Blade Runner: The Movie
Ah. The cult classic. The neo-noir, cyberpunk, whatever you wanna call it, sci-fi detective movie made by Ridley Scott: Blade Runner.
I definitely came into watching this movie with a bias. First off, I’ve seen it before. Second, I love most things science fiction. And third, I love me a good detective story. Matter of fact, I’ve previously self-published a sci-fi detective story because I like movies like Blade Runner. But, I digress.
It starts with a good character
At the heart of this movie, we have an amazing character named Rick Deckard. I love Harrison Ford in this role. He captures the brooding, tired detective schtick so well that I sometimes get caught up in just watching his mannerisms and reactions more so than all the sci-fi backdrops and props that surround him.
The movie largely revolves around Deckard and his mission to hunt down and kill several androids that have made it back to Earth, where they’re forbidden. In the beginning of the movie, we’re told that Deckard is the best-of-the-best at hunting down Replicants. And as the movie plays out, we see why he’s been given that title. But we see a Deckard that is older and tired and doesn’t want to be in this position anymore. Something that Harrison Ford is astounding at portraying.
Honestly, the man makes eating a bowl of noodles entertaining to watch within the first 5 minutes he’s on screen. Just because he’s tired and depressed doesn’t mean that he can’t be a joy to watch. And don’t get me started when he’s chasing down a killer android as he’s trying to “retire” it.
The cast of amazing characters doesn’t just end at Deckard though. The beautiful femme fatale, Rachel, is a complex character whose interactions with Deckard are a blast to watch. We soon learn that she is a Replicant, an android. The same type that Harrison Ford is tasked with retiring. And this key to her character creates a fun dynamic when Deckard and Rachel soon begin to fall in love.
The main villain in the movie, Roy, the leader of the rag tag refugee replicant group, isn’t evil just for the sake of being evil. For being a synthetic being with arguably no soul, Roy has an oddly beautiful appreciation of life and a sympathetic will to live. In my opinion, I think Roy has more of a soul than 99% of the human characters on screen.
A slow burn
Now, the movie is pretty slow I’m not gonna lie. But I feel that slow pace allows this movie to give the characters a chance to breathe on-screen. Every interaction between characters is slow, drawn out, and dramatic. I honestly think that it’s that slowness that makes the movie work in the end.
We’re supposed to watch Deckard as he learns about the androids’ mannerisms, way of life, and other tell tale hints as to what separates them from humans. And it’s in these slow, drawn out moments that we can really dissect each character’s behavior. The movie makes you feel like a detective.
As the movie plays out, we’re given more and more hints about the androids’ purpose for coming back to Earth. We begin to learn about their way of life with each new interaction. And I think that’s what really makes you appreciate Deckard’s work just that much more. It’s not routine, it’s not clinical, it’s bespoke.
The world
What I think makes this movie even more enjoyable is the world that the characters occupy. It’s a futuristic world that’s grounded in our reality. It’s dark. It’s rainy. And it’s filled with people who are just trying to “get by.” Everybody is tired. But each character, even the background ones, has a job to do and that is clear on screen. To put it a different way, it feels like there isn’t much filler here. The world feels completely fleshed out.
While we get to see some of the extravagance of the future, we spend most of our time in the seedy underbelly of this futuristic world. For some reason, I enjoy that much more than seeing the aspirational, beautiful vision of the future that we’re often presented. I think that’s mainly because the style of everything does not overshadow the substance.
Just like the characters in the movie, every prop has a purpose. Every do-dad. Every lit-up piece of tech. All of it feels like technology that would actually be in our hands in this alternate reality. The reason why I say alternate reality is because this movie actually now takes place in the past. At the beginning of the movie we learned that it’s 2019. When the movie first came out, that was 37 years in the future. Now, it’s fun to see what parts of this movie became a reality and what parts are still somewhere in our distant future.
The feel
The most important part of this movie by far, is simply the feel of the movie. It’s the look. It’s the music. It’s the dark, damp atmosphere that gets into your bones. If there’s one thing that Ridley Scott definitely has down, it’s making the most mundane parts of somebody’s life look absolutely fantastic.
The movie looks so good that, even though Deckard’s life seems pretty miserable, you actually want to be in his shoes. It’s not to be a hero. It’s not to live in the sci-fi world. It’s just because you’d like to have the world around you be this stylized. Which is funny because I’m basically contradicting what I said earlier. Before I said that everything had a clear function rather than just being stylistic. But the thing is Ridley Scott makes functional things look beautiful.
I think that, right there, is why I will regard this movie as one of my personal Top 100 Movies of all time. If you ask any of my family what to look for when trying to find me a gift, it’s finding something utilitarian. That is everything in this movie. Utilitarian. But God damn is it good looking too.
I am 100% looking forward to making a prop from this movie. I already have one of the main props in my small collection from before I started this blog. And I love that I have the chance to replicate more from this amazing movie.
If you want to keep track of my quest of watching the Top 100 Movies of All Time, follow me on this blog and my Instagram!
(#98) Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Prop
Sometimes things go wrong. Even on the simplest of projects, things go wrong. But the upside of having a failure is that it can turn into a teaching moment. This prop, even though I thought it would be super simple, would ultimately turn into one of those teaching moments in my quest for making things.
Finding the prop
While I was watching Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was keeping an eye out for the perfect prop to make for my 100 Movies, 100 Props project. For a majority of the movie, the props that are being used are not something small and easily replicable in my garage with the set of tools I have. Most of the unique items in the movie consisted of the set design and large stage elements that I simply don't have the means of replicating.
That is until Mr. George M. Cohan received the Congressional Medal of Honor in the movie. It came down to the end of the movie to find the perfect prop but boy oh boy did I find one. This prop was something small that would be able to use a tool that I haven't used yet during this project. My K40 laser cutter!
On laser cutters
I want to take a brief moment to talk about the virtues of the K40 laser cutter. Most laser cutters cost several grand to own one. This one does not. When I was originally thinking about getting into the world of laser cutting, I had seen a bunch of ads for the Glowforge. What once was a very industrial tool now looked like a consumer grade tool that you could plug and play and get busy cutting. The folks over at Glowforge managed to get the technology to the point that you could even use the laser cutter indoors in your own office. It sounded too good to be true.
Unfortunately, it was. When I finally mustered up the courage to go to their website and start making a purchase, I thought I could maybe swing the purchase price with enough savings. To figure out how much tax and shipping was going to be, I went through the process of checking out with the laser cutter in my cart. All the way up to the final submit button.
That’s when I realized that the shipping and handling was going to kill me.
In fact, when I was doing my research on laser cutters, I read about a bunch of different laser cutters. And there was another cutter that would be about the same price as the Glowforge's shipping alone. That laser cutter would require a whole lot more setup and tinkering but it was a fraction of the cost of the Glowforge. That laser cutter is the K40.
Now, the K40 is janky. There's no way around that. You can order the cutter on eBay and it is shipped from mainland China direct to your address. It's the largest laser cutter that you can get shipped by way of FedEx or UPS without requiring a huge freight truck delivering the cutter on a pallet. I figured a freight delivery would probably be a struggle given that I'm currently living in an apartment complex.
When I received the cutter, I knew that I had to put in a lot of work before I even attempted firing up the cutter for the first time. I'm happy that I did the research on this beforehand.
You see, the K40 typically gets shipped to you without proper grounding. What that means is that the electrical circuits aren't wired up correctly. The consequences of not properly grounding a device like the K40 are potentially deadly. The machine draws a lot of power to fire the laser beam that can cut through materials like wood or acrylic with just the power of focused light. If there were excess energy in the system because of a fault in the electronics, typically that would flow to a ground wire that would discharge the excess energy into, you guessed it, the ground. Without proper grounding, that electricity could flow through the metallic body of the K40 and if you were to touch it, the energy would now flow through you. Suffice to say, this would not be a pleasant experience.
So the first thing I did was find where the ground wire was connected to the main body of the cutter and notice that the ground was not making contact with the metal body as it should be. Instead it was making contact with the blue paint that covered the body. This is not good. But the fix was simple. I unscrewed the ground wire, used my dremel to remove the paint around the screw, and screwed the body back together. Using my multimeter, I was able to confirm that the machine was now properly grounded.
The next step is making sure that the smoke generated by the machine is properly vented. If you're cutting wood with the machine, you're just burning a hole through the wood with the laser. When you're burning this hole, it smells like burnt wood. The same goes for any other material in the machine. When you're in a closed space like a rented one car garage, you want to make sure that you're properly getting rid of the fumes that the machine is generating. So, I used some simple duct material that would more commonly be located on your dryer in the laundry room with the help of a decent in-line ventilation fan from Amazon, and I was able to vent the fumes out of my garage to the outdoors. To make sure my neighbors don't hate me, I also threw on a large air filter on the end of the duct work to try and cut down on the smell.
Lastly, I had to make sure the actual laser tube that fires the laser doesn't overheat. That's as simple as getting a large tub from Home Depot, filling it up with distilled water from Walmart, and attaching an aquarium pump to feed that water to the laser. Easy peasy compared to everything else.
With all that extra work, I'm now in business with a laser cutter that is comparable to a Glowforge.
Actually making the prop
Now, I had some extra acrylic laying around the shop from a previous project and I figured that would be the perfect material for cutting out the Medal of Honor. The acrylic sheets I have would be thick enough to look like a nice solid coin but are also easy enough to cut and engrave.
So I took to Illustrator to replicate the Medal of Honor from the movie. Luckily, there’s a fantastic up-close shot of the Medal of Honor right when George M. Cohan receives it.
I took this into illustrator and started drawing up a circle for the cutter to cut out and a circle for the laser to engrave to give the effect of the raised edge on the coin.
Next, I started digging through the font library on my computer to find the perfect fonts to replicate the actual words on the Medal of Honor.
I quickly found the old-timey font but the script font would be a lot harder to find. Honestly, I think this may have been done by hand back in the day when they were designing this prop. For sure it wasn’t computers just based on the age of the movie. But I wondered if they had a typeface that they could use for punching out the words and if they had a script typeface that made up most of the words on this award.
In the end, I ended up going to Google Fonts to find a free font that I could use for the prop. It’s pretty damn close but the A’s are slightly off. But that didn’t bother me so much. This was officially close enough for my tastes!
Cutting the prop
Actually bringing the prop to life was dead simple. I saved my graphic from Illustrator in a format that can be read by the laser cutter (SVG) and ran over to the shop.
I fired up the laser cutter with the attached computer, loaded in my file, placed a sheet of acrylic inside the cutter, and cut.
Like I said, super easy.
In a few minutes time, I had a recreated version of the Medal of Honor in clear acrylic and the words on the front of the medal were engraved into the acrylic and has a nice frosted effect to it.
Now it was time to make the medal gold. Even though the film Yankee Doodle Dandy is in black and white, I figured that this medal would probably be gold.
Luckily, I had the same gold paint that I used in my first prop project on this blog and was able to use my airbrush and spray the acrylic to a nice shiny gold.
Next I took some black acrylic paint to make the letters on the medal pop so you can actually read the words without having to move the replica medal around in the light.
This is where I ran into problems and ultimately wasn’t satisfied with the route I took.
I used the black acrylic paint and some water to try and fill in the letters and then used a paper towel to wipe off the excess paint and hopefully just leave black paint inside the letters.
It worked for the most part but it also covered the medal in a slight layer of black paint that looked very grimy. That wouldn’t do. This was supposed to be the highest award one can receive from the United States Government, hand-delivered by FDR himself. This couldn’t look grimy!
I tried to clean up the excess black paint as much as possible and started to try to repaint the medal but I just couldn’t get it to work.
New materials
This is when I decided to take a break in the shop. I was frustrated because the whole project was going so well until I got to the very last part. It’s the same thing that happened with me on the Toy Story project. I was incredibly satisfied until it came down to the FINAL steps! I didn’t want to have this happen again.
That’s when I discovered something new. A channel I follow on Instagram started talking about something called Flexibrass. It’s a lightweight plastic that resembles metal and is laser safe. Most importantly, when you etch it with a laser, the etched parts turn black. THIS WAS PERFECT!
I found a material that would already be the shiny material that I wanted my prop to ultimately look like and the engravings would already be black instead of having to fiddle with acrylic paint and keeping the whole thing looking clean.
I quickly ordered a sheet of this material and waited for it to be shipped to me. USPS had a delay in the shipping, which I was warned about due to the whole pandemic, but I finally got the sheet this week.
Again, I took my design over to the laser cutter in the shop. Fired it up. Loaded up this new sheet of Flexibrass and cut and engraved the medal.
And I’m so happy with the final results!
A medal fit for George M. Cohan
I keep sitting here looking at the finished product and I’m amazed with it.
Even though I was really upset when I had the initial failure in my project, I’m ultimately happy that I did run into that roadblock. I was able to learn about a new material that I had never heard of before and it’s a material that I can definitely see coming in handy in the future.
After all, that’s the whole reason I started this project. I wanted to learn more about the tools in my shop and learn more about making by actually making things.
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Thank you for reading!
(#98) Yankee Doodle Dandy: The Movie
Alright. I’m going to be 100% honest here. For as much as I wanted to appreciate Yankee Doodle Dandy, I just could not get into it, at first. I know it’s in the AFI Top 100 Movies, and I know that it’s been critically acclaimed. But I have never really had a thing for musicals.
That’s not to say that I don’t like musicals altogether. I do enjoy one every now and then. But a musical where we solve all of our problems by breaking out into song and dance has never struck my fancy. It’s one of the main reasons why I enjoyed Toy Story so much compared to other animated films. Because we don’t constantly break out into song and dance.
The story seemed pretty over the top upon first viewing. The movie tracks the life of George M. Cohan from his birth all the way to when he meets the President of the United States to receive his Congressional Medal of Honor.
From the beginning, the cheese is laid on thick. George M. Cohan is born on the Fourth of July, and we watch as his parents debate about his name and decide that his first name should be George, because of George Washington. His middle name couldn’t be Washington because that’d be too on the nose, but we made sure to include the debate to show just how patriotic Mr. Cohan was going to be from the moment he first saw the light of day.
Sorry for being a downer
I know I’m probably sounding very cynical on this movie and beating it up for no reason. After all, it is on the Top 100 Movie list. I know I’m faulting the movie for being over-the-top when the last movie on the list is literally about toys that come to life. But my beef comes from the fact that this movie is grounded in real life. The movie is recreating moments in history that actually occurred, but it doesn’t feel like it is real life at all.
For some reason, I wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief in the world that Yankee Doodle Dandy presents. That made this movie particularly difficult to slog through.
I might be able to come back to this movie some day and enjoy it much more now that I know what I’m getting myself into. But I wanted to go into watching this movie for the first time with no outside influences. I didn’t view any trailers. I didn’t read any articles about the movie. And I didn’t want to see why the movie made the cut on the Top 100 Movies list.
Learning about the actual George M. Cohan
After watching the movie, I finally started doing some research about it. This is when I realized that George M. Cohan, the main character of the movie, was actually a real person. I did not know this at all when I watched the movie. With that in mind, it makes more sense why we jump through so much of this man’s life in the movie. It’s because this movie is trying to be biographical in nature, not just telling a story of a character concocted in some writer’s mind.
From AFI’s write-up on Yankee Doodle Dandy, I learned that “George M. Cohan wrote and produced more than thirty-five plays, many of them with his partner Sam H. Harris, and composed more than 500 songs.” That much is clear in the movie. It seems that every scene where George M. Cohan meets someone new or encounters an obstacle in his life, we break out into a new score and start telling the story in dramatic song and dance.
I honestly thought that the writers were just stroking the ego of Hollywood when the movie resulted in this playwright and producer receiving a medal from the President. But I learned that the real life George M. Cohan actually did receive a medal from the president! It wasn’t a Congressional Medal of Honor like the movie portrays but it was a Congressional Gold Medal. President FDR presented the medal to George M. Cohan.
If you look up H.R. 4641 which authorized the President to present the medal you’ll see that the medal was “in recognition of his services during the World War in composing the patriotic song Over There, and prior thereto that thrilling song A Grand Old Flag.”
With that in mind, the movie makes a lot more sense. I knew the movie was made in the 40’s. There was bound to be some level of patriotism/propaganda. But boy, I didn’t think the movie was going to be bursting at the seems with so much ‘Murica.
On another note, it makes even more sense when I read that the associate producer, William Cagney, and writer, Robert Buckner, complained that George M. Cohan’s “life was so oriented toward the theater,” going so far as to say that “he had no outside interests. His only objective was success, and he achieved it with monotonous annual regularity...."
This aspect of Cohan’s life came across on film spectacularly well. It’s one of the main gripes that I had with the movie when I was watching it. But it makes me appreciate the movie more when I learned that the film was true to life. It seemed that no matter what George M. Cohan set his mind to he would get it done. It was only a matter of time. Which doesn’t lead to a very interesting plot but it does help turn the man George M. Cohan into a myth and legend.
Song and dance
Now, the music. The music wasn’t bad. It’s just not as good as I thought it would be in a musical. It’s probably just because I’m used to much different music some 80 years since the film came out. So I’m not going to fault the music too much here. It was just a different era. But I will note that the film did include the origins of and renditions of the two songs that Congress noted when authorizing the award for the real life George M. Cohan!
While I wasn’t too fond of the music, the dancing is phenomenal in this movie. I’ve only heard of James Cagney before in references and when I saw that he was going to be the main character in this movie, I was interested to see what all the hubbub was about. Even 80 years later, his performance did not disappoint.
The man can tap-dance. And by god, he can do it well. At any given moment, Cagney can go from just walking down the street, talking like any ordinary actor and burst out into a full tap-dance routine that will knock your socks off. Easily my favorite scene with him was one where he wasn’t going nuts with tap-dance on and on. This scene was much more subtle compared to the rest of the movie.
After receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor from the President in the movie, George M. Cohan is walking down a set of stairs in the White House. Overcome by joy, he has a little pep in his step and starts to tap-dance. While walking down the stairs. Just in case you didn’t catch that when you first read it: He tap-danced while walking down a set of stairs!
It probably doesn’t sound like much on paper. But when you see it in the movie it’s really impressive. There’s no CGI here. There’s no trickery. Just sheer talent showing off even in the most mundane of scenes.
This is really where I have to give Yankee Doodle Dandy the credit it’s due. The dancing performances throughout the movie, be it by James Cagney, the young actor that plays George M. Cohan as a child, or any of the ensemble that surrounds Cagney, are phenomenal throughout!
He’s a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Yankee Doodle Boy
So yeah. Looking back, the movie really isn’t as bad as I cracked it up to be in the beginning. If you know what you’re getting into, I feel like you’ll enjoy Yankee Doodle Dandy much more than I did upon my first viewing. The story, while it feels rushed, does accomplish its biographical mission and encapsulates the life of George M. Cohan in a single movie. The music is a taste of the past. But most importantly, the talent on screen is still impressive to watch even after almost 80 years since its release.
Would I say you have to drop everything right now and watch the movie? No.
But would I recommend this movie if you’re trying to get a taste of the classics? Absolutely.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my blog! Be sure to follow along as I chart a course across the Top 100 Movies of All Time and make a prop from each one! I post regularly on my Instagram and post here every Friday!
(#99) Toy Story: The Prop
I knew right from the get-go which prop I wanted to do from the 99th movie on the AFI Top 100 Movie list! I didn’t want to make one of the main characters from Toy Story. That seemed like a bit much of a challenge for trying to crank out a prop on a short deadline and an invitation for a legal battle from Disney for replicating one of their best selling toy lines. But I still wanted something critical to the movie. Something that epitomized the look and feel of the first Toy Story. Something like... THE BIG ONE.
Yeah. I loved the look and feel of this giant firework in the movie and really wanted to add it to my budding collection of handmade movie props. I recently purchased a new FDM 3D printer that can print bigger models than those that I could print in my Elegoo Mars Pro resin printer. Now I was thinking that this large rocket would be the perfect thing to experiment with printing larger prints.
An aside about FDM vs SLA 3D Printing
Alright. If you don’t really care about the technical details behind 3D printing, you can go ahead and skip this portion of this blog post and move on to the next subheading. But if you’re wondering why I would buy another 3D printer when I already had one, this is the section for you.
It boils down to the method of printing between the two printers. My old Elegoo Mars Pro printer printed by way of SLA printing. This works by using a liquid resin that becomes solid when you expose it to UV light. The printer uses a smartphone screen on the bottom of a pool of that liquid resin that shoots out UV light instead of all the regular colors like your typical phone screen. The printer will take a 3D model from my computer that is sliced into a bunch of horizontal layers. Then it goes through each layer, one-by-one, and projects the shape of that layer, using that UV screen, into the pool of resin. The resin hardens in the shape that the printer projects and then we lift the solid body up and cure the next layer of liquid resin that fills in underneath. Do that a bunch of times and you have your 3D shape solidified out of a pool of liquid! Pretty cool stuff!
The nice thing about this printer is that it can be incredibly accurate with tiny details on the prints. Think about how sharp an image can look on your phone. That same sharpness can be carried over to the 3D prints because they’re being made by basically the same technology.
But! There is a big disadvantage to using resin for 3D printing. It’s very brittle. Resin prints, while highly detailed, can easily be broken apart. They’re also incredibly messy to process because the liquid resin is highly toxic and you don’t want to get any of it on your skin. So the entire cleaning process is a complete mess of having to use nitrile gloves while washing everything down with isopropyl alcohol (which was HARD to find during the pandemic).
There is another type of 3D printer though! And that is an FDM printer. An FDM printer works on a completely different premise than a resin SLA printer. Both of them start out with slicing the 3D model on the computer. But this type of printer takes a long string of meltable plastic and feeds it through a nozzle and a team of motors basically draw out each layer of the 3D print on a print bed with this melted plastic.
Basically think of using a hot glue gun. Rather than shooting out glue, the gun shoots out plastic that quickly cools. Now, instead of moving the hot glue gun around yourself, use a couple motors to move the gun around in the outline of the shape that you want. Do that a bunch of times, layer by layer, and you have your 3D print!
Back to the matter at hand
Alright, that’s enough about 3D printers. Now let’s talk about actually using this printer I got.
First things first, I needed to design The Big One.
Taking a look at The Big One and walking around the house to compare holding cylinders (candles, bottles, etc) I found a rough approximation that the diameter of the rocket should be around 2 1/2 inches. With that, I went to eBay and found a cardboard tube that was the right diameter and got it delivered to me.
3D modeling
After experimenting and learning a little bit last week, I decided to use Fusion 360 again to accomplish the task of modeling the nose cone of the rocket and the tail fin assembly. I was able to design the cone fairly quickly by tracing the outline of the cone from a screenshot of the movie and then using the circularize tool to turn that outline into a solid 3D shape. With a little editing of the shape, I made sure that the cone would be able to slot over the 2.5 inch cardboard tube that I had shipping to me.
I used the same trick of tracing the screenshot to design the three fins that surround the base of the rocket. I know that the screenshot that I was using wasn’t exactly square with the rocket in the picture, but for the sake of recreating this prop for myself, it’s close enough. After drawing out one fin and extruding it to be the thickness that I felt was right, it was time to work on making the ring that the fins attach to. This was much easier than the other two parts because I simply had to make two circles, one the size of the outside diameter of the cardboard tube and one that was the tube diameter plus a couple mm of thickness, and then extruded the ring that I made to the right height. To approximate the height, I took the screenshot into Photoshop to measure the length of the rocket and measured the length of the tail-fin ring. Then with the help of some quick math and using some ratios, I was able to find the height of the rocket based on the fact that the width of the rocket was going to be 2.5 inch. Then with the height of the rocket known, I could apply that to the ratio of tail-fin-ring-height to the total height of the rocket. Et Voila… I had the length of the rocket and tail ring ready to go!
I got those 3d models ready to print out and started to get the print going while I started working on the next step: the graphics.
2D graphics
For the graphics, I fired up Photoshop, typed out the words “THE BIG ONE” and then started scrolling endlessly through the font choices to find the font that I wanted. After not being satisfied with any of the fonts that came with Photoshop, I went online. And after about an hour of searching I found some fonts that made me feel good about the typography looking right.
For the colors, I experimented a little with the eyedropper tool on the screenshot I had from the movie but didn’t feel like the colors were true to the prop in the movie. While being stumped on this and clicking around on the internet, I saw something that felt perfect for the colors of the rocket. The Toy Story logo itself.
Yep, the red that’s used on my recreation of the rocket is the same red that’s used in all the Toy Story branding out there. Part of the blue gradient is also the same. And the yellow, you guessed it, is the same yellow.
At this point I was feeling really good.
I used the same screenshot again to trace out explosion graphic that rests behind the words “The Big One” and then drew a bunch of lines in yellow and white to get the streaking that stretches toward the base of the rocket.
For the star field that encircles the bottom of the rocket, I created a new brush in Photoshop with a 5 point start, bumped up the variance for the size, spread, and rotation of the brush and drew a few strokes across the bottom of the rocket.
Again, I was getting happier and happier with this thing.
Lastly, I did some test prints to get the sizing right of the graphic. The width of the graphic would be the height of the rocket and with a little quick math back from geometry days, I calculated the circumference of the rocket tube and made that the height of the graphic (with a little extra built in for overlap).
After all that, I sent the graphic off to my local Walgreens to get it printed on a small poster so that the graphic was printed with photo quality and the right size that I needed it. I didn’t trust my printer at home for the quality I wanted and the graphic wouldn’t have fit on a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.
In the shop
Back in the shop, I was really happy with how the 3D prints came out for the nose cone and the tail fins. These were the first prints that I did on my new FDM 3D printer besides some test prints that came preloaded on the SD card that came with printer and I could not be more happier. They were the right size that I wanted and they feel surprisingly very solid while still being very lightweight.
Compared to the 3D prints from my resin printer, the layer lines were much more visible so I bust out a can of filler primer spray paint and sprayed the plastic parts down with a couple coats and sanding in between.
I hit the parts with some glossy red spray paint I picked up from the hardware store, let that cure and made sure to get a couple coats and boom! I had the bright red plastic parts ready to go!
Next I cut down the cardboard tube to the height I calculated earlier with a very fine tooth blade on my jigsaw. The last cut was the graphic that I had printed out on the photo paper and now it was finally time to start the final assembly of the rocket.
Using some spray adhesive, I made sure to cover the entire back of the photo paper so that it would get a good grip on the cardboard tube. After carefully rolling the graphic onto the tube and smoothing out any bubbles, it was now time to just glue up the the plastic parts onto the body of the tube. And that’s when I hit the most frustrating part of the build.
Remember earlier when I was talking about modeling the plastic parts and I was modifying everything to fit over the diameter of the cardboard tube? Yeah. It came out perfect. But they weren’t designed to fit over a cardboard that was also covered with a piece of photo paper. The paper is not very thick at all. But! That little bit of thickness was enough to throw off the entire assembly at the end.
At this point, I was in too deep. If I wasn’t on a self-imposed deadline to keep trucking ahead with watching all the movies and finishing all the props, I would probably go back and resize the parts, reprint them out, repaint them, and then glue it all up to perfection.
Instead, I just brute forced the problem. Using a block of wood and my handy dandy mallet, I gently (maybe not so gently) tapped the pieces onto the rocket and got everything to fit with a little bit of cardboard crumpling.
Looking back, I definitely should have just taken the time to redo everything. Now all I see when I look at this rocket are the imperfections. But I guess that’s also the curse of being a maker. It’s inherent in us to try and appreciate the big picture but always run our fingers across the tiny imperfections that stand out only to us.
But stepping back, I’m REALLY HAPPY with the overall build!
Taking a final look
When I set out to build this prop, I had a distinct vision in my mind of exactly how I wanted this to turn out. I'd say I got it about 90% of the way there at the time of writing this post. The perfectionist in me could easily over-analyze and nitpick this thing to death.
But I love this prop. At the time of writing this post, I've let the prop sit in my apartment and every time I pass it I stop and stare for a few moments. This piece of animated film, something that was simply designed on the computer, now sits on a table in my place! How cool is that?!
If you feel the same about this stuff like me, be sure to stay tuned with this blog! I post here every Friday, alternating between talking about the next Top Movie that I watched or recreating a prop from that movie! You can also follow my journey over at Instagram too!
Number 99 on the @americanfilminstitute Top 100 Movies list is Toy Story! This movie from 1995 is a movie that I’ve seen a bunch of times and it’s a movie that I’ve absolutely loved for the entirety of my life. But watching the movie through the lens of it being a “top movie” changed my perspective on just how great Toy Story is!
(#99) Toy Story: The Movie
This movie is one of those on the AFI Top 100 list that I’ve previously seen before. And I’ve seen it a bunch of times. But this is the first time in years that I sat down and watched Toy Story from start to finish.
When I first saw Toy Story on the Top 100 list, I thought it was kind of weird that one of the staple movies of my childhood was on there. Toy Story just felt like one of those good-ole movies that I watched as a kid but was not something that critics would rave about. At least not in a “leaving your mark on history” sense. But reading up on Toy Story while preparing to write this article reminded me that this was the first full-length animated film made entirely with computer generated imagery (CGI). This reminder made me look at this movie through an entirely different lens.
A Technical Eye
Lately, I’ve been enjoying the guys over at the Corridor Digital YouTube channel that release a “react” video every week. This series includes “VFX Artists React...” videos where a group of visual effects artists react to, and break down, good and bad visual effects. That channel has given me a more educated eye for looking at CGI because now I can say more than “wow that looks good (or bad).” Taking that better-trained eye to this movie, I had a real appreciation for what Pixar was able to accomplish.
I’m still genuinely impressed with just how well Pixar nailed the different plastic textures and all the little details on those toys. By far my favorite detail in the whole movie is the flashing (the extra plastic chunks left behind during the molding process) on the back of the green army men’s head. Rather than going for the idyllic toy and imagining what the toys would look like without any imperfections, Pixar leaned into realism and that’s what made me connect with the toys so much more. Even with CGI being more prevalent in movies following the release of Toy Story, Pixar’s attention to detail in is still hard to top. This level of detail is present throughout the entire movie and provides an amazing sense of fidelity. Details like the plastic molding imperfections on the toys or strategically placed background elements like Mr. Potato Heads abysmal choices in his game of battleship (see below), tell an entire story. All of these details help ground this movie in our reality and make one believe that maybe those toys that we know and love could actually come to life.
Where the movie’s effects fall short is in the living creatures. The humans have this strange rigidity to them as they move and their skin is basically another plastic texture just like the toys. Sid’s dog has this really weird walking style as he runs around on-screen. It felt more like the dog was running on stilts than on his own legs. But I thought it was smart on Pixar’s part to lean in on what they were good at by focusing on recreating the toys rather than anything else. Really, in the grand scheme of this movie, there aren’t many people or animals present. Bravo to Pixar for realizing what they could and couldn’t do and leaning into the good while cutting out as much of the bad as possible.
Looking Back
Now, Toy Story is one of the movies on this list that I have seen many times. I absolutely loved watching this movie as a kid. And now I realize why I liked Buzz Lightyear so much more than Woody all this time (beside liking space and all things aeronautics). Woody is a complete jerk in this movie! I don’t know if I just forgot that or if I never realized it before.
While I was watching the movie, I was completely taken aback by how nasty Woody can be. Although I completely understand his jealousy over being dethroned as Andy’s favorite toy, Woody is just plain mean sometimes. This was definitely something that really stood out to me while watching Toy Story this go around and made me rethink the entire movie. As a kid, I always thought of this as a happy cartoon. As an adult, I can see all the dark storylines that Pixar threaded throughout and it kind of blows me away that I did not fully grasp the gravity of certain sequences in the movie as a kid.
Leaving a Legacy
Like I said earlier, I was pretty surprised when I saw Toy Story on the AFI Top 100 list. I thought of all the animated movies that have come out since Toy Story and wondered why this one trumped all of those. And I’m even thinking of some of the other Pixar movies that I personally think are better such as Monsters, Inc. But it was that research about this movie being the first purely CGI feature length film that made me rethink Toy Story’s place on this list.
While starting this project, I thought the Top 100 list would just have the best stories, acting, visuals, sound design, etc. But I think this movie really goes to show how AFI’s list also considers a film’s legacy.
Think about it. Without this movie, we’d be missing out on some of the greatest movies to grace the highest grossing movies lists of recent years. Without Toy Story, we probably wouldn’t have movies such as Wall-E, Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, Up, or Frozen. The subset of films that this single movie paved the way for is just astounding.
Getting the Basics Right
It wasn’t just the technical breakthroughs that make this movie so great. Toy Story nails so many of the basics for a classic movie. Buzz Lightyear is such a great protagonist that oozes heroism from the first moment he’s on-screen. But his character’s journey, especially during his “dark night of the soul,” is such a humanizing arc. The literal fall from grace as Buzz realizes that he really is just a toy is such a heart-wrenching moment that sticks with you well after you finish the movie. It’s the perfect kind of scene to teach kids about accepting themselves.
And these character lessons don’t stop with Buzz. Woody confronting the fear that he will simply be cast aside by Andy someday is a feeling that I think a lot of us can relate to. Pixar did a fantastic job of presenting the fear of “what if I’m not good enough?” in an easy-to-digest package. And they also present a great lesson on working together to overcome your fears.
From the morals to the characterization to the humor and the visuals, Pixar came out of the gate firing on all cylinders with Toy Story.
A Reminder
This movie wasn’t just made to occupy kids and sell merchandise. It is a collection of life lessons, it is a groundbreaking film in terms of moviemaking, and it’s just plain enjoyable. I’m happy I revisited this movie as part of the 100 Movies, 100 Props project because I don’t think I would have realized all of this before. Sure, I really enjoyed the movie as a kid. But I never sat down to think about why I liked the movie so much. Writing this article, I had to actually think about the movie, digest the movie, and that has made me really appreciate Toy Story that much more. It’s a fantastic film and I’m excited to memorialize this viewing experience and these revelations as I dig into making a prop from the movie.
If you’ve made it this far and are still reading, thank you so much. Be sure to share this with your friends and follow me on Twitter or Instagram to know when I publish a new article on the 100 Movies, 100 Props project. If you have any thoughts about Toy Story, share them in the comments section below!
(#100) Ben-Hur: The Prop
While I was watching Ben-Hur, I was keeping an eye out for the perfect prop to kick-off this 100 Movies, 100 Props project. I wanted something small and easily finish-able to build my confidence in building props on a deadline. That definitely eliminated building a full-size chariot from the climatic race sequence. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out last week’s post over here.
Early on in my viewing experience, one prop in particular caught my eye. In the first act, Judah Ben-Hur receives a ring from a woman named Esther after they inconspicuous declare their love for each other. At first, I saw thing ring and was like “Okay, cool. That’d be small. That’d be doable. But is it too inconsequential to the rest of this epic film?”
And then the ring came into full view again.
And again...
And the more I saw it, the more I thought “Oh boy. We found it!”
So for my first prop on this 100 Movies, 100 Props quest, I made Esther’s Ring from Ben-Hur (1959).
Researching
To start out, I needed some reference photos so that I could get a proper idea of what this ring looked like. While there’s a nice shot of the ring when Ben-Hur first receives it, the light was dramatically dark which does not bode well for reference material. So, I started scrubbing through the movie again and came across this gem of a scene.
There’s some pretty good close ups of the ring in this clip that let me get a better guesstimate of the dimensions and design of the ring!
Modeling the Ring
After getting some good reference material, I needed to model the ring. While I’m sure this was hand-crafted back in the day, I’m taking a more modern approach to the design. I pulled up Fusion 360 on my computer and started 3D modeling the ring.
I’m still a novice when it comes to Fusion 360 but with a few hours work, I found out how to stretch the default torus (donut shape) and then carve out the slots that go around the outside of the ring.
For sizing, I modeled the ring off my own hands using calipers to measure my pinky finger since this is the finger that Charlton Heston wore the ring on. The more I looked at his hands, the more I wonder if his hands are huge or if I just have a tiny pinky finger because the difference is pretty stunning.
Bringing the Ring to Life
After I got the shape I wanted and the sizing right, it was time to take this 3D model from the digital world and bring it into the physical one. For that, I’m relying on my hand Elegoo Mars Pro resin 3D printer. It’s the perfect tool for this job because even though the build size is somewhat small for a 3D printer, this ring is also tiny. Resin printers are better for detail work which is exactly what I was prioritizing for this build.
I loaded up my 3D file into the printer and pressed print. After an hour of waiting, out came an exact copy of the ring I designed on my computer.
Before washing and curing the resin, you don’t want to touch the model with your bare hands because the resin can cause a severe reaction that really messes up your skin.
So here, you can see me testing out the right while I’m still wearing my nitric gloves to protect my skin from the uncured ring.
I couldn’t be happier with the result and had to patiently sit by while my makeshift curing box went to work and hardened the resin to let me work on it. One the resin was safe to handle, it was time to get started finishing the ring!
Finishing the Ring
The first thing I had to do was sand off the bottom of the ring that was closest to the build plate on my printer. There was an elephant’s foot which basically means the first few layers of the build had fanned out due to the longer cure time needed to get the model to bind with the build plate. Luckily, the resin is a pretty soft material and after a minute or two of sanding I was able to get rid of this flaw.
Next, I primed the piece with some flat black primer. This helps with a couple of things. First, it will cover up any trace amounts of uncured resin. Second, it helps the metallic paint that I’m using to pop more and provides a paint a surface that is much easier to bind with.
I used a wooden skewer to hold the ring in order to eliminate any fingerprints on the paint job and to keep my hands from getting covered in paint. Spoiler alert: My hands still got filthy.
Next up, I fired up my new airbrush that I got on Amazon and started laying down some gold metallic paint.
After some trial and error to get some paint flowing out of the airbrush, I was able to lay down a first coat of gold paint. This is when I realized that the gold I was using would be way too bright, even with the black base coat underneath. So, I tried doing a wash with some black acrylic paint by brushing on the paint and quickly wiping it back off with a rag. While that helped cut down the brightness, I wasn’t really digging how this gold was coming out.
In a closeup of the ring, you can see that the gold almost takes on a silver color when it is in bright sunlight and as I held up my ring to the light in my shop, it wasn’t getting that at all.
This is when I made the call to experiment with adding some other paints that I wasn’t originally planning on using. Worse case scenario, I would just print the ring again and start anew.
I decided to cover the entire ring in some metallic chrome spray paint to hopefully get that base silver shininess that the original ring has. After hitting that with a blow drying and getting it to set, I went back with the gold from my airbrush. I used a light touch with the airbrush and started to get the coloring that I was looking for in the first place: a nice, rich gold that had a white shine in bright light but had the dark impurities of old-fashioned gold at the same time.
I accentuated the ridges in the ring again by doing another black wash with the acrylic paint and I was finally satisfied!
The end result is a ring that fits on my pinky finger similar to how Charlton Heston wore the ring in Ben-Hur. The design is as close as I can get with the limited reference shots I have. And the color is exactly what I wanted out of this gold ring!
The first prop is done!
Let me know in the comments what you think of this first project and if you enjoy the content I’m putting down on this blog! If you have any questions or ideas to share, feel free to leave them down below.
Time to get to the next movie on the list and start the whole process again! In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Instagram to keep up to date with the next steps of 100 Movies, 100 Props! I’ll catch y’all in the next one.
Fired up Fusion 360 to do some 3D modeling for the first prop out of 100 in my 100 Movies, 100 Props project.
Feels good to learn some new skills while I’m trying to watch the Top 100 movies of all time and make a prop from each one!
#100 on the @americanfilminstitute 100 Years…100 Movies list is Ben-Hur from 1959!â Watching this as the first movie in the 100 Movies, 100 Props project was an exciting beginning to this quest.
(#100) Ben-Hur: The Movie
Kicking off this 100 Movies, 100 Props project in truly epic fashion, we have Ben-Hur. When I say epic, I mean quite literally that this film is tagged in the genre of “epic”. At a running time of 3 hours and 32 minutes, this film covers it all. There’s romance, action, drama, revenge, a prison-break, and we even get to meet Jesus Christ in the flesh. Once the movie gets going, it is a non-stop thrill-ride that just keeps going.
I can definitely see how the voters that decided on this AFI Top 100 list made sure to keep this somewhere on the list. Even if it’s at the bottom at #100.
I’m not going to lie. The film does have some pacing issues, which I feel like is a problem with any movie that stretches to the three hour mark and beyond. I don’t know if I’m just impatient and used to modern day blockbusters hovering around two hours or if there is such a thing as “too much movie.” Certain scenes make their point quickly but then drag on for a few more minutes of repetitive action that don’t really add much to the movie but help stretch the overall running time. More so, the last act of the movie kind of feels tacked on like an afterthought. After we finish out the huge climax that is the chariot race, the remainder of the movie cools down to a lot of talking and sobbing that feels out of touch with the rest of the movie.
Besides the inconsistent pacing, I thought the overall story was fantastic. Amongst all the visual spectacles, there is a storyline that I thoroughly enjoyed. In the beginning of the movie the titular Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur, greets his childhood friend Messala who has just arrived back in Jerusalem as a Roman commander. Passions flare as Ben-Hur and Messala have different viewpoints on how the area should be ruled. Messala, being a Roman commander, looks to quash any potential rebellions against Rome while Ben-Hur wants to maintain the freedom of the people of Judea.
If you’re averse to spoilers, I’d stop reading here.
Their long-lasting friendship is torn apart after several roof-tiles are mistakenly knocked off of the House of Hur and nearly kill the new Roman Governor of Judea. Ben-Hur’s family is quickly arrested, denied a fair trial, and sentenced for the attack on the Governor.
This is when things get spicy.
Judah Ben-Hur escapes from his jail cell, confronts Messala in his chambers while wielding a spear, and demands his mother and sister be released from custody. This goes as well as one would think and Ben-Hur is quickly shooed away to being a rower in the galley of a Roman warship while his mother and sister are locked away in a dark, damp dungeon. Ben-Hur is kept in the dark about his family’s whereabouts and doesn’t even know if they’re dead or alive.
On the way to the galleys, Ben-Hur is chained in a long line of fellow prisoners and marched across hellish conditions. Exhausted, delirious, and dehydrated, Ben-Hur is denied water while stopping through the small town of Nazareth. While the Roman guards yell at the locals to not give Ben-Hur any water, one man defies the guards and gives him a nice big cup of cool water. No kidding… Ben-Hur gets some water from Jesus Christ.
While in the galleys on the warship, Ben-Hur meets Roman Consul Quintus Arrius.
The Roman Consul can’t thank Ben-Hur enough and eventually goes so far as adopting Ben-Hur into his family. Ben-Hur is thankful but his quest that began during the first act of the movie still nags at him. Worried if his mother and sister are still alive, he sets off towards Jerusalem to track them down.
On the way, Ben-Hur meets a sheik who tries to convince him to drive his horses in an upcoming race in front of the new governor of Judea. Ben-Hur initially declines but changes his mind when he learns that Messala is also going to be in the race. In fitting fashion, Ben-Hur will race with sheiks white horses while Messala races with his “black devils.”
This is when we get to the scene that impressed me even on the living room TV. The chariot race is just under ten minutes long and damn is it a cool sequence. This is something that simply wouldn’t be pulled off in any modern movie. The race track is a huge set and there are dozens of horses pulling chariots along the track and the camera stays right in the action the entire time. There are some pretty gnarly injuries during the race and plenty of dramatic crashes.
I had to take the time to research about this race while writing this article because it was that impressive. This race alone took 5 weeks to film and cost $1 million! Seven thousand extras filled the stands. And it really shows. The scope of the sequence is awesome and the filmmakers did an amazing job capturing it all.
In the end of the race, Judah Ben-Hur defeats Messala and Messala ends up being trampled by other horses in the race. I wasn’t expecting to see a bloodied and bruised close-up of Messala after all these injuries. Amongst the otherwise pretty tame film, his injuries, and the sounds Messala makes while trying to deal with the doctors as he’s dying, were pretty gruesome. And to cap it off for Messala being the true villain of the film, his dying words to Ben-Hur are to tell him that his mother and daughter are alive… but they’re now lepers!
After this epic climax, we start downhill in the movie and the rest of the movie really just doesn’t live up. We get into a telling of the Trial of Jesus Christ but for some reason it doesn’t feel as dramatic as the rest of the movie. Ben-Hur eventually meets up with his mother and sister, who are in fact lepers, and like I said before there’s a lot of crying and dramatic despair.
In a last ditch effort, while Ben-Hur’s sister is dying, Judah and his family seek out Jesus Christ when they find out they’re too late and he’s already carrying the cross through the streets. Judah Ben-Hur remembers the face of the man who gave him water years before as he was being marched to his punishment aboard the warships. He returns the favor and manages to get Jesus a drink of water while he’s collapsed carrying the cross. In the end, Ben-Hur witnesses the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his mother and sister are miraculously healed.
I really wasn’t kidding when I said that this movie is epic and covers a TON of events in the life of Judah Ben-Hur.
All-in-all, I gotta say that this was one hell of a ride that I’m happy I got to witness. Now I get to work on part two of my project! It’s time to make a prop to memorialize my viewing of this grand movie. Tune in next week to see what I made and how I made it!
100 Movies, 100 Props - My New Project
Hi there! My name's Alex and I'm setting out on a quest to watch the top 100 movies of all time and make a replica prop from each of those movies. You might say to yourself "Why would anyone do that?" or "That sounds like a lot of work." And you're absolutely right. It is going to be a lot of work. But that's because this is a quest that's focused on the process of the journey more so than the destination. A couple common questions come to mind when I've mentioned this project to others and I'll try my best to answer them below!
Why would you want to do that?
I've always wanted to watch the classic movies that inspire many of the great filmmakers of today. I've heard of a good portion of these movie titles mentioned by writers and directors talking about the movies that influenced them. And while I could eventually get around to watching all of them, this list will make sure that I methodically watch all of these movies. Let's face it. After a long week at work, I doubt that I'll ever sit down and just flip on a movie that I've never heard of like "Yankee Doodle Dandy" without some outside influence.
The prop building aspect of this comes from my love of replica movie props and my drive to practice making more things with my hands. I've slowly grown a collection of tools in my small garage that I'd like to put to work. Along the same line as watching movies, I need a little kick in the rear end to keep me focused on continually moving forward. By making more things in my shop, I'm hoping that I can better learn my tools and hone my crafting skills.
I've also enjoyed reading posts at TheRPF.com (The Replica Prop Forum) where people research iconic movie props to replicate them. It might sound silly but it is really enjoyable to be able to hold a recreated piece of film history in your own two hands.
Alongside lurking the forums over at The RPF, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching Adam Savage's videos over on the Tested channel where he demonstrates his craft of replicating props. Watching him has inspired me to take on my own similar projects!
Which list of top 100 movies will I be tracking?
I'm taking the dive into cinema with the AFI 100 Years…100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition list.
First off, I'll admit, I've wanted to watch movies that were primarily spoken in English. That way, I wouldn't have to read a whole bunch subtitles while completing this massive project. I do plan on, some day, going through and watching the top foreign films as well. For now, I'm sticking with a list of American movies.
I also considered IMDB's list of top 100 movies but that has two main problems for me. Number one: The list changes too often which would make it difficult to get through the list while trying to constantly hit a moving target. And second, the list has a clear case of recency bias which skews the top 100 movies. While there are certainly a great number of movies made in the past decade or two, I feel like a true representation of the top 100 movies of all time would have more of a spread across cinema history. This seems to be reflected in the AFI Top 100 list from reviewing the criteria by which the list was made. The American Film Institute (AFI) asked "a jury of over 1,500 leaders from the creative community, including film artists (directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, cinematographers), critics and historians" to pick the top 100 movies with the follow requirements:
- Feature length: Narrative format typically over 60 minutes long.
- American film: English language, with significant creative and/or financial production from the United States. (A number of films on the list were British-made but financed by *American studios; these include Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and A Clockwork Orange.)
- Critical recognition: Formal commendation in print, television, and digital media.
- Major award winner: Recognition from competitive events including awards from peer groups, critics, guilds, and major film festivals.
- Popularity over time: Includes success at the box office, television and cable airings, and DVD/VHS sales and rentals.
- Historical significance: A film's mark on the history of the moving image through visionary narrative devices, technical innovation or other groundbreaking achievements.
- Cultural impact: A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.
How often am I going to post?
I'm hoping that I can keep on track to work through a new movie every two weeks. First, I'm planning to do a write-up on watching the movie, then following up the next week with a newly crafted prop. That should give me enough time to watch the movie and go through the process of picking a prop, planning its construction, and then actually building it. I could be completely off with how long it's going to take to get everything done but two weeks is my hope. Only time will tell!
I will also try to regularly post on my instagram to provide updates between the weekly blogs. If you want to support me, feel free to share this with your friends and leave a comment down below!
Now, if you'll please excuse me. It's time to pop some popcorn and get to work!