Catacombs Reference LibrarySci-Fi & Fantasy Models
Catacombs Reference Library
Sci-Fi & Fantasy Models issue #21, July 1997, p23-28. There were no photographs from Space: 1999.
One of the British film industries most accomplished miniature F X specialists in conversation with Mike Reccia and Dave Openshaw
There's no denying it - Terry Reed is a master craftsman. At first (and second, and third) glance the miniatures and miniature settings he has created for such blockbuster movies as the Superman series and Bond films do exactly what they are supposed to do. appear totally real. It's only when Terry recalls how they were made that you are forced to take his word for it and admit that your eyes must be fooling you. We recently chatted to Terry at his Pinewood Studios - based Otter Effects model house, touching on his beginnings in the industry his many triumphs, and the future of miniature effects...
SF&F: Tell us how your career in the film industry began.
Terry Reed: My background in making models was as an architectural modelmaker working for a company in Fulham. I subsequently left the company and then couldn't find a job, so for a time I went about redesigning the inside of a (full- size) pub, making all their tables and settles and that kind of thing, plus the bar. I bought a load of oak from a place down near Gatwick. Then a friend of mine told me they needed some "holiday relief' in the visual effects department at the BBC. So I went to the BBC for what was supposed to be two weeks and was up there for about five months.
SF&F: What were you working on?
T.R: I was working on programmes like Doctor Who and Michael Bentine's Potty Time, and was generally in the workshop making bits and pieces for them; models and things. Then Brian Johnson 'phoned me up and asked me if I'd like to do Space:1999. I went to Bray Studios and I was really the only modelmaker there, although there were other people outside doing bits, but everything came to me and I made all the models with someone else painting them up. I worked on both series of Space: 1999, together with the Gerry Anderson pilot film - Into Infinity - that was filmed between the two seasons.
SF&F: What did you actually build for 1999?
Terry. Most of the models. The Eaves were built outside by a company called Space Models, although I did make a lot of larger and smaller versions of the Eagle, plus parts for close- ups. We built the models from Brian Johnson's original ideas plus my ideas and everybody else's thrown in.
SF&F: The series was certainly hyped up. Did you feel at the time that you were doing something that hadn't been attempted before?
T.R: Yes. It was interesting for me because it was the first time I'd ever worked on films - although it was a TV series - and because timewise we were always fighting against time. They'd say, "we've got to shoot that model tomorrow" or "we've got to shoot that next week". We didn't get a lot of time in which to build the models.
SF&F: Did you build the planet landscapes?
T.R: Yes, although there were a few of us doing that, of course. I was making the actual small, physical models and then going onto the stage and building the sets with lots of peat, small trees and polystyrene! We'd go down to the garden centre and buy small trees - anything with small leaves. You can't beat that sort of thing for realism. Then, whilst I was working on 1999, Les Bowie asked me if I would move onto Superman, and so I came here to Pinewood - about nineteen years ago now - and on Superman I, followed by a Bond film, then Superman Il, another Bond film, Superman Ill, Supergirl, and lots of other films.
SF&F: What was your model input for those films?
T.R: We built the town centre for Superman as a model to match what we'd built full size up on the Pinewood lot. We also built the miniature dam down by Pinewood's paddock tank and I made Superman's escape crystal, which is in Planet Hollywood in London now and was constructed from perspex with front projection material stuck onto it.
For Drax's complex in Moonraker (which is shown to be part of a desert setting in the movie. Ed.) we made the miniature out here at Pinewood and we had a foot of snow! We had a cover over the miniature - it was freezing cold.
For Superman II we made a lot of large-scale barns which we subsequently blew up for shots involving the barns, miniature landscapes and model helicopters. We also made a bridge out of etched brass on the lot at Pinewood.
We built a boat for For Your Eyes Only which was about twenty- five feet long and sank it in the paddock tank for a scene in which a mine hits it. We also worked on underwater sequences involving miniatures and figures on wires which we had built for the film.
For Supergirl we built the villainesses' fairground hideout in miniature, using a photographic backdrop at the back of the miniature set at an angle.
For Living Daylights created a waterside miniature down at the paddock tank again, and when we were about to film it they suddenly said they wanted a ear pulling away as everything around it blows up, so we simply got a photograph of a car, cut it out, put it on wheels and pulled it along!
SF&F: So the car in that scene was a cut-out? Weren't cut-outs also used a lot on Space:1999?
T.R: That's right. The production only ever had one or two Eagles, so when you see a hangar shot the Eagles are just photographs. They would photograph the actual models in each position - ie: side, front, three- quarters, etc. - then cut them out to the right size.
SF&F: What can you tell us about the Moonbase Alpha miniature?
T.R: The model was, I'd guess, about fifteen foot square on a moon- landscape base. We used a lot of front projection material on the model with lights behind the camera to light it up.
SF&F: What other projects have you been involved in?
T.R: I worked with Derek Meddings on the fantasy film Krull. I also worked on the war film Hope and Glory, for which built replica pops to furnish a front room that gets blown up and everything gets sucked out, so we had to make very light, full size pieces such as the clock featured here. You can see the original on the right hand side of the photograph and the other prop in the shot is our lightweight replica. The props were made out of plastic, balsa wood and fibreglass so that they would lift. A company I use chromed certain of the replicas.
My work on Mio My Mio, a Russian film, included props for a sequence in which a guy turns to stone. They then put a sword into him and he crumbles to dust. I had a company down in Uxbridge, who do castings in aluminium, make up the figures in casting sand for us. We then carefully hollowed them out inside so that could just them a little shock and they would fall to pieces.
SF&F: You've been responsible for quite a showcase of commercial work too...
T.R: I've worked on over a thousand TV commercials, providing props and smoke and wind, that sort of thing. Work we've done includes making Dan Dare's cockpit for a commercial in only four days; a space station with fibre-optics inside it for French drink Ricard; Roger Rabbit-type guns for Weetabix and 5 foot six inch diameter minor balls for Tennants lager. For the Leeds Building Society ads featuring George Cole we made some big garden gnomes, and I had to organise two and a half thousand gnomes and lay them all out in someone's front garden. I actually know a guy who imports them and he hired them to us!
SF&F: Tell us about the giant hedgehog you created for a cider commercial..
T.R: We didn't make the first hedgehog they were originally going to use. We turned up at the location and couldn't find the hedgehog. We then looked over into this field and it was an absolute, terrible mess... it looked like a hay-rick, not like a hedgehog at all. So the director said to me "Can you do anything with it?' I said, 'Yes, chuck it and start again!" This was on a Thursday and he said they had got to shoot on the next Tuesday, so I got about eight people in, took a shed at Pinewood and we based our hedgehog on a van - it was just an ordinary Ford van inside. I got a thatcher in who brought in all this Norfolk reed and we stripped the back to its shape, changed all the front to make it look like a hedgehog and then thatched it all.
We had a monitor inside it in the nose and there we were going along this country lane with four or five guys inside working different things. What we didn't realise was that, as we turned the head, we could only see where the head was pointing and so kept ending up in ditches! We had to take it up to Oxford, and I followed it up on the back of this truck going up the M40 and a police car passed by. You can just imagine what they were saying, "Just passed this hedgehog on the M40 going in the opposite direction... "
For Kelloggs we built a robot that was fully operative. A guy was controlling it from the side and it did everything... poured the milk... put the cornflakes in... it then grabbed the spoon and raised it up to its head. In the ad. at that point it realises that it doesn't have a mouth, and ends up crying.
SF&F: What haw you been working on recently?
T.R: We've just created many of the props for the new Titanic film. We copied the actual, original objects and replicated all the materials exactly. We made two ships' wheels in mahogany with brass inlay. We built the Marconi radio room, one of the main features of the Titanic. We went to the science museum and they let me into the room to photograph everything in there, but there's only half a kilowatt of equipment up there and the Titanic had ten kilowatts, so everything on the Titanic was doubled up. We therefore had to make a copy of everything that was there plus more... brass morse keys, brass bells, etc. We had a company do the lettering on the various gauges for us.
SF&F: What was the timescale for such an ambitious project?
T.R: We had about five or six weeks.
SF&F: Do you work day and night on a project like this?
T.R: Not really, no. we had about six of us in here.
SF&F: What else are you involved
T.R: We're currently working on Lost In Space, building some of the props for the new movie such as a laser gun, consoles and lots of switches...
SF&F: What type of models do you prefer to work on?
T.R: I don't mind... anything. Every job is different and everything's a challenge. I like every one.
SF&F: How do you view the current trend for creating what have, to date, been traditional model sequences with computer generated images?
T.R: I'm not happy about it. But you've still got to make hand props - people have still got to hold them! In fact, we've just done the light sabre for the new Star Wars film. Films are still going to need models and still going to need action props.
Things are moving so quickly now. In the old days, when we used to make models they used to fly got to get rid of the wires". Nowadays you do a commercial and nobody cars what you put on. We did a commercial last year with an airship which had to come out of a hangar with a German guy sitting on top of it. We'd made a rig to swing it out of the hangar. It was a really cold, misty morning, and started off at Windsor park. I stayed there to clear up our equipment and the guys went ahead to the airfield we were using. When I arrived about an hour later they'd done the shot - they'd stuck a pole in either end of the airship and just walked along with the miniature. Later, they just matted out the two guys, so you can get rid of anything nowadays. It costs money, but I suppose they weigh it up against how long it's going to take to do other things...
SF&F: What size of shop do you operate?
T.R: Everyone's self-employed. I bring people in as each project demands. There are one or two people who work for me pretty-well permanently, but when there's no work in, no-body works! People are brought in for each job. I do have a good team behind me.
SF&F: What does todays aspiring FX modelmaker need to do? How have things changed from when you first got into the business?
T.R: I get kids 'phoning up saying "I was thinking about going to college and doing this two-year course". Yet I've got people coming here after doing a two or three year course on modelmaking and they show me what they've made and tell me it took them eighteen months make it. I ask them what they've learned and they say, "Well, nothing, really. It was a waste of time." My advice would be to try and get in with a modelmaking company and learn about architectural modelling and materials such as perspex. I try and make a lot of stuff out of perspex because straight away you've got a finish. You paint it and it's done. With wood you've got to rub it down, fill it and all this sort of thing.
SF&F: Finally, Terry, it's obvious that yours is a very accurate profession. Take the props you've made for Titanic... that kind of work has got to be spot on. You've got to be able to read plans and blueprints. Are kids getting that sort of discipline today from their modelmaking courses, do you think?
T.R: ...1 doubt it.
Space: 1999 copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment