A Night to Remember 1958

Arguably still the best movie depiction of the Titanic disaster to date with miniature work done at Pinewood supervised by Bill Warrington.

The model Titanic for the film was built by Shawcraft models Limited in only 6 weeks. It was built on a steel frame attached to steel drums for flotation and detailed predominantly on the port side. The starboard side was left open to allow access to the many interior lights. According to IMDB The model titanic was 35 feet long (10.7m) however a local newspaper article on the model builders has it at 40 feet (12.2m).

Shawcraft models' 40 foot Titanic

The tank at Pinewood was not deep enough to sink the whole model so sections were progressively removed to allow the different stages of the sinking to be filmed.

Miniature mechanised rowboats filled with tiny survivors were also constructed. These can usually be seen bobbing about in the foreground of the sinking shots and in many instances in very soft focus due to the depth of field problems common in miniature photography. Filmed at night using artificial light, these scenes are particularly problematic not having the sun to assist in achieving a small aperture (see this post for more on this subject). In Hollywood during the 1940's and '50's it was more usual to shoot miniature model ship night scenes during the day using the day for night technique. In fact in order to get a convincing day for night effect the models were often painted black to maintain a convincing contrasty silhouette.

  

Four miniature shots in the film are taken from the German Titanic movie made in 1943. Sunny daylight shots of the titanic steaming along before the iceberg and a shots of the engine room flooding have been flopped horizontally for use in this film. For a more detailed examination of this have a look at this article on the very comprehensive Matte Shot Blog.

BEHIND THE SCENES

                               

THE MOVIE

Shot taken from the German Titanic of 1943, flopped left to right.

Shot taken from the German Titanic of 1943, flopped left to right.

Shot taken from the German Titanic of 1943, flopped left to right.

Shot taken from the German Titanic of 1943, flopped left to right.

BG is a miniature plate.

   
More information on Shawcraft Models can be found at the following link.

http://richingsparkhistory.org.uk/shawcroft.html

Shout at the Devil 1976

A model of a pre World War One German battle-cruiser the Blücher features in the really brilliant miniature ship work of Derek Meddings. My guess is the miniature work was shot in Malta where a part of the live action was shot. It could have been shot in the tank facility but I think its more likely the Mediterranean Sea, it's a bit hard to tell, but it is definitely a real horizon and sky. I can find no information of any kind about the model ship effects in this movie save for this one photograph with Derek Meddings and others standing in front of the miniature. It shows that the model was pretty large and in the film it is very impressively photographed giving a really good sense of weight and scale. It is only when the bow is coming right up into the lens when it rams the heroes' boat that some tell-tale miniature depth of field issues arise.

UPDATE Jan 2015

Two legendary British effects supervisors Ian Wingrove and in Brian Smithies have contributed some details of the miniature work for this film in the comments section. I thought the information is worth putting up front here.

Ian Wingrove - I will fill in a few blanks for you persons in picture left to right;

Sid Cain-Production Designer Michael Klinger-Producer Derek Leon Davis-Construction Manager Bob Laing-Art Director. You are right it is (filmed) in open water off St Thomas Bay in Malta. Peter Biggs was the driver the rest of the SFX crew were John Evans, Brian Smithies & myself Ian Wingrove.

Brian Smithies - Derek sent me out to Malta to supervise the construction of the German battle cruiser and the dhow, while the rest of the crew went down to South Africa to shoot the live action. It was shot in St Thomas’s Bay with the open sea behind. The boat was 36 ft long and powered by a 1.4 litre marine-ized car engine and gear box, it had a crew of two, myself and Peter Biggs
The British flag ship was a glass shot photographed in St Pauls Bay ,along with another glass shot of the passenger boat that brought the hero to Zanzibar.

Derek Meddings (third from left) in front of the Blücher model.

The ship in background is painted on glass.

Glass shot of the British Flagship.

Die Schwarze Galeere 1962

In August 2014 I acquired a photograph of three model ships with a floating smoke ring . I had no idea what the title of the film this photo was taken from. I did know that the DEFA logo, which is in the bottom right corner of the picture, is the acronym for Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, which was the state-owned film studio in the German Democratic Republic or East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall. I asked at the time if any reader knew any information about the subject depicted as I was be very curious to know.

Thanks to the detective work of readers Mathias and Ronald P, the photo was found to be from the 1962 DEFA film, Die Schwarze Galeere (The Black Galley). I subsequently managed to acquire three more photographs from the same film.

As reported by Ronald P one of the models from the film is on display at the Film Museum Potsdam.