BACKGROUND

How did you get into supervising model units?

José: Although I direct model units now, I did start at the bottom. I started doing model building, and I did a few years on physical effects with themain unit as well. I essentially learned my trade under Derek Meddings anumber of years ago. I worked for him about twelve or fourteen years,learning the pyro side of the business predominately through him, and hisspecialty was miniature photography.

What initially drew you to the film industry?

José: The first thing that appealed to me was the 3D aspect, because I initially did 2D art work - sort of airbrushing techniques and things like that ­ and then I met up with a friend who was doing 3D work like pack shots for commercials which appealed to me. I liked that it was still creative, but I was interested in the 3D aspect. I started working for Derek Meddings back in about 1982, and just got hooked. I enjoyed it so much I just went from there, doing miniature construction and working on the shoots as well.

What were some of the first films you worked on?

José: The first film with Derek Meddings was Supergirl. From there we went on to do films like Spies Like Us and Santa Claus: The Movie.

Do you remember your first supervisory position?

José: As a totally independent miniature supervisor, the first job I did was First Knight, the Richard Gere picture. I supervised construction before then, on The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter and various other films.

How did you become involved on V For Vendetta?

José: Antony Hunt [Model Unit Executive Producer] and myself were contacted by Warner Bros. first of all. They approached us via our headquarters up in Soho in London [Cinesite] about doing the picture and we looked at doing a picture deal - doing all the post production and also all the miniature work. Our branch here at Shepperton Studios is known for miniature construction and miniature photography. Dan Glass, the Visual Effects Supervisor, who I've met on a couple of other occasions although I hadn't worked with him, came down and we did an initial brief, did the figures, and moved on from there.

In that brief, what was your initial reaction to what they needed to do?

José: One of excitement, really. The fact that the whole job entailed doing pyrotechnic work made a nice change because more often these days ­ probably 80% of the work we do is motion control work - which is OK, but when you're doing it for nine or ten months of the year, it's quite nice to be able to hear a camera running at more than 2 or 3 frames a second, not having to do multiple passes with things, it's a different side of the business. This is what I would presume that people think of as the more glamorous, exciting end of the business. Every single model we're building on this is to be destroyed.

How did you communicate what was needed and what you would do?

José: Our CG department did some simple textured animatics to get the moves right, because one of the moves we had was actually a tilt while the charges were going off on Big Ben. So they took our video footage of our pyro charges going off that we did for our test and they comped those over, just to get a rough idea for the director and the visual effects department of potentially what could happen. The rest of it was done by dialogue; we discussed it, and used other past examples as a discussion point and took it from there.

When did you actually start the project of setting up the miniatures?

José: Literally the week they moved out to Berlin [February 2005], we sorted out the contract and started work. We had to get up and running very quickly, I think in total we ended up with about ten to twelve weeks from start to finish.

For the initial brief we got storyboards, so we did a shot count there and worked out whether we could tie any up to a common scenario. Say, the Old Bailey exploding, can we get all of those shots on one set up? So you rough that out. Then you start to put together a proposal for your shoot: how long is it going to take? How many days on each miniature? And you work out the set up time as well, before going on the stage to get everything ready. You then present that, and then you know if the client thinks it's perhaps not enough or too much, which is normally the case, and you modify it, it usually goes backwards and forwards a few times.

Nigel [Stone, BSC, Model Unit Cinematographer] and I have worked together for a long time and have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. We don't necessarily have exactly the same crews that we started out with years ago, we've honed those down. We like people who muck in and work as a team, so that's why you'll see me making pyro and he'll be moving stuff himself, because we just get on and do it.

BUILDING THE MODELS

How much contact and interaction do you have with Dan Glass & James McTeigue?

José: The brief was originally via Dan Glass, the Visual Effects Supervisor. Then we dealt with the art department for the drawings of the models. A lot of the guys in the art department I've worked with many times over the years - Kevin Phipps is the Supervising Art Director and I'd worked with him on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory previous to this, so we just picked up where we left off, really. They made sure they provided the right technical drawings and we took it from there. So it was a fairly easy. They were working in Berlin as well, so it wasn't like we could just pop into each other's departments to sort out details, we did it all in one session.

The art department drew up some general arrangement drawings and then they did specific, more detailed drawings, plans and elevations of the specific areas that we were going to build. On disk, and on hardcopy as well, they provided us with photographic details. They went on location and did their records for main unit and at the same time they covered for us. So they did a whole library of detailed photographs for textures, for color, and then if there was anything else that was missing we felt we needed, we're only half an hour away from London anyway, so we'd go up with a long lens and photograph details for ourselves.

Was the scale of the models set when you got the plans?

José: No. Generally speaking, people do quite often work out the scales, but I like to do that myself because I like to play around with scales first and actually see specifically what each model has to do. On this film we've chosen tenth scale and seventh scale, and we don't just pull those scales out of a hat. We had to look at how close we were going to be getting to certain things, in a couple of the shots, for instance Big Ben, we knew we had to get in there very tight on the face. Also, we had to bear in mind where we would shoot these things, and we chose to shoot on H stage at Shepperton because it's the highest stage in the studio. At the same time we had to allow for not just the physical miniature breaking, but also the flames and the smoke rising up. We needed enough clearance on the top of the model, and as it is Big Ben is 30 feet high, it doesn't give us a great deal of room to maneuver. So, tenth scale for that was the absolute maximum.

Sometimes I get a bit of stick over the size of miniatures I choose, but I think - especially if you're going to be doing any pyro work - any elements dealing with natural elements like water and fire you should go as big as you can. Generally miniatures don't cost that much more if we'd built at sixteenth scale or twelfth scale. The only difference is minor: it's materials. The work is still there, you're still building exactly the same thing, so the labor is the same. And to compromise on maybe 5 or 10% of the overall budget on materials, for the end result you get, I think it's wrong. So, for me, the golden rule is to go big, wherever you can. If the budget will allow it and you've got the space to work in, go big with it.

What made you decide to use the materials you used to build the models?

José: We're blowing up buildings, architecture, but we couldn't use stone, so the nearest thing to it for us was plaster, but very dense plaster. It also has the advantage that we could produce patterns - make molds of components - because a lot of the detail work is repetitive, so you're able to cast, rather than manufacture by hand, each individual component.

The nice thing about plaster is that we could play around with the density of it, so when we did our pyro tests we were able to play around with different types of charges and different strengths, and see what effect they had on the different densities of plaster. Our initial thoughts were that we would probably need to weaken the plaster to help break it up because we're dealing with some fairly large pieces. One of the problems we found with that was the more we weakened the plaster, the more dusty it became when we blew it. That worried me because I was concerned about obstructing too much of the event with dust, so we changed the pyro, went for slightly stronger and denser charges, and we got a much cleaner break.

The other material we're using is a very high density foam that we used for the Old Bailey which, although we're happy with the results, I would probably not use if I did the job again. We found it more awkward to work with because it's not a very dense material, so it didn't break. It made breaking it apart a lot more complicated than if we'd used plaster. You never stop learning, it's part of the process.

The plaster fragmented more like stone would fragment if you put charges into it. The foam, although it was very dense foam, it absorbed a lot of pressure when the pyro went off. Much more than we expected. So we had to increase charges, and increase the quantities of charges as well. Whereas a particular charge might destroy a two foot section of plaster, we found with the foam it was very isolated. Wherever you would put it, it would just break that area and that area alone, you wouldn't get a shockwave that would continue to work through the miniature.

BIG BEN

Could you explain the most recent explosion on the Big Ben model?

José: That was the last of two attempts on the model. The first was the initiation, which starts the pyro off, and the one we've just blown up was the second version of two. The idea behind this one is that it's the end of the event so the inner charge has gone up inside the building, burst through the clock face and then it ripples back down to the ground again as an after shock, which is why we had low camera angles on that. Also, you see on wider shots the event break up through the roof and destroy the roof of the building.

What was your role on this?

José: We're only really getting one chance at blowing these models, they're single events, so I like to get very personally involved in the loading of the pyro because they're very complicated sequences. There are a lot of charges going off and on the day we're letting off the charges in the space of about one and a half seconds, so we have to guarantee that each one goes off at just the right moment in time. The client was also very particular about the initial break of the clock face going; that it would be followed by a momentary pause and then the charges would go off behind it and push it out. That was what we were trying to do today, and what we managed to achieve.

To achieve it you needed two separate explosions?

José: Well, each clock face has three events going on, there's detonation of the actual face, which shatters it, and then we have pushing charges that go off a moment later which fire debris and break and push it apart. Then they're followed by three charges per face that are the flame - the fire balls if you like - that burst through them and push the debris across.

When you were laying charges in Big Ben we a saw number of long cables going in, does each one of those cables represent a charge?

José: Well, sometimes it does. On that one we had so many charges that we actually linked them up so one cable might have been responsible for sending the power feed to half a dozen charges. We've just done the events, so I haven't been back and counted exactly how many charges we've put in, I'll do that later on, just for the record.

You have a rough idea of what you're going to do, and we pre-made a lot of the charges. When you actually get in - climb inside the model and start having a look around - you start the process as you plan, but there are things that maybe you change your mind about, and that's just maybe running back through things you've done before and hunches about certain things. This has been a very hurried shoot, I've been very preoccupied every day, so yesterday was the first time I was actually able to sit inside Big Ben and scratch my chin and start thinking about the charges.

When you're in there and looking at the charges, what is going through your mind?

José: I'm trying to make sure that we get the right balance between breaking, creating the right kind of damage that will look good on film, and then also the actual flame pyro, the flame charges, trying to work out where best to place them, and also the sequence of events. If you don't get the timing right, then a charge that's been put in to damage could destroy the visual charges that you place. It could also do a very common thing as well: breaking charges, because they're so ferocious, can cut through the lines, and if they cut through the lines of charges that haven't gone off yet, then you're left with part of your shot missing. So you have to go in there and lay it all out, and then go back through it again and think about the chain of events, and then go back through it again and make sure you follow all the routes of the charges and make sure that all your big cutting charges aren't going to steal any of the event for you. And if they are then re-route them or protect them, or temporarily protect them so they can put up with the heat.

We're not just playing to one camera as well, we're surrounded by cameras. So sometimes you have to compromise and think, OK, what are your primary cameras? What are the important cameras that you've got to work for? The most important thing for us was the clock face going off, and there were certain cameras responsible for getting that moment, so we made sure that the event for that part of the shot was biased to those cameras. Then other cameras sometimes you have to forego, thinking they won't work here but they'll get the early moments for editing.

What has been your favorite miniature on this particular project?

José: Probably the Big Ben miniature because it's the building that I'm much more familiar with, and I think everybody else is; even outside of the UK there probably isn't a tourist anywhere who doesn't know what Big Ben looks like. Also, it's a particularly attractive model, it's a beautiful model, it looks really good and. it's not every day you get a chance to blow up Big Ben, do you?

What are your first thoughts after a model like that has exploded?

José: The first thing I want to do is get to the video quickly, just to see whether it has worked. I check all the camera angles, just for peace of mind, even though you don't get a good picture on video, it's not the same as seeing it on film because you miss a lot. That's just peace of mind that you've got what you need. Then I go look the wreckage and make sure all the charges have gone off. As long as you get those two things you're probably going to sleep well that night, and you've got something to look forward to the next day at rushes.

Big Ben has worked really, really well, we're very pleased with it. Especially the clock face, because that was something they were quite particular about. You're talking about milliseconds difference between it being exactly what they want and not. There's a lot of touch and go and a certain amount of luck in it, as well.

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

What are you doing with the Parliament buildings?

José: Our first take on it was good, they were very happy with it. However we've got the luxury that two of the miniatures environments that we built for this picture - one being Old Bailey and the other being Westminster - they're the only two miniatures that we had the opportunity of doing a second attempt on. So we're not changing a great deal from our first pass on it, other than a couple of the secondary cameras because we've got those earlier positions covered now. The hero cameras will be identical, they'll be as they were on the first. We're going play around a little bit more with the pyro, just play around with the sequences. The intensities we were very happy with before, the quantity of them, the volume of them. This time I'm going to add a few more in and also destroy also the terrace wall with the straight lamps attached - maybe knock a few of those out.

Is that going to cause any problems with the fact that the other side of the embankment is being hidden by blowing that out?

José: It didn't before, but for this we'll have to separate them, and there are a few lighting reflectives that we've hidden on the other side of the wall, to help with a bit more bounce light, a bit more up light on the side of the building. So for this, just in those key areas, we'll have to just cut those sections out so we don't expose them.

Can you explain the tracking aspects of this shot?

José: I think the inspiration for this shot has come about from a shot we did for Lost in Space a few years ago, where we blew up the proteus space craft. It was a similar scenario where you had a 35 ft long model space ship and we had to do a sort of flying move underneath it. We worked out that with the frame rates we were using we would need to actually be tracking a tad over 40 miles an hour, which is obviously beyond the grip and the dolly. We also had 150 charges on it and we had to guarantee each one went off in exactly the right place in the frame, so we knew we couldn't rely on the human element to get that right, it was too complicated. So we developed a system of read switches, and we're using those again on this one.

Basically all they are is a simple contact switch, a read switch, and we just insert those along the side of the track and we have a jockey wheel that runs on the dolly, and as the dolly runs by the wheel triggers all the switches. It means I can do a dry run and just walk the camera through and at any point in the shot I can say I want that window to blow or that charge to blow and we just place the relevant switch underneath the jockey wheel and it will go off exactly on cue. It worked very well in Lost in Space, it was a really cool shot with all the pyro chasing the cameras as it flew backwards. So on this shot here, we'll be tracking backwards the pyro - we'll start blowing as we move away, and then I'll place the pyro so it starts to catch up with you, so the shot it wipes out and gives them a good cutting point.

What will be the frame rate?

José: For this, in fact for every shot that we've done so far for Vendetta, we've chosen 150 frames. We did do some pyro tests a couple of weeks before we started and we used Photosonics as well during the tests, and I felt that 150 was the optimum speed for the scale of miniatures we were working with. We ran the Photosonics up to 200 frames, and in the past we've run them way beyond that, to 300 or 350 frames. That it was a little bit too lethargic for us, and 150 is a nice speed because it means you've always got the option - if you want to speed things up slightly - maybe in post you can go back and speed it up to, say, 120 frames. You've got the information there, rather than less and trying to extend it. 200 frames tended to work well for the very early moment that a charge would go off, then once it started to burst it became a little bit too lethargic for us and it spoiled the scale.

As far as it running on the track, how do you actually get the camera to up to the speed you need?

José: I like simple technology, I don't always trust getting too sophisticated. As we've done on countless films, we've got a 4X4 [four wheel drive vehicle] hooked up and we run cables through a pulley system down the track across the stage and hook it up to the back of the car. Then we do dry runs and decide on video which speeds work best for us. I just get in the car, put my foot to the floor and watch the speed.

Do you drive the car?

José: I do, but generally it's because I tend to be the one with the 4X4 and also, if anything's going to go wrong, it's going to be the car, it's going to be the pulling speed that will mess the shot up. So I prefer to put that onus on me rather than someone else. Then if it's not right, I can take the can for it.

What speed do you need to drive for this shot?

José: For this we've done a 2 to 1 ratio on the pulley system, so I only need to travel half the distance and half the speed and the camera will double that. On the first take I did about 9 miles an hour, so we got 18 mile an hour camera speed. Simple but it works.

THE OLD BAILEY

Which model was the most challenging build?

José: The Old Bailey because it's quite a complicated building; there's a lot of ornamentation and all the pillars, and they wanted to see the whole thing fall apart eventually. It was a matter of building a model that's large scale so you're dealing with physical weight - whether you like it or not, there's going to be a lot of weight involved in the model because of it's sheer size. It had to be strong enough to hold it's own weight, and stable enough for us to be able to work round it and load the pyro into it, but weak enough that when you start pushing the buttons, the whole thing breaks apart. It was quite a challenge to do that, but we've got top guys here - model makers and good supervisors - who did a good job of it.

Is it true there's no glue holding the Old Bailey together?

José: We couldn't glue it, but it was interesting how stable it became just because of it's sheer weight, the down load on it was phenomenal. We were worried about bricks falling out and things starting to collapse before the event, but you literally couldn't remove any bricks because of the sheer down load of the material.

How do you address the safety of such huge explosions?

José: We have to have a plan. We got firemen involved a few weeks before doing any explosions, and updated them when we made changes so they were aware of what we were proposing to do. We knew one of the problems here was going to be heat, the heat moving up quickly to the roof of the stage, which was why we had the canopies placed over the models. The canopies are all fireproof fabrics that doubled up as backgrounds because we were shooting against black for most of this. The idea of those was to act as heat baffles ­ the initial heat would go up and hit those first, then give a bit more time for the heat to dissipate before it rolled round. There was nothing to feed the flames once they got up that high, however we had firemen on standby on ground level with fire hoses that were capable of reaching the roof of the stage anyway. The other thing is protection for eyes and ears - ears were the main thing with this because of the shockwave coming off the charges.

There's also the detail model of the words on the Old Bailey; was that built from plaster?

José: Yes, it is all plaster. This model wasn't part of the original brief. That particular part of the miniature on the complete version of the Old Bailey - which we did at seventh scale - is quite a small detail, but they wanted to feature it, it's quite a specific shot in the film, the idea of the inscription breaking up. It's one of the first things that actually blows when the building goes. So I elected to do a new version of it - a bigger version - so we built that at sixth scale. We're really close to it so we needed a bit more space between the lens and the object itself to give it a bit more weight. If we'd used the original building it wouldn't scale right, it wouldn't have been convincing enough.

How many times are you shooting that?

José: We've done it once and we're going to do it again. This, funny enough, is the only miniature where we really feel Photosonics would come in, because we're so close to it. We're using cordtex to break the plaster up to really, really damage it. We're not so interested in flame elements on this, it's more about stone being blasted and thrown at camera. For this particular shot we will use a Photosonics camera, but the only reason for that is we're so close, we're only 4 or 5 feet away, and the cordtex moves very, very fast. It'll throw the debris through frame very quickly, so we really need some help to slow that moment down.

How many frames will you shoot that at?

José: We'll probably go around 200 frames. When we did the first take we shot at 150, and then I played back the footage at the equivalent on the video of 200 frames, which felt about right. That also gives them the option of speeding it up, if they want to vary the speed of it. Maybe we'll start the initial thing at 200 frames and then crank it down as the debris starts to leave the miniature.

MADAME JUSTICE

What challenges has the splitting of Madame Justice presented?

José: The brief on that has evolved several times. The original brief was she would just split and then she would get engulfed in the events. Once we did the wide shots on the building itself where we had a seventh scale version, they thought it'd be really cool if she broke apart. So I put some charges under a pre-split larger scale version of her that was made so when we did the wide shot we fired the base charges and she actually splits in two and drops down as the pryo ripples up towards her. Now we're giving them a nice, tight, establishing shot of that moment. Rather than just splitting her, we're going to do an initial split shot, which ties in with an earlier moment in the sequence. In a really tight shot you'll see the two halves actually break apart, and that will link into the wide shot.

How was it determined where the split would be?

José: We discussed it, and once we had taken the first section of her out of the mold we took some stills and then drew potential split lines. We decided it was nice not to split the face in half, but keep the features on one half. We've been careful with the face, just to go around the side of the face. On the body we've followed the shape of drapery so it's a natural split line on her, not straight.

We've got the left arm that holds the scales, and when we do the close up of the event you'll see the arm break with the scales. The arm with the sword in it has got a pre-built split in it, so the casting will crack but it won't drop. So it'll be left with a sort of open wound, if you like, in the arm.

MINIATURES & VISUAL EFFECTS

Is there a logic to designing pyro, to designing things that explode?

José: It's kind of logical, but then there's a lot that's not predictable, which is a reason for using miniatures. If you were doing this CG you'd have to work with a plate and build a 3D building, but then someone has to sit down at a monitor and animate and work out how something is going to break apart who probably knows absolutely nothing about physics or pyrotechnics or architecture. Why not let nature do it for you, and you get some amazing surprises. Sometimes you do shots and you're expecting X and you get Y and it's 10 times better than you ever expected, that's just luck, nature, physics.

Were there any particular bonuses on this shoot?

José: When the Big Ben clock face blew like this last one we did it was really nice. We all did the timing slightly deliberately, but we got a nice piece of the clock that stayed recognizable as it flew through the air until it finally broke apart. It's in the detail, really, probably the bits will end up being cut in. We did a huge explosion on The Avengers, that's another Warner Bros. project, and we blew up this huge Wonderland Weather sign. It was a sixth scale build, a very complicated sign full of neon with all this special back lit wording, and when we blew it the two Ws for Wonderland Weather blew out through the fireballs at camera. I'd like to say we planned it, but you wouldn't stand a hope of getting that to work if you wanted to, and it was perfect.

During the last decade visual effects has become more and more used; has that changed your job in any way, or the way that you would do things?

José: It has changed my job to a certain extent. I've been doing it for twenty something years now and not every film is the same, but in general these days it is different. It used to be that you'd have a physical effects supervisor on a picture, you'd have an optical supervisor and you'd have a miniatures supervisor. Those three people would attend all the meetings and the planning, and you'd work together and coordinate together to produce the end result. That's changed since the advent of CG, the digital supervisor has taken that role now, it's like they've become the middleman. However, not on every picture, I've worked on a few films in the last few years where you still get the opportunity of dealing directly with the producers and directors on a creative level. That's the area I do miss. Unfortunately, that's the way it's turned out, but I don't think it's always a good thing.

In general terms, the amount of miniature work on pictures has drastically reduced. When I first started there was an endless supply of miniature work on pictures, and that's diminished to probably 15 to 20% of what we used to get. But that's just evolution. When the call comes now to do miniatures, it tends to be on big specialist sequences where you need a real physical object in there to produce the effect.

Do you experience any directors who hate CG and try to stay as practical as possible?

José: You get different camps. You get the real pro CG people who tend to be - generalizing of course - the much younger directors, or directors who've got massive budgets to play with. Then you get people who don't technically really know, but understand miniatures perhaps, and like the idea. There are a lot of people who like the idea of being able to see a miniature because they can relate to it. Then you get other directors who are out and out big fans of miniatures; Tim Burton is a good example. You don't have to do any sales pitch to people like that because they know as much about miniatures as you do yourself. That's always comforting, to get involved in projects like that.

Thanks José.