The technique of miniature ship visual effects.
Made by much the same visual effects and production people as went on to make King Kong in 1933, this film features a miniature luxury yacht which hits a reef, blows up and sinks. The style of the many matte paintings throughout are a precursor to those that appear in King Kong.
Among a sprinkling of picturesque matte paintings there is some very well executed model boat sequences in this film with the visual effects supervised by John P. Fulton.
Most of the miniature action centres around ice falling from a glacier onto a couple of salmon boats. The break up of the ice is fairly well done. One stand out shot is where the rudder and prop is broken off a boat sliding off a rising chunk of ice.
A good proportion of the miniature work is used as rear projected process scenes for live action in the foreground. A few of these process screen miniature shots have moving mechanical figures on the boats which really brings them to life.
The matte paintings are combined with both live action elements and in some case miniatures.
The whole movie can be found on youtube.
UPDATE: Thanks to NZ Pete's comments (which you can read below) I now know virtually all the visual effects miniature and matte shots were taken from 1938's Spawn of the North with the miniatures supervised by Gordon Jennings. The effects were awarded a special Academy Award for this work.
You can find the NZ Pete's excellent and thoroughly researched Matte Shot Blog here.
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| Matte painting of a Native village |
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| Matte painting background with a live action foreground. |
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| Almost all matte painting except for the water surface and small boats which looks like a miniature. |
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| Figures on the background miniature boat are mechanically animated. |
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| Another live action foreground combined with a matte painted background. |
