The technique of miniature ship visual effects.
I have been contacted by the historian at the 20th Century Fox Ranch who has a photograph of some interest to readers of this site. He writes; In this photo, you can see that the studio is storing some of their boat models in a barn and they are covered in dust. Despite that, what should be a black hull looks much lighter. I believe this is the ship from Titanic - 1953 (and the other films you…
This British film concerns the rescue and salvage tug boat service operating in the Atlantic during World War two. Most of the film has full size tug boats and a submarine in action but for a few shots the action is depicted using some very creditable miniatures. Most of the miniature work is cargo ships on fire. There is one sequence where the tug boat rams the submarine and an air attack early…
Irwin Allen recycles both props and actors from his TV shows,Voyage to the bottom of the Sea and Time Tunnel for this rather lame story. The dry for wet underwater miniatures are serviceable if not particularly believable. The art direction is pretty wacky for the city itself with lots of unrealistic clear plastic domes and cylinders around buildings that look like colourful lampshades. The most…
A couple of miniature ships in a storm sequences can be seen in this movie found on Youtube. They are actually quite competently done with no credit for the miniature effects. Possibly lifted from some other production.
I was recently contacted by an owner of a miniature mechanised rowing boat which is purported to be a movie miniature. The owner has asked if any reader is able to identify from which movie the miniature has come. The owner writes; "The boat originally had a motor that drove gears that caused the oars to row. I have one oar and an oar handle with a doll's forearm attached. I surmise that the large…
I stumbled across this film on youtube having never heard of it before. To my surprise it contained some miniature ship shots supervised by George Blackwell.
I have replaced all the frame grabs for the post on Mutiny 1952 . While the colour is still poorly represented and inconsistent in the source print the new donor is a higher resolution than the previous one so there is an improvement in the quality of the images. New sister site launched. One other thing to note is I have now launched another sister site to this one;…
There is almost every kind of miniature effect in this film, from a model ship to model aircraft and a miniature train. There is also a slightly odd sequence featuring a miniature farm with moving miniature cows, agricultural machinery and a car that travels along a road. In fact you can just make out the slot in the road that controlled the model car as it was pulled along under the set. The…
This film employs a number of technicolor shots from previous films. There are definitely shots from the Black Swan 1942 and Anne of the Indies 1951 . One of the early shots is from Anne of the Indies and has been flopped left to right so that the name plate on the bow of the ship is back to front. If you recognize shots from other films please let me know in the comments. Note the reversed text…
Shot as if from another vessel on a stormy rolling sea the modest miniature effects are mostly quite effective in this film. The salvage tugs and ship miniatures are quite detailed in the stormy rescue sequence. curiously the last couple of shots of the tow back to port, the ship suddenly seems like a undetailed cardboard mock up. The first shot of the Salvage tug we see after the title appears to…
An unusual film, particularly for the period, in that all the early model ship sequences appear to have been shot at sea with a real sky and horizon. The latter sequences which have scenic landscape background miniatures and shots requiring fog effects have been shot in the more usual studio tank environment. There are some impressive composite shots with foreground live action set of prisoners on…
Very impressive miniature effects in this film supervised by Lawrence Butler. Must have the most square rigged model ships in a studio tank ever. The pyrotechnics are also spectacular and the sheer volume of smoke from all the miniature cannon fire is staggering. The models also take quite a battering with quite a number on fire and a few exploding sending wood splinters flying. I suspect the…
This being a Republic Production means that the miniature effects were handled by the Lydecker brothers Howard and Theodore. The special effects credits are sub-headed under-water sequences although there are some miniature surface shots of model ships as well. The bulk of the work is indeed in an underwater setting with a miniature shipwreck teetering on the edge of a precipice which eventually…
One of the better model ship films now in the public domain Captain Kidd has some very creditable miniature ship sequences supervised by Lee Zavitz. The black and white miniature photography is excellent along with the models and the quality background scenic art. The entire film can easily be found on you tube and elsewhere online.
I have recently found a better resolution copy of Deep Waters from 1948 on you tube. The Original post used frame grabs from a very poor quality source as at the time (more than a decade ago) it was a very hard film to find. Recently with the boom in uploads of old movies to Youtube I have come across a number of previously hard to locate films that I have been searching for for a number of years.…
This movie uses a number of technicolor stock miniature shots from other productions to flesh out the story. The ships are taken from such a disparate collection of films with none of the ships match from sequence to sequence and are from wildly varying time periods. There are shots from the Princess and the Pirate from 1944 and The Black Swan 1942 both a common source of these stock shots. Some…
Probably the Tora Tora Tora of its day in terms of the quantity and quality of model ship action, the movie tells the story of the meeting of the Merrimac and the Monitor, two iron clad ships that were the cutting edge of naval technology during the American civil war. The miniature effects were supervised by Bud Thackeray with the other Republic Pictures effects staffers the Lydecker brothers…
Made by much the same visual effects and production people as went on to make King Kong in 1933, this film features a miniature luxury yacht which hits a reef, blows up and sinks. The style of the many matte paintings throughout are a precursor to those that appear in King Kong.
Among a sprinkling of picturesque matte paintings there is some very well executed model boat sequences in this film with the visual effects supervised by John P. Fulton. Most of the miniature action centres around ice falling from a glacier onto a couple of salmon boats. The break up of the ice is fairly well done. One stand out shot is where the rudder and prop is broken off a boat sliding off a…
Some interesting early submarine miniature work in this film with the underwater shots being reasonably well shot. The surface shots are less successful as the scale is probably too small, the water being a bit glassy. Also suffers from some foreground soft focus.
Almost all of the ship action in the movie was shot on a real freighter but there is a cutaway to a tanker on fire and exploding at night which is a miniature. Another exploding ship miniature can be seen as a rear screen projection from the bridge in daylight and as a cutaway. A still of a tanker model attributed to Morituri can be found in an old studio auction catalog as lot 855. There are a…
This film was suggested by a reader some time ago and I have finally got around to including it in a post. For a really in depth article on the visual effects of the film I recommend viewing NZ Pete's Matte Shot blog. https://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2011/05/portrait-of-jennie-clarence-slifer.html The movie concludes with an impressive miniature storm sequence centered around a lighthouse…
This comedy has a number of underwater miniature hull shots of the sailing ketch of the title. One sequence is in a mine field trying to raise the centreboard and the other is scraping past a reef. The movie can be found in its entirety on youtube as well as the internet archive .
For the most part the HMS Amethyst of the story is represented by the full size vessel herself and by a sister ship HMS Magpie for all the sailing and shots of the guns firing. There is also a large amount of full size and impressive pyrotechnics going on around and onboard the fullsize ships. For a couple of scenes however the Amethyst is represented by a model supervised by George Blackwell. One…
Nihonkai Daikaisen Japanese title. The miniature effects were supervised by Eiji Tsubaraya and in my view they represent the best Japanese model ship effects ever put to screen. There is an abundance of models, scenic art, pyrotechnics and miniature water tank action throughout the film. In addition there is a sprinkling of matte paintings and split screen shots where foreground actors are…