My Science School

Miniatures – often easier to build, manipulate and film than the real thing – can be anything from model cars and aircraft to entire cities and landscapes. The model battleships used so effectively in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) were 40ft (12m) long.

Moving miniatures are usually filmed with high-speed cameras, so that when the film is played back at normal speed, the movement looks more realistic. The movement of model ships in tanks of water, for example, is difficult to capture realistically. The same applies to ships’ wakes and ocean wave patterns. Slowing down the projected film helps to make models look more cumbersome, ponderous and realistic.

‘hanging miniatures’ are models suspended close to the camera to create the illusion that they are full-sized and being photographed from a distance. In the James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), the villain's jet-powered, flying car was, in long shots, a model bout 5ft (1.5m) long, with a wingspan of around 10ft (3m).

Many of the ‘outdoor’ scenes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), such as an Indiana landscape over which superimposed UFOs appeared, were meticulously constructed miniatures, with houses less than 1in (25mm) high.

 

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In the science-fiction thriller Alien (1979), the actor John Hurt has a sudden fit of violent coughing – and a hideous ‘baby’ alien bursts bloodily from his chest.

The illusion was created by the special-effects man Roger Dickens thrusting a puppet through a hole in a dummy torso.

Puppets have became popular with film makers to create terrifying creatures. Many are sophisticated pieces of engineering.

For Jaws (1975), three 25ft (7.6m) long sharks were built. One was pulled through the water on a type of sled, with scuba divers guiding it and working the fins and tail. The other two models were merely the left and right sides of a shark, to be filmed from only one side. They ran on an underwater rail and a hidden pivot arm enabled them to dive and surface.

The most endearing alien of all, ET (1982), was in fact several different ETs- three full-scale working models, a separate head and torso for close-ups and a midget actor in a costume.

 

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In the 1957 science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man, the actor Grant Williams had to appear to shrink in size daily. Part of the film were made by building giant-sized sets, complete with outsized armchairs and tables. But in some scenes, as when Williams is chased by his cat – gigantic in comparison to him – a process called travelling matte was used.

In a similar way to a stationary matte painting, travelling matte involves creating a ‘hole’ in a film background, so that separately filmed action can be superimposed. But the travelling matte ‘hole’ has to shift position or change in size from frame to frame, to match the area wherever the actors or vehicles are required to move.

The system was used extensively in the Superman films, especially when Superman was required to fly long distances o to recede to a very small size.

The most commonly used method is the ‘blue screen’ process. actors, miniatures or other objects are filmed before a blue screen and the colour negative is then printed onto a black-and-white master, which captures only the blue area. The result is a film in which the background is clear, while the foreground action appears in silhouette.

This is the travelling matte. It is then run through an optical camera to mask the unwanted foreground, while the background film is exposed.

Thin blue line

This process is next reversed to mask the background when the foreground action is added to the negative. The film then contains both foreground and background footage combined on each frame.

Sometimes, a thin blue line or fringe is visible around the outline of the actor or model. But modern optical-effects technicians can now eliminate the line, which was caused by reflected light from the blue background screen.

Another – yet more laborious – method of creating a travelling matte was used by Stanley Kubrick for his spectacular film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

To superimpose film of space vehicles on that of backgrounds of stars would have resulted in the stars also showing up the images of the spaceships. To solve the problem, Kubrick needed to have spaceship-shaped holes that would move backgrounds – holes that would move around to match the movements of the various craft.

The oldest, most time consuming and costly method of creating travelling mattes was resorted to: painting spaceship silhouettes onto hundreds upon hundreds of frames of film.

 

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Any scenery, from the skyline of ancient Rome to an alien landscape, can be added to a film background by a matte painting – a technique used to mask part of a scene which will be added later. The technique evolved from glass painting, invented in the 1930s.

A scene was painted on a sheet of glass, placed in front of the camera so that it merged with the action being filmed. Later silent-film makers developed ‘in-the-camera’ matte. It involved shooting live action with part of the scene ‘matted out’ by black paint on a glass sheet in front of the camera.

The partially exposed film was rewound and transferred to another camera.

A frame of the film was projected onto an easel and an artist added what was required to the matted-out area, leaving the live action area black.

The two segments – painted scenery and live action – were then combined, using a special ‘optical printer’, invented by a Hollywood technician, Limewood Dunn, around 1930. A type of film copying machine capable of superimposing and blending different portions of film, it can create a variety of effects. They include dissolves (in which one scene seems to ‘melt’ or fade into another), wipes (a shot which sweeps off the screen to be simultaneously replaced by another), freeze frames (a pause in the action on one shot) and the combining of several, separately shot sequences.

 

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In 1922, the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – creator of Sherlock Holmes – showed a film of model dinosaur animation to the Society of American Magicians. It made headlines in The New York Times. DINOSAURS CAVORT IN FILM FOR DOYLE.

Conan Doyle did not explain to its astounded audience that the film had been shot using a technique which had already been used somewhat unconvincingly in other silent pictures – but greatly improved upon by the American effects technician Willis O’Brien. It was a sequence fro the movie of Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, which was released in 1925.

Models are made to move by exposing a single frame of film at a time and adjusting the model to a new position between each shot. When the film is projected at the normal speed, the model – a brontosaurus, giant ape or some other creature – seems to move naturally.

 

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The action sequences in Star Wars (1977), with speeding spaceships in dramatic dogfights, were achieved with models and never moved. In a technique called motion control, the camera does all the flying.

The effects supervisor John Dykstra wanted to avoid the time-consuming and costly method used in 2001: A space Odyssey. For that film, the camera remained fixed when models were moved past it. For a scene in which the spaceship Discovery travels through space, it was necessary to film the model many times.

This was so that other elements, such as crew members visible in portholes, and star backgrounds, could be incorporated. The model was 54ft (16.4m) long and each camera pass on its 150ft (45.7m) long track took four and a half hours.

Dykstra’s solution was to mount his model spaceships on rigid pylons coloured blue so that they would not show up against a blue screen background. The camera, mounted on a crane, travelled along a track. The crane man arm moved up and down and rotated, and the camera could tilt, take sweeping panoramic shots (a pan), and track (follow any object) in all directions. It was computer-controlled so that each movement could be duplicated precisely to film different images on each pas, using the same film each time. So laser flashes, exhaust glow, explosions and starry backgrounds all ended up on the film in their right positions.

 

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When mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent became the Man of Steel in Superman (1978), he was made to fly through the sky over Metropolis – through a technique called front projection.

It is the reverse of back projection. The background scene is projected onto a screen behind the actor. But it is beamed from the front. So how do they avoid the background scene showing on the actor?

A projector bounces a low-intensity background image, too dull to show on the actor, off a mirror, angled between projector and camera. The image is reflected back at the camera from a screen, the surface of which is composed of glass beads,. Which intensity the image. Because the light from the screen travels in straight lines, the actor’s shadow is masked by his body.

In the Superman flying sequences, the actor Christopher Reeve was supported by a hydraulic arm protruding fro the screen. Like his shadow, the arm was concealed from the camera by his body.

Zoom lenses on both camera and projector provided the illusion of movement and perspective.

One of the first film makers to use front projection effectively was Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A space Odyssey (1968). It provided the background scenery in the opening sequence of ape men.

 

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The giant ape King Kong crashes into the jungle clearing to find his female sacrificial victim tied between twin pillars. With one finger he unwinds her bonds, then picks her up and lumbers off, clutching her in his gigantic paw. In fact, for most of this scene in the film King Kong (1933), the ‘monster’ was a model, 18in (460mm) high.

The effect was achieved through a technique called back or rear projection, by beaming film of the ape and background scenery onto the back of a translucent screen, while the actress Fay Wray played her role in front.

The main sang with the system is that the back-projected image tends to look flatter and dimmer than the foreground action. This is because the amount of light penetrating the screen is less than the light illuminating the foreground action.

The system was improved in the 1940s with the development of the triple-head process. it involved one projector shining directly on the rear of the screen and two others on either side bouncing identical images from mirrors so that they were precisely superimposed. This technique produced a brighter picture.

 

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The traditional method of creating stage lightning is with a flash pot. A small charge of flash powder, containing the flammable metal magnesium, is ignited in a container by an electric spark.

Alternatively, photographic flash bulbs or carbon arc lamps may be used.

Forked lightning can be simulated by projecting a photographic slide of a lightning flash onto ‘sky’ scenery.

Most flash effects on stage are controlled by the fire regulations.

 

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Three ancient comes gather on a heath. Thunder rolls, lightning flashes. Wispy, white mist swirls. Bit it is an illusion for a theatre performance of Macbeth.

One of the simplest way to create ‘fog’ or mist is with dry ice – solid carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is a gas which turns liquid when cooled under pressure. If the pressure is removed and the low temperature maintained , CO2 solidifies into snowlike crystals which can be compressed into dry ice cakes.

Then, if a lump of the substance is removed from its refrigerated container and immersed in hot water, it rapidly turns to mist. The fog-making process can be better controlled by a dry-ice machine. This consists of a closed tank with an opening from which the vapour billows. A hose attached to the opening is used to direct the ‘fog’.

For a lighter fog, which will hover, non-toxic oil is vaporised by a heating element in a fog machine. Fog produced from oil tends to linger longer than dry-ice mist which vanishes quickly.

 

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Smiling broadly – and chatting with a dummy seated on his knee – a ventriloquist exercises his art with breath control and the movement of his tongue.

In order to throw his voice, and make it appear that the dummy is talking, he breathes in deeply and forms his words in the usual way. However, he retracts his tongue, moving only its tip. This lifts and shrinks the larynx (the organ in the windpipe containing the vocal cords), narrows the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords), and puts pressure on the cords. In turn, this muffles and diffuses the sound – making it seem to come from another direction.

He distracts the audience by activating the dummy’s eyes and head with hidden strings and levers, and by moving its mouth in time with the words. His broad smile – which appears to be in response to the dummy’s ‘chatter’ – allows him to talk easily without noticeably moving his lips.

Vowel sounds can easily be pronounced without moving the lips. But consonants – particularly b, p and m – are much more difficult to say. That is why ventriloquists use animal or schoolchild dummies, whose ‘voices’ can be distorted or unformed.

To suggest a voice coming from a distance, a ventriloquists presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, allowing very little of the voice to emerge. With his tongue in the same position., he uses a deep. Harsh voice to suggest that it is coming from, say, the inside of a box – and a sharp, shrill voice to suggest it is coming from a ceiling or roof top.

The word ‘ventriloquist’ come from two Latin words: venter meaning ‘belly’, and loqui, meaning ‘to speak’. The Romans thought that vocal sounds came from the belly; and their sorcerers threw their voices when prophesying the future.

 

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Blindfolded and with his hands pressed to his forehead, the mind-reader prepares to give a demonstration of his power of ‘second sight’. His smiling girl assistant interviews a subject in the audience – for instance, a prosperous looking woman – and the magician proceeds to reveal all sorts of personal things about her.

In respinse to his assistant’s clearly voiced questions, he states that the subject’s first name is ‘Betty’. She is married and her nationality is America. The article which his assistant is holding up – and which, of course, he cannot see – is the woman’s diamond wristwatch, a Rolex, and on the back of it are engraved the words: ‘From Robert, with all my love.’

Two part code

The secret of the mind reader’s act is a two part code, transmitted in the seemingly innocent questions put to him by his assistant. One part of the code transposes the letters of the alphabet, then uses them to spell out words. In the case of the woman called Betty B is I; E is C; T is P; and Y is N. The term ‘Hurry up’, means ‘repeat the last letter’. So to transmit the name ‘Betty’ to the mind reader, the assistant starts each of her questions to him with the appropriate initial letter.

‘I have a name here,’ she calls out. ‘Can you tell what it is?’ ‘Please try.’ ‘Hurry up!’ ‘Now have you got it?’ In other words, the name is B-e-t-t-y.

The second part of the code consist of tables which cover everything from the contents of people’s pockets to their favourite foods. The number of tables is limited only by the memories of the magician and his assistant. Each table contains about a dozen alternatives, and magician is told which table is coming up by the assistant's opening question. Betty’s marital status, nationality and the description of her wristwatch are conveyed by means of the tables.

Personal possessions

For instance, when the assistant asks ‘What kind of article is this?’, the mind reader knows that by using this particular sentence she is referring to the table covering expensive personal possessions.

Her next question, ‘Can you say what I’m holding?’ begins with the third letter of the alphabet – and the third article in the table is a lady’s watch. The fact that it is a diamond Rolex is similarly conveyed by means of one or more of the table for the message and another for the name.

If, however, her husband’s first name us an unusual one – and is not in the relevant table – the assistant simply ignores it.

Mind-reading by code was devised in the mid 19th century by the French magician Robert-Houdin, whose skills inspired the American illusionist Houdini.

 

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On the night of Saturday, March 23, 1918, the packed audience at the Wood Green Empire, in north London, awaited the climax of Chung Ling Soo’s magic act – in which he ‘caught’ two speeding bullets between his teeth and then spat them onto a china plate.

A hush felt as two assistants – one of them Soo’s Oriental-looking wife – loaded their rifles with circular lead bullets marked by two members of the audience. They took aim, fired – and, instead of the sound of bullets pinging onto the plate, a bullet struck Chung Ling Soo in the chest. It passed through his body and lodged in the scenery. Clutching his chest, the magician staggered backwards into the wings. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died the next day, aged 58.

Soo – who was actually a New Yorker named William Ellsworth Robinson and was married to an Englishwoman – had successfully performed his ‘Catching the Bullets’ illusion hundreds of times in theatres on both sides of the Atlantic. Each of his muzzle-loading rifles had a steel tube fitted under the barrel to hold the ramrod when it was not being used. It was the ramrod tube – filled with a blank charge – that was actually fired, not the barrel itself.

The trick with the marked bullets was even more ingenious. Carrying two unmarked bullets in a cup, a girl assistant went down into the audience and asked two people to scratch marks on the. The cup had a false bottom containing another pair of bullets already marked by Chung Ling Soo. It was these that were loaded into the rifles by two more members of the audience on stage. The other two marked bullets remained in the cup.

The magician had a third pair of bullets, which he had also marked, hidden in his mouth. When the rifles were fired, he spat his two bullets onto the plate – and showed them to the members of the audience on stage. They confirmed that the bullets had the marks on them – although, of course, they did not know whose. The girl put the bullets into the cup and went back down into the stalls. Operating the trick bottom for a second time, she showed the first two volunteers the bullets they had marked and which had never left the cup.

The stunt seemed foolproof. But on the fatal night the exploding percussion cap in one of the rifles accidentally ignited both the blank charge in the ramrod tube and the live charge in the barrel. Constant use had damaged the insides of the weapons so that the fine gunpowder worked its way from the ramrod tube into the barrel.

The fault lay with Chung Ling Soo, who – afraid of sharing his secrets with a gunsmith – had insisted on servicing the rifles himself.

 

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