dilute the KeTO

Syrup Indicated with an equal amount

of water. For instance, If the formulacalls for one pint of Kero, Ddd one pintof water to it before mixing In the restof the Ingredients.

Thicker Blood: Karo blood cen bethickened with small amounts of

peenut butter. Experimentation will

give you the thickness you desire.Finally, keep your blood mixture

refrigerated when not In use. If youdon't it will form mold and have to bethrown out. A covered, plasUc can·

tainer Is best for stor ing Keroblood,end If kept refrigerated, it's

good for long periods of time.The regular formula washes off of

skin and clothes without any trouble,but the "thinner" (diluted) version maystain some febrlcs. It's best to haveyour actors wear old clothing forscenes requiring blood. (J f

29

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


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Building Your OwnSmoke Generator

By DAN TAYLOR

T he {ollowlng de ..ice is recommended fo r

use only on miniatures or set ups Ihalare

enclosed. Il ls not recommended (or use onfull'size sels or with ae/olS.

A device for generating smoke canbe built quite easily at a minimal ex

pense. (Smoke generator constructedby Dave Proctor.)

MATERIAL8:1. Blower (industrial type)2. Flexible hose (three inch diameter)3. Two tennis ball cans

To begin, cut the bottom out of oneof the tennis ball cans. Since the top

J2

has been removed to get the balls out,and you have just cut the bottom out,what you have left is a cylinder. Now,take the other can and drill five1/4·inch holes in the bottom. Drill twoon both sides and one in the middle.Attach one end of the flexible hose to

the blower (tape will do the trick), The

other end slides over the cylinder. Now,in the five ho les drilled in the other caninsert filtered cigarettes (use fil tertipped cigarettes because the filt ergenerates the most smoke). Light thecigarettes and place the two canstogether. Wrap a piece of masking tapearound them where they join. Plug in

Above left: The b .s lc assemblyof th e smoke generator with

blower, fle :dble bose an d tennl .b.1I c .n . Above: Cigarette.ar e a commonly .vsn .ble sourceof smoke . Below lert: Th e

assembled doable -ca n .y. tem .Th e ashea ar e contained tn th e. econd ca n . Be aUl"e to have afire eatlngatahel" h.ndy a . apnC&uUon In yoal" atudlo .

the blower and you have it.Smoke should start billowing out in

a few seconds. Place the end of the canup to a pre·cut hole in your enclosure.When the desired density is obtained.remove the can and seal the hole with

masking tape.The double·can system will keep the

hot ashes contained. However, extremecaution should be used. ralways keep afire extinguisher handy. just in case.

After your set-up is fi lmed and you

wish to get rid of the smo ke, simply

place the suction part of the blower up

to the pre·cut hole. Run the flexiblehose out a window. This should clear

your enclosure in a relatively shorttime.

If you are one of the younger film-

makers, please do not attempt thiswithout proper supervision. at

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


A.bovel (Figure 1 ) Dan Taylor ' .mlalatu!"11 aet . The l ight beam.m . . . appear from th e ver t ical

a louln tbe door • Right:(Figure Z) Th e rear wlew oflbe • • me ae l wltb lb e door .

open . . .d th e lrI:e,.lIghta r igged.

8e low: (Figure 3) Tiny piaho l e . were punched In th e

noorof the aet. Pine aet In thefloor gauged the awing of the

door . wltb some degree o f

CreatingLightBeamEffects

By DAN TAYLOR

L ight beams are created by the II·

lumlNltion of dust or moisture par-tides present in the air. The denser tMparticles. the more predominate the!>eoms.

In the filming of miniatures, air den-sity has been given little, if any, etten-tion . . . until Doug Trumbull and com·pany picked up on this oversight. In

Oose Encounters, in order to achieve amore realistic effect. ai r density was ac-tually scaled down to match the scllieof the miniatures. The results were un·questionably some of the finestminiature work to date.

A simple method for creating light

beams is to build your miniature sothat it is completely sealed in a box-like enclosure. This will enable you to

fill the enclosure with smoke, and byshining lights from the outside of thebox through VArious openings, you will

be able to add light beams In andaround your miniature. Just how this

I I

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


applies to various miniatures dependson the effect you are trying to create. It

can be as piercing as a search light or

as subtle as the haze around streetlights.

A TV commercial I mllCle celled for ashot of huge Roman-style doors withgolden light rays pouring through thewindows of the doors. The doorsswung open and the golden reys wash·ed out the screen. To a('complish thiswe first built a miniature of the doors(Figure I) . This miniature was built in abox with the doors at the back. Thefront was left open to allow for filming.One hole was cu t in both sides of thebox to accommodate the key lights(Figure 2). Tiny pinholes were punchedIn the floor of the set just under eachdoor. The holes represent the line of

tnlVel thet the doors would fol low whenthey swing open. By inserting astraight pin through one of the holesand moving the door until it hi t the pin

we were able to gauge the doors andrepeat the move with some degree of

accuracy (Figure 3).The doors swinging open and the

light rays pouring through were shoton separate passes in order to maintainmore control over the individualelements. The doors were li t for thedesired mood, and the first pass wasfilmed. This pass consisted of thedoors unlatching and swinging open,but no light beams.

For the second pass the holes in theside of the box were covered with plex.

ig lass. The opening created by thedoors was covered with window glass(window glass was used because it'seasy to keep dean). A cardboard hoodwas attached from the front of the setto the camera lens (Figure 4). A smallwindow at the point where the hood

l4

and lens meet allowed for film ing andprotected the lens. A light source was

mounted on a tripod behind the doors

(Figure 5). This light was filtered gold

and pointed at the doors. This was theonly light used on the se<:ond pass.M.onofilament line was attached to the

inside edge of the doors and run out of

the box through small slits next to theside wif'ldows. This line·and·pinmethod provided a way to animate thedoors within the sealed miniature.

Next the set was filled with smoke.Placing masking tape over all seamsprevented excess smoke leakage. Thedensity of the smoke was viewed

through the side plexiglass windows.Proper smoke density was determined

by a series of exposure tests. The light

behind the doors was turned on andstreaming through the cracks and win·dows in the doors were golden light

beams.With the camera rewound and the

proper f/stop set , we were ready for our

second pass. The doors were animatedopen using the line-and·pin methoddescribed earlier. As the doors opened.the light beams grew larger until theentire screen was washed out with gold

light.The " It's Your Future" title used

smoke tight beam effects. This effectwas achieved with the use of a smallbox filled with smoke. The box hadglass on the top and bottom. A

K o d ~ l i t h negative was placed behindthe back glass. Several passes weremade using different colored gels.Another suggestion would be to shootyour light beams separately and superthem over live action by means of adouble exposure or as a burn·throughon the Broil.

Naturally. the applications are many.So get to i t-and let us know of any in

teresting discoveries. (J I

Above: (F igure 4) A cudboardhood I. atuched from the frontof the lIe t to the carner. le ns.This .Uo"". the . " ,ok . to bundto an even d e n.lt, . . A .maDwindow at the point where thehood and len. meet protec:U thele n s from the . moke JNortlcl_.

Below: (Figu re 5 ) A DghtltOurce,

in th l. ca _ a aUde projector.wa . mounte d o n a t r ipod behindthe d oors.

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


Left: Unusual titleeffec:t.s can be ere-ted

uslDglight n d In smoke.

Below: The final effecto f sbafts o f light in th emlnltiture set.

"

7/28/2019 Cinemagic #02 (1979)


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Cinemagic #02 (1979)

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