AIR FORCE ONE miniature effects. Dave Jones and Bruce Macrae talk about Boss Film´s work on the film. Segment from my Sense of Scale documentary. Photos: Bruce Macrae, Greg Jein, Boss Film
I'd be really interested to know if one of the KC-10 models survived. I've been a KC-10 crew chief at Travis for 13 years and I've worked on, deployed with and flown on the tail numbers shown. We have similar sized models hanging in the lobby of our buildings, but they're nowhere near as detailed.
The CG plane crash in the sea at the end of _Air Force One_ was pretty horrible, using a miniature (even better at 20ft) woulda' worked out so much better.
@@houstonhelicoptertours1006 I think the water would scale well relative to a 20ft model. The actual CG result for the film looked cartoonish and animated poorly imo.
It should have been a model in the real ocean with separate fire, smoke, and water elements composited in with CGI. Unfortunately CGI just hadn't found its footing yet with simulations or even that style of real element compositing. It would have truly been the best of both worlds.
They definitely should have done the Air Force One crash into the water as a model and not CGI. Looks terrible and fake in the movie. However all the model shots are absolutely amazing and so realistic. Especially at the end during the day time. I’m unsure but are there any non-model shots at the end of the film where they used their fake 747 painted plane? I have a feeling that the shot where the camera is directly in front and overhead is a real plane, if it isn’t then these guys who did the model are amazing.
Oh man, I do remember the ocean crash. They do a closeup on the secret service guy who did the betrayal. Ya, that was cringeworthy. But the guy is not wrong on back then. In the 90's CGI was new and sexy. Unfortunately, they didn't understand to use it as a tool and not a crutch. Half the CGI in films from that decade have not aged well.
It's too expensive and time consuming to get permission from the studios. And this doc is about the model makers and their model shop stories. I am not promoting the movies. The studios have their own "making-of´s" with footage on the Blurays. You can find most scenes here on RU-vid.
There were DVD´s available on amazon, but most are sold out. I am now uploading the entire extended 12+ hour doc here on my RU-vid and Facebook page. A new segment every week!
@@piercefilm Yup; as of 4:00amPST on 1/8/21, no more copies available on Amazon. I hope all 8 copies that I recently bought there, show up undamaged (...I'm still waiting for them...covid delays, I guess). Especially if there won't be any more available in the future. And while it's awesome of you to be uploading the entire contents to RU-vid via these short segments (thank you!); for what it's worth, I'd personally nonetheless like to see you make up another batch of DVDs, for sale to anyone who missed out on them. From what I've seen in the comments to your uploads, it looks like there's at-least a small market for another batch.
@@GothCad Nobody really wants DVD or Blurays anymore. Most ask for streaming. I am too busy at the moment trying to get new interviews rather than go back and make HD DVD´s.
@@piercefilm That's a shame; since as far as I'm concerned, 'streaming is to DVDs and CDs, what CGI is to miniatures and practical effects'. So, I'm not a fan of that format. But I'm 'old-school', and prefer owning physical discs over digital files (..and models over CGI!). Besides; I can always make my own digital-file copies from the physical discs if I wanted to (for my own personal use only, of course). You mentioned above, 'going back and making HD DVD's'. Are these 2012 FONCO-branded DVD copies of Sense of Scale, actually "High-Definition" (HD)? I wouldn't think so. I presume they're just normal 'Standard Definition' (SD) quality discs. And I didn't think Sense of Scale was ever released on higher-resolution Blu-ray format, was it? I've never seen any in that format, offered for sale. Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know what the specific resolution actually is, of the 2 discs in these FONCO DVD sets that I just bought?
First of all AF1 is kept in a hanger unless it's about to be flown and it's constantly being washed and waxed also when it's in the air those streaks go away so no AF1 would NOT have any dirt or dust marks
@@piercefilm I know, I do models too but he made it sound like it was to make it look like the real thing but when AF1 is flying over it really does look like a model lol
I'd like to hear about that times the artists caught holy hell for putting some funny dinky thing on a model and it got caught by the higher ups. Any clips of that?
Nigel Blake mentioned somebody hid a doll in the Event Horizon miniature for a pyro shot, and the doll fell on the camera in slow motion. It had to be shot again and caused a lot of stress.
@@piercefilm Wow! please do a super cut of all the times the effects artists thought they were being clever and sneaky and it came back to bite them in the ass - please!
@@roquefortfiles "crash physics" No such thing here. The CG model was fractured manually and everything was animated via keyframe animation i.e. by hand. They apparently did test shots for some model > water interaction, but the scale wasn't big enough and it just looked off. Water is even worse than fire when it comes to scale. By that time the production was already straining its budget, so CGI was all that was left. Pains me to say that; but deadlines are a killer and sometimes you need to push things out the door. The crash itself would've been great for a TV production(where I put most of my work during the 90s) of the time, but feature quality would've required more iteration and refinement. Something that takes time (unfortunately).
@@roquefortfiles It is what it is and it's in the final movie. I didn't work at Boss Film at the time and I can't say I envy the people trying to salvage the shots while the deadline draws close. At one point they slept under their desks for days to get stuff done. Some sh*t I never had to do while working in that industry.
@@roquefortfiles Yeah, I can tell. I started as airbrusher and painter. It's also programming what I did when doing TD work. Or supervision...as in supervising motion control shots for later combination with CG elements. Most importantly you still need to know the in and outs of filmmaking, so visiting a film school or studying arts is your first stop. It's all more than just "being strapped to a workstation".
The final scene looks uncanny. It's like they either having deadline closing in or running out of budget or the company doesn't have talents and tools like those in ILM or Weta. They could've done it with green model & mockup, green screen and scale models with a very large pool or tank.
Never leave the most climactic and important shot to the last so there’s no money or time left! It’s the ONE shot in the movie that needs to look good.
They could have, but the producers wanted to try the "new" cool thing which was CGI. Just like many films in the late 70´s had to use blue screen with motion control even if they didn't need it just because Star Wars used it, and it was the "in" thing. People like to brag they are modern and promote that. In this case it hurt the film.
So, that was the reason in the final act of the Air Force One crashing in the ocean looks AWFUL? I still love this movie, but that ending really looks to "cartoonish". For a director of great fame who made this movie is a shame...
This is to much info for me, my brain is tilting . Now I'm going to watch all those movies with different eyes. I was always mesmerized thinking how all those USA movies are made and why why they cost so much money, but now I know those movies are amazing but it's not clear to me why they are costing so much money if so many scenes are made by models !!!!!!!!! Where all that money go, all those millions !!!!
@@piercefilm Yes I'm aware of that, but in one of those videos i heard they say all that modeling for one of movie cost about 50 000 dollars !!!!!!!!!!!!! So much work and only 50 thousand !!!! Obviously hard work is unappreciated.
These interviews are 10 years old on no budget. I am uploading them for FREE! If you have a problem then go make your own videos or offer your time to "fix" them for free. This isn't Amazon Prime or Netflix where you pay money. Either enjoy the information and stories, or watch another channel!
