Summer Holiday Proect 2

The Model Making Industry

For the second task in the summer project I have looked at two companies in the industry, the two being York Model Making and The Model Making Company. Both of these companies seem to specialise in architectural model making, York Model Making have produced architectural models for a range of big brands such as BMW, Sainsbury's and Argos. Where as The Model Making Company seems to specialise to Residential Model Making, for town planning purposes.

York Model Making is now 40 years old and combines the use of traditional hand methods and finished as well as laser cutting technology to achieve their high standards . They offer a range of services, to any sized company, even individuals. Using Laser Cutting technology, they have begun to produce products on a small scale, for individual events, such as place names for a dinner party (see image). Their laser portfolio includes convention trophies, floor plan models, engravings and other highly detailed work that would be hard to achieve by hand.

Their architectural models range between industrial, residential, conceptual, and museum pieces, all of which are highly detailed. In their model portfolio the style of the model changes for the current needs, a range of “block models” have been made for particular clients who are looking to see how buildings could be set out and how space could be used. These are less detailed than models in other categories such as the conceptual or the industrial sections. These other models have been made with high attention to detail as they are to show to buyers or directors what proposed buildings would look like and other attributes as well.

The Model Making Company appears to be a smaller company, in the about us, they talk about their team, which covers all areas, but seem small. The company has more of a limited variety of models in their portfolio. The capability to increase the range is probably there for them, but they are mostly architectural making models that are used as planning and scale models, most of which are residential. They still have a large portfolio, though it is mostly housing plans (image on the right).

The company defiantly works more in the residential and town planning industry. A section of their website is on “Marketing News” Which contains information on the housing market, which is updated regularly.

As The Model Making Company use Laser Cutters mostly they can make the most of Computer Graphics. On their website there is a large section, with a reasonable portfolio of images, of CGI models. This requires very little extra work to be done as all the measurements have already been entered for the laser cutting process. This gives the client more choice of if they want scale models or a CGI representation, or both. The image to the left is a of CGI models they have created.

Summer Holiday Project

(excuse the lowe quality of the images, i havent worked out how to get them to show properly)

Film Study

The film I have chosen to study is Star Trek The Motion Picture. The film was released in 1979, at which time computer graphics were not good enough to have shot some of the scenes and so a lot of models were used instead. In the first 25mins 8/9 models have been seen on screen.
In total production crews, including model makers, worked on 21sets throughout the film.
For the film the Star ship Enterprise was re–built to represent a new 23rd century upgrade to the ship. For the film the model makers made two of the Enterprise. One was 8feet long and was used for close up scenes such as the dry-dock scene, near the beginning of the movie. The other was 20inches long; it had less detail and was mainly used for distance shots. These models took 6 months to build in total with work being done on them after, during filming.
The dry–dock scene is the launch of the new Enterprise, in the images below you can see the models of dry–dock and enterprise are being set up, then in the next image filming is being done one the model, this I presume is the 8foot long model. Finally you can see the ship launching in the actual film, complete with a background of space and earth.


As stated there are 8/9 models, maybe more used on screen in the first 25 minutes. There is a battle at the start of the film between Three Klingon Cruisers and the unknown threat. At least three models have been used in this scene for the three cruisers. Each would have been made with the same care as the enterprise model, despite them getting destroyed not 10 minutes through the film.
In the pictures, going from left to right again, the first is actual footage of a Klingon ship preparing to fire. The next shows a similar view of the model without the effects from the film, and finally an image of the model in production



There were also several other Klingon Cruiser models made for the film, each of which was used to test effects and film on. One effect I read about was the ships ability to be destroyed, which the film crew enjoyed experimenting on.
For this particular film there has been a great amount of work contributed by the model making department. Not only have the ships all been produced, but the sets themselves, would have been made as scale models to indicate what they will look like, before they are made, or approved by the director.