Looking Back at Shooting Sci-Fi Miniatures

I stumbled on this retrospective from Alex Funke on his 30 years doing miniature photography for Hollywood films.

"Let’s consider the central issue in using miniatures. It is that the miniature scene must never draw attention to itself. It has to be absolutely of a piece with the photography of the real. And to do this, it must resonate with the audiences’ perception of what ‘the real’ looks like.

"The worst remark that a miniature builder or cameraman can hear is:  '… wow, that was a nice miniature shot …' Oh, the horror! That is failure! That means that the viewer was pulled out of the story by the miniature effect, instead of being drawn into it.

"Utterly damning! Because as soon as the shot is perceived for what it is rather than what it represents, then the audience has been jerked right out of the story and is lost forever.

"What we must do: even though the scene has nothing to compare it to, nothing the viewer has ever seen before, he has to believe that it is consistent with his perception of the world he knows. In fact, our watchword is 'do your work, and then erase your tracks.'"

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