This is really neat. The workmanship on this ARMAGEDDON model is amazing. The perception of what a Shuttle looked like in people’s minds versus what it actually looks like are really different. A few days ago _Adam Savage’s TESTED_ did a walk around tour of the Discovery Shuttle at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it really surprised me how rough it looked compared to what I had envisioned and Adam commented that absolutely everything is handmade is part of the cause for the irregularities. At the time of ARMAGEDDON, no spacecraft had gotten close enough let alone landed on any astroids or comets. In just the past couple years, we’ve accomplished this and contrary to scientists best educated guesses, the astroids turned out to be very different. At the time making this film many of these understandings were still very conceptual and it is fascinating to learn how much was able to be incorporated. Source: “Adam Savage Learns About Living on the Space Shuttle!” _@Adam Savage’s Tested_
I feel that it can be done with 100% believably now. However, it takes a lot of time (hence money) which modern productions just can't or won't invest. In the same vein, they aren't allowed to spend enough to get physical effects looking great because the bean-counters insist on keeping back X% of the effects budget to 'fix it in post' that which wouldn't need fixing if adequate funds were allocated to physical effects in the first place. The recent prequel The Thing is a prime example of that. ADI did some great animatronic and makeup effects but they were virtually all replaced by CG because they weren't quite perfect due to holding back money. Quite sad.
I think the realism comes from the fact that they are...actually real.....My kids can't tell the difference, but they have grown up with CGI overload. I love a good model. The other thing is that with a model you are more restricted to realistic movement. Look at Star TreK films with models, eg Wrath Of Khan. Models moving like massive ships in space. Then you have reboot series, CGI Enterprise, barrel rolling, loop de looping etc, to paraphrase..."just because they can, doesn't mean that they should"....
Wow. Fantastic. I must pull put my Armageddon DVD and watch it. Thank you for this inside view. It makes so much fun. I like your space shuttle. Really amazing.
I would be interested in knowing what happened to these large scale models. I do know that for Battlestar Galactica, they were sold to private parties but many times they are destroyed.
I was contacted by the Disney archives recently. I think they have the large shuttle. They are putting together an exhibition of film miniatures at some museum.
As budgets go, it basically comes down to labor costs - crew pay. Are the model-makers and technicians willing to work for less? It just depends on how desperate they are to keep a job and make ANY money. I worked on a show in which the shop owner had to ask the crew to accept a cut in their already contracted wages, in the middle of production. Basically the shop owner was going over-budget, so someone was going to take a loss - apparently he felt it should start with the employees. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask, but most of them were against accepting a cut in pay.
They're tools, models and CGI. All used for their own specific purposes when it's the best tool for the particular job there's really no reason they should be in some kind of enmitable conflict or competition with one another. (Just sayin' ✌)
It annoys me how hard the effects companies are pushed on the bottom line, imagine being squeezed to cut $100,000 off your quote (back in 1998 dollars!) and probably feeling you had to say yes to get future work. It had a 140,000,000 budget so its just outrageous, theres no way they needed to screw these companies over like that.
@@captiannemo1587 Oh, i understand where the money goes (and 'marketing' is basically code speak for money laundering), but i wish the guys who actually did the work on screen that makes people actually want to see the film got at least decent lifestyle money.
@@tachikomakusanagi3744 I agree entirely. I might ask an old Universal Studios Department Head (long retired) what really happens as hes always said they play a lot of games with 'costs' listed on films.
CGI still doesn't have the same "realism" with regards to lighting that miniatures & models have. CGI has gotten better over the years and a major advantage to CGI is cost and the ability to redo effects (eg explosions) if things don't go right the first time.
@@djm5687 Actually, it is not CG per se that is the issue, having done both myself. The path tracers can really capture the light interplay and materials are pretty much good enough now. The real issue is that today's CG artists do NOT have the experience of working with miniatures, and the cheats and other things that working with real tangible materials give you. An artist WITH that experience can indeed translate that into a great CG outcome. VFX supervisors who are good can make it happen, but the new crop coming up just don't have that experience anymore, sadly. In the next few years AI will likely improve things even more, as they are trained (if they are trained) in traditional VFX films for the look that many of us love. Again, depends upon those in charge of training the AIs... All that said, I still miss working on actual miniatures...
This film was so bad I laughed all the time. If they presented it as a comedy I guess it would be great 😁😂 I just loed the fire in space 😁 on an asteroid 😂🤣 Oh my my...
Yes, but this channel is not about how good the movies are. It's about the miniature effects work and the artists who made them, which was really great.
@@piercefilm Indeed it is "whole", but it feels like a hole to me. Sorry not my native lingo... sue me! I do feel like the "it is supposed to be flaccid trash" is not really undoing my sentiment about it being a lot of work for something that makes people, on average, dumber.
@@Diggnuts I totally agree. The film is terrible. Michael Bay is terrible. But these films make huge amounts of money, so someone is watching them. Same with Marvel movies today. Smarter dramatic movies are mostly dead now. People want mindless fun and action. The studios deliver.
The movie is a guilty pleasure, and these huge models are just wow
This is really neat. The workmanship on this ARMAGEDDON model is amazing. The perception of what a Shuttle looked like in people’s minds versus what it actually looks like are really different. A few days ago _Adam Savage’s TESTED_ did a walk around tour of the Discovery Shuttle at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it really surprised me how rough it looked compared to what I had envisioned and Adam commented that absolutely everything is handmade is part of the cause for the irregularities. At the time of ARMAGEDDON, no spacecraft had gotten close enough let alone landed on any astroids or comets. In just the past couple years, we’ve accomplished this and contrary to scientists best educated guesses, the astroids turned out to be very different. At the time making this film many of these understandings were still very conceptual and it is fascinating to learn how much was able to be incorporated.
Source: “Adam Savage Learns About Living on the Space Shuttle!” _@Adam Savage’s Tested_
Another great interview!
Expect this channel to get a gigantic bump in subscribers soon. It deserves more attention and more attention it shall receive.
In my opinion, miniatures and models still have a certain "realism" that isn't quite there with CGI.
Not necessarily realism but tangibility
I feel that it can be done with 100% believably now. However, it takes a lot of time (hence money) which modern productions just can't or won't invest.
In the same vein, they aren't allowed to spend enough to get physical effects looking great because the bean-counters insist on keeping back X% of the effects budget to 'fix it in post' that which wouldn't need fixing if adequate funds were allocated to physical effects in the first place. The recent prequel The Thing is a prime example of that. ADI did some great animatronic and makeup effects but they were virtually all replaced by CG because they weren't quite perfect due to holding back money. Quite sad.
@@zybch Thanks for your reply, Mikey. Another thing that I don't like about CGI: *Nobody* asks anymore: _"How'd they do that?"_
I think the realism comes from the fact that they are...actually real.....My kids can't tell the difference, but they have grown up with CGI overload. I love a good model. The other thing is that with a model you are more restricted to realistic movement. Look at Star TreK films with models, eg Wrath Of Khan. Models moving like massive ships in space. Then you have reboot series, CGI Enterprise, barrel rolling, loop de looping etc, to paraphrase..."just because they can, doesn't mean that they should"....
I also there’s certain creativity required that cgi doesn’t require it forces you to think of clever solutions
Fantastic post! More riveting than the movie. Also really appreciate all of the build B-roll and BTS photos. Excellent
Luckily, Evan took a lot of photos and had others videotape the model shop work.
Wow. Fantastic. I must pull put my Armageddon DVD and watch it. Thank you for this inside view. It makes so much fun. I like your space shuttle. Really amazing.
Maybe it would be worth investing in a blu ray to allow clearer detail
The large shuttle was at Studio Tram Tour: Behond The Magic at Disneyland Paris until 2020, when they remodelled it to Cars Road Trip: Route 66.
Excellent! Once again, the model masters take miniature concepts to mega proportions - wow!!
Awsome job you guys did
Great miniature work.
Wow! Now that's a Bigature!!! A shame that people hate Armageddon for its story, when the FX work is this good!.
@@mem1701movies I love JJ, Cloverfield is still the best monster disaster movie to date, and Super 8 was fantastic!
It was an absurd movie that I think didn't know what it was trying to be, but the cinematography, VFX, music, and model-work were all incredible.
@@quillmaurer6563 A live-action cartoon.
It was a Great movie!!!!! Billy Bob Thorton was the man!!
Dude's shirt is amazing 👍 I gotta find one for myself! 🚀
Amazing model! I hope it lives?... Criminal to leave it to the elements. That thing deserves some love. 🏆⚒️
Shame that model wasn't preserved better, really a great piece of movie history.
I need to know where you got that shirt!
Really cool. I wonder the model is now?
One of the Disneylands, I think
I wondered how they did that runway shot. Makes sense.
I would be interested in knowing what happened to these large scale models. I do know that for Battlestar Galactica, they were sold to private parties but many times they are destroyed.
I was contacted by the Disney archives recently. I think they have the large shuttle. They are putting together an exhibition of film miniatures at some museum.
@@piercefilm Thank you for the quick reply. Great to know that they were saved. I've seen many videos of people finding movie props in the trash.
Impressive!
Thanks, great vid :-)
I did not realise how much of it ws done with models, I foolishly assumed it was CGI, and that big model, that's not a model that's an aeroplane!
Is it just me, or is that a model of Cookie Monster as Shin Godzilla behind Evan Jacobs?
Thanks for posting this, I would have missed it otherwise. Hilarious!
These guys business acumen is really something
In the film biz there is a lot of underbidding to get jobs. Clients usually pay the lowest bidder. Studios want high quality for cheap prices...
As budgets go, it basically comes down to labor costs - crew pay. Are the model-makers and technicians willing to work for less? It just depends on how desperate they are to keep a job and make ANY money. I worked on a show in which the shop owner had to ask the crew to accept a cut in their already contracted wages, in the middle of production. Basically the shop owner was going over-budget, so someone was going to take a loss - apparently he felt it should start with the employees. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask, but most of them were against accepting a cut in pay.
Wjay are the scale puppets
What are they made of and how are what are they painted with
They're tools, models and CGI. All used for their own specific purposes when it's the best tool for the particular job there's really no reason they should be in some kind of enmitable conflict or competition with one another. (Just sayin' ✌)
Tell that to the producers, directors and studio suits who can't make decisions.
Do they still use models now
Epic model, breaking even on a job sucks:)
It annoys me how hard the effects companies are pushed on the bottom line, imagine being squeezed to cut $100,000 off your quote (back in 1998 dollars!) and probably feeling you had to say yes to get future work. It had a 140,000,000 budget so its just outrageous, theres no way they needed to screw these companies over like that.
Most of the money in a budget ends up in marketing.
@@captiannemo1587 Oh, i understand where the money goes (and 'marketing' is basically code speak for money laundering), but i wish the guys who actually did the work on screen that makes people actually want to see the film got at least decent lifestyle money.
@@tachikomakusanagi3744 I agree entirely. I might ask an old Universal Studios Department Head (long retired) what really happens as hes always said they play a lot of games with 'costs' listed on films.
The asteroid tearing apart sequence should have been a miniature, cuz that with its late 90s particle effects looks like assssss...
With today’s technology I bet you could remake that shuttle in half the time for half the cost with today’s 3-D printing technology
Possibly. Unfortunately, most directors and studios only want CGI now. The Mandalorian models are partly 3D printed, so it does help keep costs down.
Practical effects are way cooler then CGI
CGI still doesn't have the same "realism" with regards to lighting that miniatures & models have. CGI has gotten better over the years and a major advantage to CGI is cost and the ability to redo effects (eg explosions) if things don't go right the first time.
@@djm5687 Actually, it is not CG per se that is the issue, having done both myself. The path tracers can really capture the light interplay and materials are pretty much good enough now. The real issue is that today's CG artists do NOT have the experience of working with miniatures, and the cheats and other things that working with real tangible materials give you. An artist WITH that experience can indeed translate that into a great CG outcome. VFX supervisors who are good can make it happen, but the new crop coming up just don't have that experience anymore, sadly.
In the next few years AI will likely improve things even more, as they are trained (if they are trained) in traditional VFX films for the look that many of us love. Again, depends upon those in charge of training the AIs...
All that said, I still miss working on actual miniatures...
I agree. The model techs you know by name.. CGI crews ?
👀🤔🧐😉👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🎬🎥😷🇧🇷
This film was so bad I laughed all the time. If they presented it as a comedy I guess it would be great 😁😂 I just loed the fire in space 😁 on an asteroid 😂🤣 Oh my my...
Yes, but this channel is not about how good the movies are. It's about the miniature effects work and the artists who made them, which was really great.
@@piercefilm True. Excuse my comment. I didn't want to offend anyone.
All that effort for a terrible film.
You could say that for a LOT of sci fi movies... but at least the miniatures were cool.
So much work for the stupidest shuttle ever.... It is so dumb. The hole movie is dumb, but that shuttle makes no sense at all.
It's a Michael Bay movie. It just has to look "cool" and different. It's not meant to be realistic. And it's "whole" movie...
@@piercefilm Indeed it is "whole", but it feels like a hole to me. Sorry not my native lingo... sue me!
I do feel like the "it is supposed to be flaccid trash" is not really undoing my sentiment about it being a lot of work for something that makes people, on average, dumber.
@@Diggnuts I totally agree. The film is terrible. Michael Bay is terrible. But these films make huge amounts of money, so someone is watching them. Same with Marvel movies today. Smarter dramatic movies are mostly dead now. People want mindless fun and action. The studios deliver.
@@piercefilm It's like addicts and crack dealers... And somehow it is allowed.
@Nobody else but me Mad Max Fury Road is the last film that "wowed" me... no miniatures, but a lot of great practical stunts.