One thing I love in movies
is miniatures. Like, did you know the Poltergeist house
was only 42 inches (107 cm) wide? And the DeLorean from “Back to the Future”
is a miniature. So were the kids in “E.T.” Okay. Okay. I know
what you're thinking. Those are all old movies. Of course they use miniatures,
ya old grandpa. And you're not wrong. All these films were before that period
where CGI took over. I changed to prop making because miniatures,
nobody wanted them anymore. But with Wes Anderson and now
with some other filmmakers it's strange because they want these... Yeah, a bit old-fashioned techniques again. I’m Simon Weisse. I am a model maker and prop maker. Simon has made props for
The Matrix Resurrections, Bridge of Spies... and he's made miniature models
for Wes Anderson films like Asteroid City, The French Dispatch,
and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Most of the time, if miniatures
are done right the audience isn't supposed to know
that they're tiny. But if you keep an eye out you can see it used
in a few commonplace. For expansive sets that establish
the world of a film like The Grand Budapest Hotel... or the castle from Harry Potter... or the opening gates
of Jurassic World... and fantasy vehicles that
would be too expensive or too impossible to build
at human scale. Like the spaceships from E.T.
or Asteroid City or the Razor Crest from The Mandalorian. And if you're trying to blow up
an entire building for real a miniature helps make that possible. Like this building from Inception or the White House from
Independence Day. Though, one thing you
might have noticed is that some of these miniatures
aren't actually that mini. Grand Budapest Hotel is a good example. In these times, when we
talk about miniatures they are not so small. I mean, in the 50s and the 60s you could have a very small house
and the audience was impressed. But today we build those miniatures
as big as possible. We ended up making this in 18th scale,
which is quite big. That hotel was, in the end,
4 meters (13 feet) wide. I don't know how much this in feet. It was a good scale to have a good definition
of paint and everything. Most of the time we wouldn't use the same material as you would
on a real building because if you use lots of bricks the structure, it will not be
up to scale. If there’s wood, we will use wood but the very special African woods
with a very fine structure. In the end, the thing which
really changes everything is the paint and the patina. If they take a big brush, you will see
the brush on the model. No, they have to take
the finest brush and find those dirty pieces near
the windows and everything. Getting that detail and grunge right is especially important to making things
feel lived in. It's one of the reasons that Star Wars
has such a busy, dirty look. The more details you have,
the more realistically it can pass as a larger object
when filmed with a camera. Choosing the appropriate scale
to work with, however is sometimes a matter of efficiency. We can work at this 12th and 18th scale. I like a lot 35th scale. That's also because in 18th scale
and in 35th scale... you can find a lot of stuff,
ready made cars good looking trees
and other stuff. It takes time off our work,
which is very long very time taking. Moviemakers can play tricks
with scale, too mixing big and small miniatures
within the same shots. And The French Dispatch, we had
landscapes and, you know they were not only in one scale. We talk about a forced perspective. You had one scale in the foreground. Then you get a certain deepness
to go smaller and smaller and smaller. So maybe in the foreground
you are in 24th scale then in the middle
you’re in 15th scale... and in the end you are in the 100th scale. And if there's a mountain behind it’s in the 1000th scale. Once they get the scale and
all the details right filmmakers still have to make
this thing look like it's the correct size in camera. The first issue is how much
of the frame is in focus. This is determined by three things: How long your lens is. How close you are to an object. And how much light you're letting
into the camera. The longer your lenses, the more
compressed an image looks and the more parts of the image
are out of focus. Wider lenses are better
for shooting models but to make them look big,
you have to get really close. And when you get really close the plane of focus becomes
extremely shallow... meaning only a small bit
of your frame is in focus and everything else is blurry. If you were filming the same shot
of a real car you'd have to be much further away
to capture that same angle. And that would make much more
of the frame in focus. Films like “Game Night”
play with that knowledge using strategically blurry photography to make this real suburb look like a tiny little boardgame. With miniatures, you want
the opposite effect. Every part of the model should be
in focus so that it looks big. To do this without changing
your distance to the model... you need to decrease how much light
you're letting into the camera... which makes everything darker. But filming in bright sunlight
can counteract that issue and make the lighting
feel more realistic overall. For other stuff, most of the time
we are shooting this outside. The train and the other stuff. Even The Grand Budapest Hotel
was shot outside. The composition of your model shots matter just as much as
the technical details. The most striking example
of this for me is the opening shot of the
original Star Wars. By having these two planets
in the frame... we have an immediate reference point that tells us we're working
on a planetary scale. As this first ship enters the frame we get a sense that this could be about the size of a ship
that carries humans. So when this other ship enters... it feels gigantic, menacing,
and powerful. Both models are miniatures but how they chose to compose the image made them feel larger than life. Star Wars in 1977 had no choice but to use miniatures to make
their futuristic world look real. Star Wars projects today rely heavily on CGI like so many other movies. But both tools have their strengths. Talking about explosions
and water and everything I try to avoid miniatures... because if you have
a miniature with water... you have to build it at such a big scale at 3rd scale or 4th scale. Otherwise, it doesn't look good. This is because natural elements
like water or fire don't scale. So while water droplets on
a full size vehicle look tiny those same droplets on a miniature
would be huge... giving away that scale
doesn't match up. Sometimes I'm asked, “Oh, could you
do a miniature?” And then we will have water running through. And I say, “No....” maybe we can do a miniature. But the water, please add it digitally. It will look much better
than real water. Explosions can be challenging
for similar reasons. This model from “Inception” is truly gigantic
at four stories (12.19 meters) high... and that scale is needed for
the explosions to feel more realistic. Even if we do those miniature sets... It's all in combination with with CGI
and other new techniques. Films like Blade Runner 2049
and Asteroid City use the miniature sets in conjunction
with real actors through the use of greenscreen. And The Grand Budapest Hotel showed
that real humans and puppetry could be combined to make this
delightfully stylized skiing sequence. The decision to use miniatures
varies between directors. For Wes Anderson, he believes
that people are going to recognize artificiality, whether it's CG
or otherwise. His tastes lean towards miniatures... because he likes the old-fashioned techniques. Nolan, on the other hand,
has used miniatures because he wants every scene
to feel like real footage with all the organic messiness
and artifacting that comes with filming a real thing
and having it baked into the shot. 20 years ago I thought miniatures are done,
it's finished. It's all going to be done in CGI... but now even in commercials
they are using miniatures. But it's just— I think it's... for me, it’s an artistic choice. The spaceship, which looks very different
from other spaceships. We had so much fun doing this. It's a big model. Nearly 3 meters (9.8 feet) wide. And the spaceship is a mix
of handmade stuff inside and all the sides were laser cut. In the end, it was about three months... because we have all these ongoing process. We’ll start with something... and sometimes we have
only two people on this... and at the end there are six people on this. So yeah, more or less three months. For this kind of complicated model. Yeah, it's about that.
Does this have any Asteroid City spoilers or is it from his previous films?
I pray that they sell these. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do to get my hands on the grand Budapest hotel
The opening scene of Asteroid City was one of the most euphoric things I've watched in a long time. The train speeding across the frame, with cuts timed to a song, was just perfect in my book.
Looks like he's got us all under his spell! The Wes Anderson fandom grows stronger every day.
All the YOUTUBE vids on movie miniatures are like a sweetest drug to me, and i hope i never come down from watching them. I'm glad I never let this part of my childhood go.
"Moon" is my reference point for great integration of miniatures, practical effects, and CGI effects.
Agreed! I mean, who needs a Nobel Prize when you can create mini worlds with such precision and whimsy?
I wish they showed more of Asteroid City shots.
Also, it drove me crazy when they’re talking about models and miniatures and they show a CGI Millennium Falcon and the full-size set of ET’s spaceship.
And then “in 1977 Star Wars couldn’t use CGI” while they show miniatures made for 1980 and 1983’s sequels.
That was so interesting