**Model Making: A Childhood Dream Come True**

This is precisely what I thought model making should feel like. I imagine that all of you working on this were like sort of fulfilling childhood dreams. Absolutely, absolutely, and everybody that uh that comes in and sees us working on them says exactly that. It's like you know you you guys must have the dream job and and we do it's it's it's great fun like like any job we we're under deadlines, you know so so you've always got that in your mind.

But it is it's it's not just about meeting deadlines; it's also about creating something that brings back memories for many people. As I look around at these drawings, I see things that make me excited to take on a particular model. Oh, yeah! Yeah, absolutely. There are fights there, yes, fights in the model shop. It's true! We've had our fair share of disagreements and arguments over the years, but it's all part of the process.

One piece that I'm actually very fond of is the Refilling Hanger. Here we have Thunderbird one, Thunderbird 3, Thunderbird 4, and this is where Thunderbird 5 is loaded up as well – which is the one in space. Thunderbird 3 is my favorite part of this. It's this big Silo, and it's just so beautifully designed. To get this to work was quite hard because we had to practically have The Silo closed for Thunderbird 2 to take off. Course, course right? But what we found is when we first started rehearsing, I was up there on a big handle turning it, but when I turned it, the whole set did this from space! Yeah, yeah, yeah!

It's like there are certain things that we Embrace in the show that were happy accidents. That was probably taking it a little bit too far, so we had to go through and rebrace it get all of it and it took a while to get all the bearings running smoothly, but once we had it, you'll see in the show, it's beautifully smooth move and it was very satisfying.

So, I think that's my favorite part – this, the sort of Thunderbird 3 launch area. It's beautiful, and there's not many films using big Miniatures anymore. It's mostly CG now, so to come back to this is lovely. And I have a background in Miniatures on movies, but there was a huge gap in my career where there were no Miniatures, and then this came back, and it was a real pleasure to jump back on this.

I'm really hoping that maybe it'll ignite something back into the industry and and well, I mean it's seeing Miniatures like this that got me interested in film. That got Peter and Richard interested in you know it's like these are the things that we grew up on, and we haven't even seen all of the incredible Miniatures you guys have built no no, and that brings me to a fact.

Uh, season 1 we built 120 models and Miniatures separate sets. Yeah, 120 for for one season, Season two we built about 87 but they were bigger. Oh my God, so huge! Huge numbers, huge turn around, and where we're standing this is actually publicly accessible – the public can come take a look at these sets in Wellington, absolutely public can come and and and do what you've just done. They can come and have a look at the puppeteering, Thunderbed to palm trees; it's here in Wellington, and it's it's open to the public.

This must be one of the very few things that gets a whole bunch of 10-year-olds to actually pay attention for more than a minute – it's amazing to watch. You're inspiring a whole another generation of craft people filmmakers model makers absolutely, and that's that's really satisfying. And you get that combination of maybe it's igniting something in the kids that they they could do this as a career, and plus their their moms and dads are just just as mesmerized as they are, cuz that brings back memories for them.

So, it's a real thing – the whole family can enjoy it, and is awesome. The weather takes it takes the artifacts of its construction really seriously and archives them and keeps them extensive so that they can be enjoyed later, I really appreciate that when I come here and everything is all over the place – it's beautiful. Yeah, it is beautiful, and we as model makers appreciate it because it preserves them really nicely.

And which is is can be a hard thing to do absolutely – Ben, thank you so much for showing me a little bit of the Thunderbirds universe – I'm Absolut smack! You're welcome; lovely to meet you

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys in case the wall of Swords didn't give it away I'm in Wellington New Zealand at legendary WETA Workshop a model Maker's Paradise WETA is super famous for its miniature work on films like Lord of the Rings in fact they got so good at making Miniatures they made them so large they started coining a term for them called big atures and we're about to look at some absolutely Gob smackingly beautiful batur built for their series Thunderbirds Areo let's take a look Ben tell me where we're standing what's going on behind us here behind us here is one of the uh more elaborate and somewhat magnificent minias from season 1 the the 1 to 12 scale Tracy Island Lounge in house now when you say magnificent I don't even think that comes close to describing what it's like to be here this is I mean weda is famous for big atures giant Miniatures but how many how many people spent how long making this this this was a this was a a tricky miniature to build uh it was probably about maybe 16 to 18 technicians working on this thing 12 weeks 12 weeks of of Labor yeah it is it is fast and it's the world of of Thunderbirds and when you compare it to to miniature based movies in the past uh we had to up the ante in terms of how quick we made these things but having a miniature build background you didn't want to compromise on quality so this is the result is a pretty pretty cool looking model so for reference 112 scale is twice dollhouse scale correct is that right yes yeah yeah so so you'd see a a person would be about that that big at 1 to 12 6 in tall yeah yeah about 6 in something like that and now I've just occurred to me that 112 scale is actually a remnant of Imperial measurements so is that just a giant nightmare in metri it it is but it's it's funny though CU When you when you talk and scale and deal with scale you go you just go into that mindset and you separate it out but then if we if we're making sets we revert straight away back to metric right with measurements and millimeters and all that kind of stuff so it's it's it's interesting and when when describing things to to uh American clients because obviously the shows now with Amazon which is awesome um you have to you have to every time you say it's about 300 mm it's like oh yeah what's that in inches I've got the app on my phone oh you do right yeah um we used to run into trouble at industrial Light and magic with some scales like 116th scale but sometimes we'd build something to 116th inch scale gosh right those are where all of a sudden someone delivers something like Stonehedge no this isn't the only scale you guys were working in no uh we we multiple scales and and the good thing about Thunderbirds personally is I I honed my ability to uh recognize and and choose a scale just from my head you know I used to look at charts and all that kind of stuff and we we didn't have time to do that so so we got very good at jumping between scales and even just looking at a storyboard we could pretty much immediately tell that it's got to be 1 to 6 1 to 12th 1 to 24th and and 90% of time we'd be right so how do you film on a set like this are you climbing all over it are you able to so so the set was built uh with the the practicalities of of shooting in mind and shooting in a hurry because um another big important fact about Thunderbirds is okay I'll just give you a few a few shoot facts on a on a on a back on the day on on King Kong with all of the Rings we probably would have got one or two shots maybe every 3 days cuz you're shooting mocon you're shooting multiple passes MH Thunderbirds we were averaging about 27 shots a day so it puts them and you know that means you can't just think like a model maker you have to also think like the filmmaker correct and you have to think how how do they practically get the camera in here quickly so for example here this whole pool section um the whole thing gets removed if we want to to get the camera in the lounge and get all the coverage so so we started I think when we shot this we started with that out we had the camera in we did all the coverage in the lounge when we were happy with that this came back in we did all the coverage around the pool and last thing was all the all the Rocks came in and we did the nice big wide establishers that you see in the show um everything's got a steel Armature inside it so so I can um I can stand up on this and and um obviously with you know shoes off um and and so the model makers could if they needed to they could safely climb up and carefully adjust um SE dressing for continuity that kind of thing so it was treated like a real set and there's lots of practical lights on the set you're able to individually control them all yes yep so all everything um normally we'd have about 3 or 4 days of just practical lighting installment and that all runs to a DMX board and then um have them all labeled so we could bring up evening lighting day lighting different practicals at different times nice um that's such a huge part of the show this Miniatures and I'm pretty sure we just shot we shot on it for one day so all that build time we got all our shots in one day wow yeah so and it's got a secret here in the pool it does it does uh people people that are familiar with the show may know what we're talking about I think they might um and uh so this is basically uh where one uh one very recognizable spacecraft comes out of with a big number one on the side of it yeah um would you like us to do the H please thank you a yeah the pool recedes underneath the house that's the Practical aspects of having to make the pool full of water and move that's that's a lot of engineering yeah yeah and and pretty much all puppeteering is is hand driven we had very little you know things on servos or all that kind of stuff just because of time and and expence awesome oh my God it's so beautiful there's the pool there's the house yeah exact replica at a at a different scale do you do you sometimes you have some cognitive dissonance of working at working on something at multiple scales making chairs tiny chairs even tinier yeah yeah it's you you do and it's it's almost like a um you kind of get lost in the scales and you start getting a sense of deja v as well it's like I've been here before I built this yeah have I built this already but I'm sure it was bigger so um this was this was actually built first before the 12th oh okay but obviously we had very set plans and uh we could go into obviously more detail when we built the 12th and add more things because you only even see this wide being the scale that it is and the mountain here is this carved in urethane foam correct yeah this is basically uh taken from we we we have big silicon Rock molds that's what I was just going to ask and those you have some of those from Lord of the Rings and from other projects you guys have done yes yep from Lord of the Rings from King Kong um from nania there's there's a whole stack and we also got some freshly cast rock as well right there's a really good Cliff local Cliff it's a local Secret The Rock Society in Wellington um so then we cast out big panels This was built was a 3D model so we get all the shapes right then we um cut cut all the rock up into panels Stitch it together with kab sticks Builders F in between met so C out again and it becomes a a one big you know natural looking piece of uh geology and can some of these fly out so that you can have access no this was all all one set um this this was another big shoot I think uh this is also very early on this is on a big steel frame whole island the reason it had to be on a big steel frame is cuz being poling and being foam rock it floated it wanted to float and we we had to have the whole thing in a giant wet set oh wow so this whole thing set in 200 M of water oh my God practical water yeah um and it was a real like it's really it's easy to make things float it's really hard to make them sink oh I know is there yeah my cameraman at one point wanted to build a box to put his camera in and he made is this a good size and I said you realize you're going to be pushing down on 850 lb yeah yeah this is Thousands yeah it was amazing did you bolt it to the floor yeah so we we we had big rails that we we laid down big big heavy steel rails that we laid down in the tank and then this was bolted to those rails but even then I had to go and get a whole lot of um lead big lead panels that we then put all on the frame and we only just made it you know it was it was tricky and and this the then the engineering the tank itself was yeah now over here we've got the piece that you guys also built in a larger scale I want to go take a a look at it all right let's go have a look all right all right Ben so what what happens in this part of the mountain this is the secret exit uh well this is another little piece of the mountain that any uh any true Thunderbirds fan would be very familiar with absolutely and it's often uh the favorite I find with the Craft um of course we're talking about Thunderbird 2 the big the big green blamage I like to call it blage nice um so this is essentially a a hidden Runway that's a it's a it's a very recognizable piece of puppetry from the Thunderbirds universe and this this was a real pleasure to shoot on I've got to say now I noticed the rocks are bigger so when you have some rock molds do you label on them good for 112th to 124th scale good for yeah we do we do we we have a we we group them we have the the finer uh finer Rock grain that obviously becomes like the the Tracy Island that we were looking at earlier the 100 scale uh this this Runway is essentially uh 1 to 35th scale so again Tracy Lounge is 1 to 12th the island was 1 to 100th now we're looking at 1 to 35th and it's all to do with um again practicalities of shooting depth of field what's involved we had to build Thunderbird 2 to be on here so uh if we go if we go to 1 to 12 suddenly Thunder beard to at 1 to 12 scale is about 4 1/2 M long so that dictates how big this set can be correct yeah so originally we looked at 12 it was like well that can't happen let's go 35th and even that was pushing it and there's a you can practically puppet this one you sure can it's still set up would you like to have a go do it you can all right please this is so freaking cool here we go oh that reveals Thunder yep that was just as satisfying in person as you imagined yeah so you'll see you know that that's pretty much in every episode at least once is that sequence that you just did oh it's gorgeous look at the under detail and everything and these are like little um you know if if there's any of accidents they're like they spray fire retardant and all that kind of stuff and CO2 and yeah that's great yeah I'm going to put it back yeah oh I was just going to say we actually um another set we'll have a look at in a minute we actually placed around the back of this that there at the moment as a you didn't have a flat piece of artwork no we we had a fully 3 m deep deep f thundered 2 hanger a lot of M on either side of this oh again huge uh this is we're in the water here so this would be water we didn't have it with a set but this whole wall extended into the the start of Tracy Island so probably went about 7 m high that that rock wall it's again it's disconcertingly large for a miniature yeah all right take a look at the next interior all right so this is the hanger behind what our what we just puppeted it is indeed it's so beautiful Thunderbird to hanger this is this is this is the set I think I would have had the most fun working on inside gluing everything yet yeah it was lots of fun and it's it's lots of fun working out you know how does all this Gantry work integrate with all this organic rock right and and the IDE the sort of um the premise behind this whole thing was like these this isn't a family that's going to go to an island and and and cut out a whole lot of rock to make their hanger they've they've worked with the natural geography of the of the Rock and the natural way the cave shaped so that's the kind of look that we went for it it really it sort of like goes right to a kid's mind of what you want a secret it is everything you want a secret hideout to be absolutely is this practical does it move yeah we we uh U practical in that we had a piece of nylon yeah pulling it across and and the other important thing about about this show is yes it's pushing the miniature thing and which I'm very passionate about but but also I'm just as passionate about how we integrate it with the CG element of the show which is the ships the characters and I think it's um It's always important to to keep that in mind when you're building the Miniatures because they have to integrate and I think that's one thing the show's been very successful at was is that that Maring of the two disciplines together and um that makes it quite a unique show you know and it also goes to show I mean the kind of integration that happens here at weda that I see from knowing folks here is that um that's being paid attention to on all the levels it's not like the film department says to the model shop going do this it's like you guys all have to really work on that we do we do y everybody works together as as one unit from the get-go so so that we understand how it's all going to work together and and it pays off you know for example we had this thing being puppeteered out yeah but it was leading the pods and the pods were CG so so you have you have a CG where C Thunder beard to in here up on its legs the pods get dragged out until we it chooses the one it wants and then it lowered down rotated around exited our miniature so it was a real and and a lot of people can't tell the difference you know which is the cool thing so am I seeing um some of this Gantry work is this laser cut that's all laser cut all that Gantry work y so you guys are using some old model techniques I see some kit bashing going on perhaps even some toys that have been upgraded significantly toy pieces and then Advanced lighting set dressing and then laser cutting 3D 3D printing printing laser cutting yep um pretty much everything anyone's ever done to build a model is in here absolutely and and it's it's whatever gets us there that makes it look good that gets us there the most efficiently and and we have all those all those tools at our disposal now they're all very accessible so it creates a set like this Ben when when I was a kid seeing Godzilla movies and I learned from my dad who was a filmmaker that these were Mini Natures that people were building and they spent thousands of hours and they they built them from scratch this is precisely what I thought model making should feel like I imagine that all of you working on this were like sort of fulfilling childhood dreams absolutely absolutely and everybody that uh that comes in and sees us working on them says exactly that it's like you know you you guys must have the dream job and and we do it's it's it's great fun like like any job we we're under deadlines you know so so you've always got that in your mind but it is it's um you know we we're doing what we did as kids but we're getting paid for it yeah and do you see some things when you're looking at the drawings you're like oh I'm definitely going to take that one to build yeah oh yeah yeah absolutely there's fights there fights in the model shop is there is there a piece in here that you prly fond of um I'm actually I'm I'm very fond of um the the this is the refilling hanger so in here we have Thunderbird one Thunderbird 3 Thunderbird 4 and this is where Thunderbird 5 is loaded up as well which is the one in space Thunderbird 3 is my favorite part of this it's this this big Silo and he he sits in here and to get this to work it was quite hard because um we had to practically have The Silo closed for Thunderbird 2 to take off of course of course right and um but what we found is when we first started rehearsing I was up there on a big handle turning it but when I turned it the whole set did this from space yeah yeah yeah and it's it's like there's certain there's certain things that we Embrace in the show that a happy accident that was probably taking it a little bit too far so we had to go through and rebrace it get get this all and it took a while to get all the bearings running smoothly but once we had it you'll see in the show it's a beautifully smooth move and it was very satisfying so I think that's my favorite part is this the sort of Thunderbird 3 launch area it's beautiful and no I mean there's not many films using big Miniatures anymore no extensions even it's it's mostly CG now so you know I I I did some of these for indust magic and then watched as the jobs went away so it must be lovely to go back to this it is lovely and and I you know I have a background and Miniatures on movies but there was a huge gap in my career where there were no Miniatures and then this came back and so it was a real pleasure to jump back on this and I'm really hoping you know maybe it'll ignite something back into the industry and and well I mean it's seeing Miniatures like this that got me interested in film that got Peter and Richard interested in you know it's like these are the things that we grew up on and we haven't even seen all of the incredible Miniatures you guys have built no no and and that brings me to a fact uh season 1 we built 120 models and Miniatures separate sets yeah 120 for for for one season season two we built about 87 but but they were bigger oh my God so so you know huge huge huge numbers huge turn around and where we're standing this is actually publicly accessible the public can come take a look at these sets in Wellington absolutely public can come and and and do do what you've just done they can come and have a look at the puppeteering Thunder bed to palm trees uh it's here in Wellington and it's it's open to the public this must be one of the very few things that gets a whole bunch of 10-year-olds to actually pay attention for more than a minute it's amazing to watch Amazing to watch misiz you're inspiring a whole another generation of craft people filmmakers model makers absolutely and that's that's really satisfying and you get that combination of maybe it's igniting something in the kids that they they could do this as a career and plus their their moms and dads are just just as mesmerized as they are cuz that it brings back memories for them so it's a real it's a you know without sounding cheesy it's a whole thing the whole family can enjoy and is awesome again you know weather takes it takes the artifacts of its construction really seriously and archives them and keeps them extent so that they can be enjoyed later and I really appreciate that when I come here and everything is all over the place it's beautiful yeah it is beautiful and we as model makers appreciate it because it preserves them really nicely and you know which is is can be a hard thing to do absolutely Ben thank you so much for showing me a little bit of the Thunderbirds universe is Absolut smack you're welcome lovely to meet youhey guys in case the wall of Swords didn't give it away I'm in Wellington New Zealand at legendary WETA Workshop a model Maker's Paradise WETA is super famous for its miniature work on films like Lord of the Rings in fact they got so good at making Miniatures they made them so large they started coining a term for them called big atures and we're about to look at some absolutely Gob smackingly beautiful batur built for their series Thunderbirds Areo let's take a look Ben tell me where we're standing what's going on behind us here behind us here is one of the uh more elaborate and somewhat magnificent minias from season 1 the the 1 to 12 scale Tracy Island Lounge in house now when you say magnificent I don't even think that comes close to describing what it's like to be here this is I mean weda is famous for big atures giant Miniatures but how many how many people spent how long making this this this was a this was a a tricky miniature to build uh it was probably about maybe 16 to 18 technicians working on this thing 12 weeks 12 weeks of of Labor yeah it is it is fast and it's the world of of Thunderbirds and when you compare it to to miniature based movies in the past uh we had to up the ante in terms of how quick we made these things but having a miniature build background you didn't want to compromise on quality so this is the result is a pretty pretty cool looking model so for reference 112 scale is twice dollhouse scale correct is that right yes yeah yeah so so you'd see a a person would be about that that big at 1 to 12 6 in tall yeah yeah about 6 in something like that and now I've just occurred to me that 112 scale is actually a remnant of Imperial measurements so is that just a giant nightmare in metri it it is but it's it's funny though CU When you when you talk and scale and deal with scale you go you just go into that mindset and you separate it out but then if we if we're making sets we revert straight away back to metric right with measurements and millimeters and all that kind of stuff so it's it's it's interesting and when when describing things to to uh American clients because obviously the shows now with Amazon which is awesome um you have to you have to every time you say it's about 300 mm it's like oh yeah what's that in inches I've got the app on my phone oh you do right yeah um we used to run into trouble at industrial Light and magic with some scales like 116th scale but sometimes we'd build something to 116th inch scale gosh right those are where all of a sudden someone delivers something like Stonehedge no this isn't the only scale you guys were working in no uh we we multiple scales and and the good thing about Thunderbirds personally is I I honed my ability to uh recognize and and choose a scale just from my head you know I used to look at charts and all that kind of stuff and we we didn't have time to do that so so we got very good at jumping between scales and even just looking at a storyboard we could pretty much immediately tell that it's got to be 1 to 6 1 to 12th 1 to 24th and and 90% of time we'd be right so how do you film on a set like this are you climbing all over it are you able to so so the set was built uh with the the practicalities of of shooting in mind and shooting in a hurry because um another big important fact about Thunderbirds is okay I'll just give you a few a few shoot facts on a on a on a back on the day on on King Kong with all of the Rings we probably would have got one or two shots maybe every 3 days cuz you're shooting mocon you're shooting multiple passes MH Thunderbirds we were averaging about 27 shots a day so it puts them and you know that means you can't just think like a model maker you have to also think like the filmmaker correct and you have to think how how do they practically get the camera in here quickly so for example here this whole pool section um the whole thing gets removed if we want to to get the camera in the lounge and get all the coverage so so we started I think when we shot this we started with that out we had the camera in we did all the coverage in the lounge when we were happy with that this came back in we did all the coverage around the pool and last thing was all the all the Rocks came in and we did the nice big wide establishers that you see in the show um everything's got a steel Armature inside it so so I can um I can stand up on this and and um obviously with you know shoes off um and and so the model makers could if they needed to they could safely climb up and carefully adjust um SE dressing for continuity that kind of thing so it was treated like a real set and there's lots of practical lights on the set you're able to individually control them all yes yep so all everything um normally we'd have about 3 or 4 days of just practical lighting installment and that all runs to a DMX board and then um have them all labeled so we could bring up evening lighting day lighting different practicals at different times nice um that's such a huge part of the show this Miniatures and I'm pretty sure we just shot we shot on it for one day so all that build time we got all our shots in one day wow yeah so and it's got a secret here in the pool it does it does uh people people that are familiar with the show may know what we're talking about I think they might um and uh so this is basically uh where one uh one very recognizable spacecraft comes out of with a big number one on the side of it yeah um would you like us to do the H please thank you a yeah the pool recedes underneath the house that's the Practical aspects of having to make the pool full of water and move that's that's a lot of engineering yeah yeah and and pretty much all puppeteering is is hand driven we had very little you know things on servos or all that kind of stuff just because of time and and expence awesome oh my God it's so beautiful there's the pool there's the house yeah exact replica at a at a different scale do you do you sometimes you have some cognitive dissonance of working at working on something at multiple scales making chairs tiny chairs even tinier yeah yeah it's you you do and it's it's almost like a um you kind of get lost in the scales and you start getting a sense of deja v as well it's like I've been here before I built this yeah have I built this already but I'm sure it was bigger so um this was this was actually built first before the 12th oh okay but obviously we had very set plans and uh we could go into obviously more detail when we built the 12th and add more things because you only even see this wide being the scale that it is and the mountain here is this carved in urethane foam correct yeah this is basically uh taken from we we we have big silicon Rock molds that's what I was just going to ask and those you have some of those from Lord of the Rings and from other projects you guys have done yes yep from Lord of the Rings from King Kong um from nania there's there's a whole stack and we also got some freshly cast rock as well right there's a really good Cliff local Cliff it's a local Secret The Rock Society in Wellington um so then we cast out big panels This was built was a 3D model so we get all the shapes right then we um cut cut all the rock up into panels Stitch it together with kab sticks Builders F in between met so C out again and it becomes a a one big you know natural looking piece of uh geology and can some of these fly out so that you can have access no this was all all one set um this this was another big shoot I think uh this is also very early on this is on a big steel frame whole island the reason it had to be on a big steel frame is cuz being poling and being foam rock it floated it wanted to float and we we had to have the whole thing in a giant wet set oh wow so this whole thing set in 200 M of water oh my God practical water yeah um and it was a real like it's really it's easy to make things float it's really hard to make them sink oh I know is there yeah my cameraman at one point wanted to build a box to put his camera in and he made is this a good size and I said you realize you're going to be pushing down on 850 lb yeah yeah this is Thousands yeah it was amazing did you bolt it to the floor yeah so we we we had big rails that we we laid down big big heavy steel rails that we laid down in the tank and then this was bolted to those rails but even then I had to go and get a whole lot of um lead big lead panels that we then put all on the frame and we only just made it you know it was it was tricky and and this the then the engineering the tank itself was yeah now over here we've got the piece that you guys also built in a larger scale I want to go take a a look at it all right let's go have a look all right all right Ben so what what happens in this part of the mountain this is the secret exit uh well this is another little piece of the mountain that any uh any true Thunderbirds fan would be very familiar with absolutely and it's often uh the favorite I find with the Craft um of course we're talking about Thunderbird 2 the big the big green blamage I like to call it blage nice um so this is essentially a a hidden Runway that's a it's a it's a very recognizable piece of puppetry from the Thunderbirds universe and this this was a real pleasure to shoot on I've got to say now I noticed the rocks are bigger so when you have some rock molds do you label on them good for 112th to 124th scale good for yeah we do we do we we have a we we group them we have the the finer uh finer Rock grain that obviously becomes like the the Tracy Island that we were looking at earlier the 100 scale uh this this Runway is essentially uh 1 to 35th scale so again Tracy Lounge is 1 to 12th the island was 1 to 100th now we're looking at 1 to 35th and it's all to do with um again practicalities of shooting depth of field what's involved we had to build Thunderbird 2 to be on here so uh if we go if we go to 1 to 12 suddenly Thunder beard to at 1 to 12 scale is about 4 1/2 M long so that dictates how big this set can be correct yeah so originally we looked at 12 it was like well that can't happen let's go 35th and even that was pushing it and there's a you can practically puppet this one you sure can it's still set up would you like to have a go do it you can all right please this is so freaking cool here we go oh that reveals Thunder yep that was just as satisfying in person as you imagined yeah so you'll see you know that that's pretty much in every episode at least once is that sequence that you just did oh it's gorgeous look at the under detail and everything and these are like little um you know if if there's any of accidents they're like they spray fire retardant and all that kind of stuff and CO2 and yeah that's great yeah I'm going to put it back yeah oh I was just going to say we actually um another set we'll have a look at in a minute we actually placed around the back of this that there at the moment as a you didn't have a flat piece of artwork no we we had a fully 3 m deep deep f thundered 2 hanger a lot of M on either side of this oh again huge uh this is we're in the water here so this would be water we didn't have it with a set but this whole wall extended into the the start of Tracy Island so probably went about 7 m high that that rock wall it's again it's disconcertingly large for a miniature yeah all right take a look at the next interior all right so this is the hanger behind what our what we just puppeted it is indeed it's so beautiful Thunderbird to hanger this is this is this is the set I think I would have had the most fun working on inside gluing everything yet yeah it was lots of fun and it's it's lots of fun working out you know how does all this Gantry work integrate with all this organic rock right and and the IDE the sort of um the premise behind this whole thing was like these this isn't a family that's going to go to an island and and and cut out a whole lot of rock to make their hanger they've they've worked with the natural geography of the of the Rock and the natural way the cave shaped so that's the kind of look that we went for it it really it sort of like goes right to a kid's mind of what you want a secret it is everything you want a secret hideout to be absolutely is this practical does it move yeah we we uh U practical in that we had a piece of nylon yeah pulling it across and and the other important thing about about this show is yes it's pushing the miniature thing and which I'm very passionate about but but also I'm just as passionate about how we integrate it with the CG element of the show which is the ships the characters and I think it's um It's always important to to keep that in mind when you're building the Miniatures because they have to integrate and I think that's one thing the show's been very successful at was is that that Maring of the two disciplines together and um that makes it quite a unique show you know and it also goes to show I mean the kind of integration that happens here at weda that I see from knowing folks here is that um that's being paid attention to on all the levels it's not like the film department says to the model shop going do this it's like you guys all have to really work on that we do we do y everybody works together as as one unit from the get-go so so that we understand how it's all going to work together and and it pays off you know for example we had this thing being puppeteered out yeah but it was leading the pods and the pods were CG so so you have you have a CG where C Thunder beard to in here up on its legs the pods get dragged out until we it chooses the one it wants and then it lowered down rotated around exited our miniature so it was a real and and a lot of people can't tell the difference you know which is the cool thing so am I seeing um some of this Gantry work is this laser cut that's all laser cut all that Gantry work y so you guys are using some old model techniques I see some kit bashing going on perhaps even some toys that have been upgraded significantly toy pieces and then Advanced lighting set dressing and then laser cutting 3D 3D printing printing laser cutting yep um pretty much everything anyone's ever done to build a model is in here absolutely and and it's it's whatever gets us there that makes it look good that gets us there the most efficiently and and we have all those all those tools at our disposal now they're all very accessible so it creates a set like this Ben when when I was a kid seeing Godzilla movies and I learned from my dad who was a filmmaker that these were Mini Natures that people were building and they spent thousands of hours and they they built them from scratch this is precisely what I thought model making should feel like I imagine that all of you working on this were like sort of fulfilling childhood dreams absolutely absolutely and everybody that uh that comes in and sees us working on them says exactly that it's like you know you you guys must have the dream job and and we do it's it's it's great fun like like any job we we're under deadlines you know so so you've always got that in your mind but it is it's um you know we we're doing what we did as kids but we're getting paid for it yeah and do you see some things when you're looking at the drawings you're like oh I'm definitely going to take that one to build yeah oh yeah yeah absolutely there's fights there fights in the model shop is there is there a piece in here that you prly fond of um I'm actually I'm I'm very fond of um the the this is the refilling hanger so in here we have Thunderbird one Thunderbird 3 Thunderbird 4 and this is where Thunderbird 5 is loaded up as well which is the one in space Thunderbird 3 is my favorite part of this it's this this big Silo and he he sits in here and to get this to work it was quite hard because um we had to practically have The Silo closed for Thunderbird 2 to take off of course of course right and um but what we found is when we first started rehearsing I was up there on a big handle turning it but when I turned it the whole set did this from space yeah yeah yeah and it's it's like there's certain there's certain things that we Embrace in the show that a happy accident that was probably taking it a little bit too far so we had to go through and rebrace it get get this all and it took a while to get all the bearings running smoothly but once we had it you'll see in the show it's a beautifully smooth move and it was very satisfying so I think that's my favorite part is this the sort of Thunderbird 3 launch area it's beautiful and no I mean there's not many films using big Miniatures anymore no extensions even it's it's mostly CG now so you know I I I did some of these for indust magic and then watched as the jobs went away so it must be lovely to go back to this it is lovely and and I you know I have a background and Miniatures on movies but there was a huge gap in my career where there were no Miniatures and then this came back and so it was a real pleasure to jump back on this and I'm really hoping you know maybe it'll ignite something back into the industry and and well I mean it's seeing Miniatures like this that got me interested in film that got Peter and Richard interested in you know it's like these are the things that we grew up on and we haven't even seen all of the incredible Miniatures you guys have built no no and and that brings me to a fact uh season 1 we built 120 models and Miniatures separate sets yeah 120 for for for one season season two we built about 87 but but they were bigger oh my God so so you know huge huge huge numbers huge turn around and where we're standing this is actually publicly accessible the public can come take a look at these sets in Wellington absolutely public can come and and and do do what you've just done they can come and have a look at the puppeteering Thunder bed to palm trees uh it's here in Wellington and it's it's open to the public this must be one of the very few things that gets a whole bunch of 10-year-olds to actually pay attention for more than a minute it's amazing to watch Amazing to watch misiz you're inspiring a whole another generation of craft people filmmakers model makers absolutely and that's that's really satisfying and you get that combination of maybe it's igniting something in the kids that they they could do this as a career and plus their their moms and dads are just just as mesmerized as they are cuz that it brings back memories for them so it's a real it's a you know without sounding cheesy it's a whole thing the whole family can enjoy and is awesome again you know weather takes it takes the artifacts of its construction really seriously and archives them and keeps them extent so that they can be enjoyed later and I really appreciate that when I come here and everything is all over the place it's beautiful yeah it is beautiful and we as model makers appreciate it because it preserves them really nicely and you know which is is can be a hard thing to do absolutely Ben thank you so much for showing me a little bit of the Thunderbirds universe is Absolut smack you're welcome lovely to meet you\n"