Behind the Scenes: King Kong Miniatures

In my continuing series on DVD special features with miniature content, we're taking a look at Peter Jackson's King Kong. With the full resources of Weta Workshop at his disposal, you know you're dealing with some top talent in the usage of miniatures. The miniatures are covered in a 20-minute segment that focuses on the miniature of the Venture, (the ship that travels to Skull Island), Skull Island itself, as well as some fantastic coverage of "tricks of the trade."


As you can see, the Venture is a good-sized miniature and the level of detail is very high. Several segments show comparisons of photos taken of the real ship the miniature is based on and the miniature items are nearly identical. The following photos show some of the detail.




In addition to the ship, the featurette covers the hacking and slashing of a whole lot of foam to create Skull Island's architecture, canyons and cliffs.






Finally, there is some good info for the aspiring miniature artist, particularly about lighting miniatures, focus, as well as combining multiple passes filmed via motion control to improve the quality of the finished shots.


This material appears in the "Post Production Diaries" section of the Bonus Features DVD on the 2-Disk Special Edition of the film. Definitely worth a look for film miniatures fans.