(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

Models of lighthouses in the film “Shutter Island”

Image removed from public review package. Local review only · not public no-info · medium_pt_v94c_after.jpgYou probably think that in our age of digital technology, real models are no longer used in cinema? You are wrong. No, of course, they are used much less frequently, but still, the technologies of the pre-computer era have not gone away. And this is proven by the creation of the film “Shutter Island”.

...Another model that starred in the film is a model of a lighthouse. During the filming of close-ups, in this case, partial scenery was also used - only the lower part of the wall with a door and a fence only five meters high. These shots were shot on camera in Massachusetts - with the sea and the sky, and close-ups of Leo.

Regarding the appearance of the lighthouse, there was also a small decoration here - only a part of the wall with a door and a fence, the lower part five meters high. These shots were shot on camera in Massachusetts - with the sea and the sky, and close-ups of Leo.

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Model of a lighthouse on a chromakey background

“Once we cut to a wide shot and we need the whole lighthouse, it's a 1:12 scale model,” Gratzner says. - The model of the lighthouse was more than three meters high, we placed it on a piece of rock one meter high and seven and a half meters wide. This model can be seen in the scenes when Leo is sailing to the lighthouse."

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But it couldn’t be done without a computer either. All models were first modeled in Rhinoceros, which is like a 3D CAD program. Team leader Scott Schneider drew all the CG models from concept art and drawings. After which these simulations were transferred for tracking. And then a team of model makers used these digital models to create models of real ones and create prototypes of individual parts, such as window frames and Fresnel lenses inside the lighthouse. They were first made from wax, after which a mold was created and cast from different materials.

To film the interior of the lighthouse, a model of the spiral staircase was created, which repeated the original one down to the smallest detail.  The interior of Ben Kingsley's character's office was also partially covered with chromakey and then replaced with a model of the interior made on a 1:4 scale.

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Basically, the sets used by the main film crew reached 6 meters in height. But the interior of the lighthouse was supposed to rise thirty meters. For this purpose, a ¼ scale model was built. 10.6 meters high. It absolutely coincided with the spiral staircase, which was made specifically for the shooting - special attention was paid to it - the detail of the staircase was amazing. The model had to coincide with it in everything. In one shot, the staircase was completely replaced by a model, simply because the crew couldn't get above it enough to get the right perspective. Therefore, the main film crew used only a small part of the set - practically only a door as tall as Leonardo. Everything else was replaced by the model.

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It was also necessary to change the top of this building for the scene with Ben Kingsley's character's office - this is the room where the lighthouse itself was located - its lamp, lens and roof interior. A set was built with a steel structure of a rotating lamp and its grille, but there was nothing beyond that. There was no money or time to complete the top section. So everything above was covered with chromakey, which was later replaced with a ¼ scale model of the interior.  For this, tracking and compositing were done. There is also a metal grill in the frame, due to the nature of the lenses it was blurred, and it was very difficult to create a scene with chromakey. Therefore, this grille was simply painted over later and a computer model was inserted in its place.

There is also a scene in the film where Leo is running up a spiral staircase. It was intended as a reference to Hitchcock and his Vertigo: he runs and runs and doesn't come running anywhere. The staircase rotates, and the background also rotates, only at a slightly different speed. To achieve this, the staircase was placed on a rotating podium, which was turned by stagehands when Leo reached the desired point. The background was covered with chromakey. Afterwards, to create the background, we filmed the model and then created a texture map from these frames. Bob Chapin created a digital model and reprojected the textures onto it, set up virtual lighting and, using tracking technology, created a rotation at a much slower speed. So the background here is a digital model with a projection of the actual model shot. Very surreal!

For the final scenes of the film, New Deal Studios decided to go completely practical. There is a panoramic scene where the camera moves along the stones towards the lighthouse. It was decided to do it very old school - in a cell.

“We supplied our 1/12 scale model of the lighthouse and all the rocks,” continues Gratzner. “What this means is that we made a 12-meter-long rock ridge and placed it on Malibu Beach, where there is some kind of cliff on the coast. We took an 80-ton crane and transported all parts of the structure to our shooting location. The metal structures department created an aluminum platform on which all frame elements were placed. After which we had to fight the tide, which came periodically, and we had to move the model deeper into the beach. This required 30 people.  The end result is a very classic scene with models in the camera. There were no composites or double screens here. Even the birds that were flying around were all real birds. We had people stand about a hundred meters away from the model to ensure the seagulls were the right size. They threw bread to the birds.  The model of the lighthouse and the stones around it were placed so that they blended in with the stones in the background

plane and sea. Rob Legato captured this shot using a D-21 ARRIFLEX digital camera in HD. And this is one of my favorite shots of the film that I worked on. This is the most “primordial” type of special effects - nothing more than just an optical trick with perspective.

Sources:www.mir3d.ru, fxguide