Weta Workshop - Blade Runner 2049 Miniatures

the original Blade Runner is an absolutely pivotal film in the history of visual art I was approached by wedding workshop to see if I would be interested in working in this the idea of being able to use miniatures in this modern context that's very exciting the story of course is advanced it's decades after the time of the original film so Los Angeles has been built up a lot and then LAPD which is the newest of the all the buildings stands above all it's the tallest building in town LA surrounding buildings we've got about 30 Stephen 48 scale Omega high date head building so huge building they probably take about a week tonight once they get approved we run them through the previs and they populate the scene in detail we hand them off to our model makers the way la is unless it's all that from underneath is like this this is a glowing city below that we never see because all these buildings are so big every paint job that we've painted on these buildings has been with that in mind I always think of a miniature is a giant composition of tiny little vignettes - any little stories - any little places that all need to work together to make the whole miniature work we call them little existential crisis moments where graffiti has been painted lots of little details like that we've gone in and distressed some specific areas to make the building as a whole look like it has that decay and that crazy weather from the Bladerunner world we are locking all the buildings in place on top of these boxes so when we actually have the camera running through the move everything lines up pretty much each building has some fiber-optic installed in it the word working in the preliminaries of the miniature build for trash Mesa which is an enormous expanse of ruin technology you really have to have the feeling that it really is rusty metal and it really is crumbling and falling away [Music] okay shooting four frames yep 12 frames confluent yeah here's friend 20 tilts enroller kicking in it has all of the inherent flaws of filming something real surfaces illuminated with real light with all the issues of tiny specular reflections the wallet out the bad guys he courses that's 600 scale in reality that's about three and a half kilometers tall at that scale that measurement there is a human up against these pieces of concrete it's gonna be a very tiny scale to work at so we have to had to find a method of surfacing them where you had the sense that you were seeing laid up stone work even though we actually don't they're really big atures they're not miniatures they're massive buildings they're just stellar pieces of art there's a lot of Blade Runner in there it's almost a thing we say when we look at the footages is it Blade Runner yet not quite we have to tweak the light a little bit more have to tweak the model a little bit more is supposed to be a sort of a dark stormy morning scene now to do that effect the easiest way is to break down the shot of the series of elements we shoot the sky light we shoot the internal light to shoot the lights of a little clearance light then when it's time to build the shot you have complete control you say well I want the red lights to be brighter you can bring them up without changing anything else effectively we're building a a huge a very complicated sandwich that actually becomes the finished shot there is a certain amount of magic when you've just finished doing a shot it took an hour and a half to shoot and when you see it there its existing it has a soul to itself we've created a world in here in little New Zeeland and on a miniature stage it's really coming together and it's gonna look amazing very cool very cool very proud every shot is a wonderful adventure

Channel: Wētā Workshop

Views: 1,118,128

Keywords: weta, weta workshop, richard taylor, special effects, miniatures, blade runner 2049, blade runner, practical effects, filmmaking

Id: sLxxbfsj8IM

Length: 4min 35sec (275 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 07 2017