Modeling In Film

Modeling In Film

My Project and Team Management class Instructor, Nicholas Carver, inspired this blog topic. He asked me this question, “I wonder if you could make a connection to miniature modeling in film?” This is a topic that I have not even thought about. I started to look it up on the web and found a few things of interest. I only thought of the How To Videos for my future business plan, but the film industry still uses models for some of their scenes today. The thought of this opens a new door for my future business Trackage Video.

In my research of this topic I found the film The Legend Of Zorro [2005]. The film used a 1:4 scale model train to blow up in the final sequence of the movie. I have found a video of this scene, and also a few pictures of the train from Weta’s website. According to Weta “there was a time that there was no alternatives to using models for certain movie tasks, and that rumors of their demise are exaggerated”. Weta has built models for a number of movies: The Lord Of The Rings, King Kong, and others. Generally speaking the same techniques that model railroaders use to model: mountains, towns, backdrops, and all other aspects of scenery could be used in film. 1:4 scale is a big difference to 1:87 scale of HO modeling, but very similar. Anyone that is reading this that is not familiar with scale models 1:87 means it takes 87 of this size to make 1 proto-type. The movie model at 1:4 means that it would take 4 to equal 1; this is in lay terms, and there are mathematical equations involved.

1:4 Model Train By WETA

  The next movie that I would like to talk about is Unstoppable [2010]. In this movie the models used are the real things. They are a number of engines owned by a few different companies. The engines are painted for a fictitious company called, AWVR (Allegheny and West Virginia) the trains area or trackage rights are in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. According to MyRailfan “Canadian Pacific #9777 and #9758 played #777 and #767 in the film's early scenes, while Canadian Pacific #9782 and #9751 were given a damaged look for portrayal in the later scenes of the film. AWVR #1206 is played by 3 SD40-2 units from Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad.” One of the locomotives had to be modified, to be used for the filming of the cab scenes. All of the locomotives in this film were painted special for the movie. The locomotives that were painted to look as they were damaged; is like a techniques used in model railroading, called weathering that makes a model look real. I have not found any information on any models used in this movie; they could have used some, I don’t know. They did use some CGI to film some of the effects. This would be an example of 1:1 modeling.

Modified Cab

This has added a new possible business model to my future business Trackage Video. I could branch out into the motion picture industry. I could build model trains for film, or even become a company that would be a consulting firm about the railroad for film. There is a lot to think about here. I would like to thank my instructor for the food for thought. If you are interested in model railroad videos, or trains in general please feel free to follow me through my Masters Degree Program at Full Sail University, and the start of my future business Trackage Video.

Thank you,

Robert Reynolds