Tuesday 26 November 2019

The Neptune Factor 1973

This is a solidly mediocre film produced in Canada.



The visual effects start out quite reasonably with a miniature submersible in some quite nice miniature environments and then very quickly it gets very silly and wholly unconvincing.

The intention is that the submersible and its occupants  encounter giant fish who have mutated way larger than the usual size of each species, however the method chosen to achieve this effect has quite the opposite effect. The use of a tiny sized model in conjunction with normal small sized fish in a tank results in an extremely poor depth of field due to the necessity of close focusing. It looks more like the submersible has shrunk and is bobbing about in a tropical fish tank which is more than likely exactly what it was.



Note how the tag line "An Undersea Odyssey" has been super imposed over the top of the titles as if it was added as an afterthought.


























































So far so good, perfectly adequate miniature shots.

And then the depth of field goes AWOL.




































If this isn't a tell tale sign that the model is tiny...














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