we're checking out some of the model
miniatures as a part of prop store's entertainment memorabilia live auction
these are from films like star wars star trek back to the future and alien
and i'm chatting with brandon about the making
of these props it's basically a history lesson in model making
in film let's get started brandon one of the aspects of filmmaking we're big fans
of is just the the miniatures and the model
making that's been in so many films at different scales and you have a great
selection of things of course let's start with stuff that's
recognizable from star wars yeah these are
uh towers from the death star yeah this is a cool one i mean this is made for
return of the jedi it's cast out of a very lightweight
rigid foam it doesn't do anything there's no motion they did have some
towers with servo motors this one is just a static
dressing one you can see there's a couple of extra holes in the top of the
the turret here where they can mount the guns in two
different positions and i think that's just like
economical film making you know let's do one where the guns look like this one of
the guns look like that we spread them all over
and it looks you know a little bit more interesting
slightly more unique uh visual look to a shot
and and and the separate lot but playing on the same theme
this is the under construction death star tower so of course death star 2 is
meant to be under construction in the film
and this represents the kind of framework of the tower that's under
construction it's all etched brass with like little
bits of styrene they're just hand colored and hand
artworked on it i've never seen we never had come through our hands in the past
one of these uh under construction towers so that's a
fun one both of these are great representations
of the detail of model making they knew how close these would be to the camera
so you see those behind the scenes pictures where
the ones that were very close to the camera lots of kit bashing
lots of etching the ones for the white sometimes even unpainted sides
as you can see all that wears it on sleeves just the the parts from the
model kits that they would put on even though this is a cast piece
yeah you know retains all of that tiny detail
i love that combination of photo etch and styrene that's like a very
accessible um process yes model making still works
today for people doing model making yeah yeah and both these of course made it
ilm another piece made by a different model
group this is from aliens that's one of the hadley's hope
colony buildings miniature of a building and that was all done by
robert skotak and the effects group that that did all that effects work over at
pinewood in the uk so they had a lot of buildings for shots
of like the jordan tractor driving through
and things like that at the opening of of aliens you see that design language
right the 45 degree angles the curves there it's again layers of
styrene and wire bent together within the paint coat to
make it look like it's otherworldly yeah a lot of times when we get model
pieces it's amazing how simple the construction is i mean sometimes they're
literally made out of cardboard but from a couple feet away you don't
realize it i mean they're beautifully painted
and the scale of everything is so accurate that it really looks believable
but then you flip the other side and it's almost amazing how homemade it is
right right and you can at a glance tell what scale it's supposed to be of
identifying markers whether it's a doorway here for scale or
how big these cannons would be to something like from star trek this is
supposed to be thousands of feet you know tall and wide and you get the
reference with you know the enterprise it's a full space station but again done
in miniature yeah and so this one this is not a
filming model this is like a study model or a concept model
and even though it's not a film model it's it's still beautifully done and
executed i mean look at the ring work that's been
stenciled onto this onto the top of this here with with a
pen or or with graphite or something i mean
these amazing concentric rings going around it really gives it a sense of
scale and brings it to life um you've got some small antennas down
at the bottom here this is probably formed out of i think
like simple sheets of vacuum plastic you know just different shapes that they
backform together and again even though it's just a
concept model it's really nicely made another another piece from ilm
and you can tell that shared dna you know that line work where
you're trying to create a sense of you know uniformity but also randomness in
terms of how the spacing right if this was a filming miniature
those dots would be for fiber optics but you get like groupings of
three dots here for lights and then two dots there
but it never looks like it was done by a computer
no that's right i mean as you're saying that about the dots like these little
dots here are probably all meant to be windows tiny little windows just like on
a starship enterprise would be and i think
it's also just about filling space and getting a texture into
an environment just like we were talking about when we
when we discussed costumes we talked about the textures on the fabrics
same thing here you've got to have some kind of a texture on your space station
to to give it a bit of believability right
and then you have like tried-and-true model making for
foliage for for wood like woodland yeah so this is uh
endor one of the redwoods or whatever they may be of endor
and this is probably from the set that the stop-motion chicken walker went
through you know because they did have to build
a full indoor set for like the chicken walkers walking along and it gets taken
out by the logs that roll down the hill um this is another ilm piece from return
of the jedi and next to that again ilm there's an
ilm theme here this is doc brown this is one of the puppets that went in
the delorean model the motion control delorean
yeah and so you just see it through the window but still has to have enough
detail you know to read that 2015 era right doc
brown jumpsuit his his shirt red shirt and of course his
glasses love the glasses i feel like the glass is our stand up part and the dark
brown hair that's just like cotton batting that's just
you know anything to give an effect and i think this one probably had some kind
of little mechanism in the back of it
because there's a channel there unless that's just how they fixed it to the
delorean but i don't know maybe it had some kind of
ability to turn just a little bit just just to give
it a little bit of life in the model right and that was a pretty big delorean
if you look at the scale of this puppet now scale and big ships
the big flagship here something that you guys have had for a long time and
restored the nostromo yes yes so this was
actually the cover piece in the auction this year
um as you say it has been with us for a number of years we restored it about 10
years ago and we decided you know the time is
right for it to move on to its new home we're looking forward to seeing where
it winds up it's an amazing piece of history we really enjoyed having it
you know as model miniatures go i think it's probably one of the most memorable
sci-fi ship models that you could have i mean
you know the entire film alien takes place in this shift
this is the setting of the film and this is the hero version
this model that was used for all the close-ups in the film and
you could tell because all the grey blaze
are there like in every angle no part of it
is left untouched by some type of texture or some paint
or some gridly attachment and you know obviously a big team effort
to put this together and one of the impressive things for me is consistency
throughout right someone was working on one side someone's working on the other
side but you can you can tell it just looks
like one manufacturer yeah and i love some of the details like
the cockpit and the landing gear you know they're they're areas like that
that really shine and really stand out where you know parts that we're gonna
get close-ups in the film and not everything on it is original you
know only one of the three landing gears original
but because that one existed the restoration team was able to make molds
off of the existing one the one that you know dates back to the film
and create faithful copies molded off an original of the other two
and that was true of most of the restoration that was done you know we
generally had an example of some part that could be molded to
recreate the other parts that were needed
and i think it turned out beautifully i mean we've had a lot of people
over the past few years who wanted to come in just to see this thing yeah yeah
because it's such a memorable part of science fiction it's one of
those if we watch those movies and so often we like whatever happened to that
ship that was a you know you can only say that of a
physical practical object and where did it go definitely not in
the trash and for the nostromo it's right here like that's it's a
unique piece it's so handmade also like the forms on
the front of it here enough by the cockpit these are just
carved out of big blocks of wood i mean they literally got a block of wood
started putting these radiuses on it hollowed it out so they could get this
intake grill on it a lot of the body structure is a very
thin wood maybe a wood called luon that they could get wet and kind of you
know round around a corner of a framework that they put together
really kind of uh call them old-school traditional
handmade model making techniques it's such an education to see these in
person have them all at different scales different details
from different effects companies working in that era thank you so much
brandon for talking with me about these and good
luck on the auction yeah i know thanks for coming by we're looking forward to
the big day