Lite and Narrow Column - 9
T
he late Frank Ellison made the statement that model
railroading is like the theater. The layout is the stage, or
set, and the trains are the actors entering and leaving
the scene as the script demands. This comment is true and we
all build our stages, or sets, to act out our own dramas or com-
edies depending on what occurs.
In July, 2012, I received a phone call from a local film company
asking if I could build a set for them to film a commercial. I was
curious and agreed to meet with and show them some of my
modeling work. They took photographs and were surprised at
the detail that could be obtained at that scale, HO, having never
seen a scale model railroad up close. At that time we had talked
about what they were looking for and the concept of the set.
The producer did a sketch of what they wanted and the shooting
parameters, in other words the visual field of the camera. What
developed for that first shoot was a 4’ x 30” box with scenery
base rising towards the rear and to the right side facing from the
front. It was to be a western desert scene and it would be built
in HO scale.
The scene included a corral and fencing from Scenic Express. I
received a call from the studio asking how high the fence was.
They explained that they were in Atlanta and were videoing cow-
boys against a green screen for insertion into the set. For those
of you who aren’t familiar with it, a green screen is a large green
background where live action can be filmed or videoed and then
imposed on another set or background.
The camera is your best friend, or your worst
enemy when it comes to modeling ...
Building a movie set
Shooting day arrived and the studio picked up the set. I was
invited to the shoot and followed them to the location: it was
an interesting process to watch. The photographer removed or
repositioned cactus and plants to get a better shot and we also
removed a line of rock casting that I had placed along the back
edge. One of the casting ended up over 2’ behind the set held in
place with clamps. All of this was shot against a red sky backdrop.
It took over eight hours of shooting to get a 30 second commer-
cial and this didn’t include the edit time!
This commercial was for a Subway® sandwich called the Bull. I
was amazed to see my work close up with real humans walking
through the realistic scene. In the scene I had placed a Vulture
on top of the car, but they inserted a real vulture taking flight.
You couldn’t tell the difference from the models!
MRH-Aug 2014
