Funny the
things you do when you have nothing scheduled – some people I know spend the
time asleep, some drink things (sometimes alcoholic, but not necessarily), some
eat, some talk to people – all perfectly valid ways to spend time. You then
have the sort of dedicated (or nerdy) people who decide they have nothing
better to do than spend four hours making a forty-eight-second video with some
much-loved models they own – case in point me.
That film
was the short Thunderbirds teaser Fall Of The Routemaster, which
was half teaser-trailer and half credits. It came as a response to one of my
university lecturers saying “The best way to learn is to go out and make stuff”
*. I’m not sure if this was what he was expecting, as it’s rather a niche thing and
certainly isn’t up to professional standards, but as a bit of fun, Fall Of
The Routemaster certainly qualifies. This post is basically a
behind-the-scenes article on how I spent four hours (not including an-hour long
break for lunch) making a video which lasts only forty-eight seconds and
enjoyed most of it.
THUNDERBIRDS
ARE GO!
If you haven’t
watched the video, you can do so here. It’ll only take up forty-eight seconds
of your time.
*For those
not in the know (which by this point I don’t think is many of you considering
how many times I've said this on Blogger, my Facebook page and in Youtube video descriptions), I’m now at University in Bathurst working
towards a Bachelor of Communications degree.
In this article, I’ll be
going through the shots as they appear in the video and giving a little bit of
insight into how I did them (and how you can too), as well as a few comments on
each one. First though, some background.
I’ve been a
fan of Thunderbirds since I was six. It’s one show I can never get bored
of watching, a testament to the work of Gerry Anderson, his then-wife Sylvia
and the A.P. Films team, who produced many TV series and films using
Supermarionation ® (a very sophisticated and high-end form of puppet
entertainment), model work and some live-action, but are best known for their
sixties Supermarionation ® TV shows such as Stingray, Captain Scarlet and
most famously of all, Thunderbirds.
As
a result of this love for the show, which is still spectacular fifty-five years
since it was made (Thunderbirds first hit the UK's television screens in 1965, yes it is that old!), I own models
of all five of the titular Thunderbird craft, accumulated as a result of
eBay purchases, presents from family members and charity shop visits.
Having
now grown up with Thunderbirds, the original episodes of Thomas the
Tank Engine and Friends and then later, TUGS (which you’ll be forgiven for
not knowing about), I nowadays view model filming as a medium which is very
rewarding and good-looking when done right.
Being the
owner of Thunderbirds models, I’d been wanting to make a film with them
for some time, and have – this is the third one I’ve filmed, but the first one
I’ve actually finished. The reasons for this one were that I actually planned
this one, it didn’t require any sound dubbing (and being the sad nerd that I
am, I’d want to use actual sounds from the show, which are reasonably easy but
time-consuming to acquire) and I made this one in four hours - the others took at
least a day to film and even more time to edit, and I could never muster up the motivation to do the sound dubbing I never finished them.
So, this is
the third amateur Thunderbirds model short I’ve filmed, but the first
one to make it to a public viewing platform. How did it go? Let’s see.
I’ll talk
about the music first and foremost as that’s what makes this video, and thankfully
saved me from that time-consuming sound dubbing which was the main reason I’d
never finished any of the others.
In a break
from me composing my own music from my videos, the music you hear is the
original Thunderbirds opening, which was played over a montage of the episode
to come ala to what you see in this video. Like all Thunderbirds
music, it was written by Barry Gray and is f.a.b.ulous, as it really gets you
hyped up for the episode that follows. A similar episode montage was attempted
by the team behind Thunderbirds Are Go, the 2015 reboot of the series,
and whilst perhaps not as powerful, is still good.
The second*
shot you see in the video sees the eponymous Routemaster bus making its way down
a road, except it’s not a road. There’s no getting around the fact that all the
models used are a bit small for their 1:1 scale settings, but I’ve tried my
best to avoid this looking too jarring, mainly through avoiding having 1:1
scale things like buildings as anything other than background things.
The bus
itself is a London Souvenir Pencil Sharpener that I bought from a stall in
Oxford Street during my recent UK trip – the fact that the wheels actually turn
definitely made it easy to film with. You’ll also see it’s being pulled along
with tea-bag string, something which will definitely crop up later…
*I’ve not
included the first shot as it’s just a bus-stop sign and it’s not all that
interesting really.
The
landslide. This was achieved simply by setting my phone camera up
at the bottom of a step and then pushing a pile of dust, small pebbles and soil
off the top, which gives a reasonable depiction of a landslide.
This shot is
one of my favourites in the film, but it wasn’t originally going to appear at
all – the original plan for the bus was for it to just randomly crash, then show
some threatening-looking clouds suggesting a storm rolling in. The shot of the
clouds itself was cut, but still crops up during the end credits and as
the backdrop for the THUNDERBIRDS name spins.
The Fall of
the Routemaster! I deploy the teabag trick again here to simply drag the bus
off the side of the step onto the ground about 15cm below it. This take, like
many others, took a few attempts because I kept dragging the bus too far over
before actually crashing it – a result of me trying to at least keep the teabag
itself (which was still attached and acted as a handle for the string) out of
view. I didn’t quite manage it throughout the entire film, as we’ll see.
A quick
note: Normally I film my videos in 4K at 30 frames per second. For the most
part in this video, it was changed to 1080p in 60fps, which meant I could slow
clips down without it looking too jerky if I needed to. Originally, the crash
took place at 80% speed to make it more dramatic, but in the end, I restored it
to normal speed. 60fps is also a bit smoother, even if it means the quality is
reduced a touch.
The bus lies fallen in a canal (at least it’s meant to be a canal – it’s actually a bit wide and looks more like the sea), although it looks suspiciously like a blue towel sitting at the bottom of a brick wall – in fact, it's the same step where you saw the landslide a second ago!
The towel
itself is, I think, a reasonable depiction of water, especially seeing as using
real water would cause damage to the models and wouldn’t really by that convincing
anyway (as it’d be obviously in a container). Plus, filming in water is
difficult with models, hence why whenever the A.P. Films crew filmed any
underwater scenes, they filmed it on a dry set in the same manner as they would
any other scenes, only with a thin aquarium between the camera and the set
(which they could shine light through and ripple the water to give the impression
of being in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean or wherever). I didn’t have that
here as this film had a budget of “whatever you can find in your room”, which
obviously didn’t include mega-thin aquariums.
You may be
tempted to think I reused this shot again later, and indeed I did, sort of. The
shot which appears later is another piece of footage from the same clip. It does look very similar though so I’m not including it here.
First appearance
of a Thunderbird! Thunderbird 1 flies up into shot on its way to the accident
zone. Or Mount Panorama as that’s what you’re looking at.
Far from the
complications of the other shot which features Thunderbird 1 on its own, this
shot was simply me raising the rocket plane in front of the camera whilst
slowly moving forwards. A shot which had me walking forwards with the T-bird in
front of the camera proved very unconvincing (as I couldn’t hold it still) so
it was replaced with this one.
The
Thunderbird 1 model is a “Soundtech” TB1 produced by Vivid Imaginations at the
time when Carlton International owned the rights to Thunderbirds. This
range featured phrases from the pilot of each craft – hence the button on TB1’s
reactor casing here (mine has this, but I took the batteries out a long time
ago as they’re old clock-style batteries which have a tendency to leak if left unused for long periods of time). The Vivid
Imaginations toys are lovely, don’t get me wrong, but for some shots,
particularly flying, I could have done with something a bit weightier, as we’re
about to see…
Here’s the
very out-of-focus shot of Thunderbird 1 coming into land on a beer-bottle cap,
suspended from a pair of very visible teabag string with a small stick
blu-tacked to its front belly.
This is easily
my least-favourite shot from the video as it took ages to get it right (even then it's not fantastic). The issue, apart from flying with teabag string when something a
bit longer and inconspicuous (such as fishing line, which would have been my
first choice had I had any) would have been better, was that my TB1, being made
of plastic and being hollow to accommodate its sound chip, is incredibly light.
Hence, it wobbles around quite easily on its rather flimsy puppeteering strings
and tended to overbalance if the string wasn’t held just right, which made it a
right pain to film with. I recall I spent an hour on this shot, which lasts all
of two seconds in the finished product because I don’t like it that much.
The rather
obvious stick blu-tacked onto the lower belly is a result of the failure of my
first plan, which saw me blu-tacking (I used a lot of blu-tack – glue would
have been better but none of these attachments could be permanent) small sticks
onto Thunderbird 1’s wings to act as landing legs, just as the real Thunderbird
1 has when it lands horizontally. Unfortunately, these tended to go crooked
whenever I brought her into land a bit too quickly (which was often), so I
replaced them with the arrangement you see here.
Here’s a
shot of Thunderbird 1 with the landing stilt sticks, taken prior to me realising
how useless they were.
The iconic
one! Thunderbird 2! And a much better filming partner than TB1.
Being made
of metal, Thunderbird 2 was much heavier than Thunderbird 1 and this made it
easier to fly. It also has its pod door where I could shut the teabag labels
(more secure than blu-tack, although I did use that on the back). Had I
finished my two previous Thunderbirds shorts, Thunderbird 2 (and indeed
Thunderbird 4) would have appeared in both, and so I have a bit of experience
in flying the iconic craft on teabag strings. If going fast enough and if the
lighting is right, it is possible to fly TB2 without making the strings
visible, though I didn’t manage that here. But then again, sometimes the wires
the craft were being flown from in the original series were visible too, so I
suppose it’s not too much of a minus point.
Here’s a
still from my first Thunderbirds short. At a glance, the teabag string
on TB2 isn’t visible and definitely wasn’t on the video version (which sadly no
longer exists). I have to say, seeing it now makes the string stand out more.
This
Thunderbird 2 model is a die-cast Matchbox model produced in 1992, during which
time Thunderbirds was being repeated on the BBC and was proving
ever-popular. The model also included Thunderbird 4.
I actually own two 1992 Matchbox Thunderbird
2s (and Thunderbird 4s along with them) – this one was a present, this one I
bought at a yard sale for all of $2.00, which is appropriate I suppose, though
in 1992 these models were changing hands for £10.00 each, which is around
$20.00 (without adjusting for inflation) – that’s how sought after they were.
My favourite
shot from the film which includes Thunderbird 1, mainly because it’s doing nothing and not being a right arse to film with.
Thunderbird
2 comes into land. Being much bigger and easier to fly, this landing is much
better than that of Thunderbird 1 earlier. My only real gripe here is that I
couldn’t include the landing thrusters, as Thunderbird 2 always looked
magnificent coming into land with those billowing away.
Suddenly,
the towel *ahem* water appears in front of Thunderbird 2!
This was the
last shot I recorded and was one of the easiest, mainly because there aren’t any
teabags involved. It simply shows TB2 lifting off Pod 4. As the Matchbox
Thunderbird 2’s landing legs are flip-out (instead of hydraulic as they are in
the show and on some larger models), TB2 does rise up a little bit jerkily,
however, I liked this shot more than one where I lifted TB2 off the pod without
bothering with the legs at all.
Deploying
Thunderbird 4! As my favourite Thunderbird, it’s no wonder that TB4 appeared in
both my previous shorts. Here, I simply drag it across the towel, I mean water, with the final teabag string (I used a total of three in the filming) on its
way to rescue the stricken bus.
Thunderbird
4 has a hollow inside, which meant I could stuff the teabag label inside it
rather easily. Unlike Thunderbird 1, this isn’t a problem here as Thunderbird 4
doesn’t actually have to fly or come into land.
Barring the credits, this is the only instance where you can see all three of the star Thunderbirds together. For obvious reasons, none of them appears alongside Thunderbird 5 (wait, TB5?).
Finally,
rescuing the bus, and Thunderbird 4 seems to be moving on its own!
In a break
from teabag-based movement, for this final scene, I used stop-motion to move
Thunderbird 4 to the bus. The three seconds of video this scene takes are made
up of a total of thirty-eight pictures which took a total of three minutes and
forty-two seconds to take (so it took seventy-four times the length of the scene
to record it), with each lasting about 0.38 seconds. It was a bit time-consuming
but did free me from having to drag Thunderbird 4 in a straight line with a teabag
string, or from piloting TB4 with a pencil (which would have been jarringly
visible).
To give a
sense of scale (or lack thereof), Thunderbird 4 is generally accepted to be
thirty feet in length, whilst the length of an AEC Routemaster is about twenty-seven
feet. So really, the yellow mini-sub should be about the same size as the bus
it’s rescuing.
So, there we
are. The shots of Fall Of The Routemaster, a sometimes frustrating but fun little
video to film and edit, and one which is hopefully enjoyable for you to watch.
But we’re not quite done yet…
The credit
sequence (which ironically takes up about half of the video's runtime) features the three
Thunderbirds which have (so far) featured in the video, as well as the shot of
the stormy sky. All three T-bird shots are cropped screenshots from the video,
apart from Thunderbird 1 which is the shot of it with its ill-fated landing stilts.
The music
over this credit sequence is a rendition of the famous Thunderbirds March
by Hans Zimmer, who did the music for the Thunderbirds 2004 film.
Although the story of that film is a bit crap, Zimmer’s score for the film is
absolutely fantastic, and it shows here.
As you can
see, I dedicated the film to Alan Pattillo, who died on January 16th
this year at the age of ninety-one. He worked on several of A.P. Films’ early
series as a writer and a director, including on some of Thunderbirds’
most-loved episodes (he directed Trapped In The Sky and wrote Attack
Of The Alligators!, the latter being in my Top 3). I was as saddened by his
passing as I was about Gerry Anderson’s in 2012, and though it right to dedicate
this video to the man who had a profound influence on my six-year-old self.
You may
notice if you read the credits that a model of Thunderbird 5 is credited, even
though Thunderbird 5 didn’t appear in the video. To explain that, we move to
the final shot, the one which formed the film’s end screen.
I took this
photograph of Thunderbird 5 orbiting Earth for a completely different purpose,
but included it here because it is, perhaps, the most believable shot in the
finished production. It was done simply by placing my globe in the middle of a
set of four black A4 folders to simulate it hanging in space and then holding
Thunderbird 5, blu-tacked (again) to a pencil, out above it. I then did a few
edits to the image, which included digitally painting the pencil out, so it
looked as if TB5 was just hanging in space.
So, there we
have it. The first product of my time at university.
Fall Of
The Routemaster is
by no means professional – it includes visible flying string, visible teabags
and none of the models are really up to professional filming standards either, having
been made as toys or in the case of the bus, a souvenir pencil sharpener. That
said, if you put the teabag-movement mechanisms aside and consider the film as
a bit of fun to pay homage to a television series which I have enjoyed from a
very young age, I believe it is quite enjoyable and is very good as a starting
point. There is obviously lots to improve on, but that’s the reason people come
to university – to gain new skills and experience which helps them do things
better in later years. At the end of the day, despite its flaws, I was very
happy with Fall Of The Routemaster, and am hoping my lecturer will be
pleased that I went out and made something.
Duck Wilson –
TheBritFromOz
MMXX
