Monday, June 26, 2006

Starcrash - The Space Claw of Tinebria


From the 1979 Italian Sci-Fi film Starcrash !

Two days before shooting was to begin in September 1977, no props had been made. Director/writer Luigi Cozzi hired 96 technicians to build props and models for his film; all the props were built in two days! Miniature ships were built by a few Italian youths led by 20-year-old Paol Zeccara, from designs by illustrator Niso Ramponi. Most models were spray painted silver and illuminated with colored lights because of the shockingly short time schedule.

The miniatures used Lego/Duplo blocks and Model kit sprue, I tried to stick as close as I could to the feel of the original model.

The model was modelled in Max and rendered here in Vue Infinite. And the stars in the film really did look that cheesy, they used christmas fairy lights !

5 comments:

Mark Jobe said...

A little known fact is that Paol Zeccara then went on to build Milton Keynes using the same technique but this time spraying it grey.

Andrew Glazebrook said...

And then they used it as a stand in for New York in Superman 4:The Quest for Peace !!

Jo Bling said...

Not Starcrash again?!>!.....

Hey, Buckaroo Banzai was on last night and I have to admit I thought of you, Glazey!

:-D

Andrew Glazebrook said...

You love Starcrash...admit it !!!

Buckaroo Banzai rules !! Great movie !

SimoneGallina™ said...

two Errata Corrige,
as I partecipated building one of the ships (as credited in StarCrash BlueRay special ed.):
missing lead prop builder is Armando VALCAUDA, who started in Turin the pre-production of special effects on august '77;
illustrator name is NISO Ramponi.