1945A - Giant Nazi Mech Short Film

While this short film has been around for awhile, it's a great demonstration of how miniatures can be used to add production value to a low-budget project.

Creator Ryan Nagata describes some of the behind-the-scenes:

"1945A is a presentation I made with George Edelman about an alternate timeline where the Nazis unveil all sorts of futuristic sci-fi technology at the end of WWII, turning the tides in their favor. It's essentially what 5 minutes of the feature film could look like. It was made for a budget of less than $2000. Most of the costumes were made by me for a previous project. We only had five helmets to share between actors, so I had to repaint the different markings between shoot days. Weapons like the Browning .30 caliber machine gun were made from plastic sheeting. I rigged a motor/gear system inside which moved the charging handle/bolt back and forth when the trigger was pulled. All of the tanks and vehicles are done with radio-controlled 1:6 scale models, shot at 48 frames per second. I wanted the project to have a very tangible, non-CGI feel to it. The Nazi "Spider" tank was a custom made puppet."

1:6 scale is, of course, the scale of G.I. Joe and Action Man figures and there are a variety of off-the-shelf items at this scale that could be repurposed for filmmaking, much like the Han Solo figures that were used as stand-ins for Nazi soldiers in the opening of the Ark scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

View the Film on YouTube

Visit Ryan Nagata's Site