The Last of the Mechanauts

The Last of the Mechanauts 
Notes on production so far...

STORY OUTLINE
The Last of The Mechanauts tells the story of the Goodship Thundermaus discovering a space graveyard of wrecked space ships. Among which, floats an unusual looking object that the crew believe is a space heater. This is rather handy, since the thermostat in Professor Pepperdine's freezing quarters is broken. Thus they bring the space heater aboard and re-activate it. Little do they know that this is actually a Mechanaut: an evil machine, driven by coal, that fancies the ships Hamster as a viable fuel alternative…

BACKSTORY

The Mechanauts are the general antagonists of the series. Mechanauts were once created to serve the Oil industry (Brexico) in the extraction of coal. 

Logo for Brexico.

In fact, they even run on coal. But they turned against their masters and became a race of killing machines bent on enslaving others, mainly, so they can be fed more coal.

PRE-PRODUCTION

For the episode, several new sets and props were required, mainly internal sections of the Thundermaus space ship, such as various access corridors, a latrine area, a café/restroom area, a new Thundermaus Engine room, a tub of pink bubble gum, a functional iris airlock hatch, an internal airlock room (and lift) and an external portion of the Thundermaus, built to 1:1 scale. Added to all that was the construction of hand held props the bears would use, such as weapons, walky talkies, helmets and general clothing. Not to mention a Mechanaut or ten. Simples. 

Here’s some production photos of the episode:

COSTUME DEPARTMENT

Many of the costumes for Thundermaus were often put together by seamstress Alice Hume, under the direction of Jayson Scott Adams, (who concentrated on body armour and weapons) while Alice worked on clothing. Various pieces of miniature clothing were required for different scenes: some shots required bears in night gowns, others required bears in military uniforms. It was down to Alice Hume to make these things happen. Even a pair of miniature pants. 

Above and Below: Alice Hume working on the various costumes.

Above: conceptual drawings by Alice Hume on various bear costumes 

Above and below: Helmets and body armour. 

Director Jayson Scott Adams made them from various plastic balls from the pound shops.

Above: Director Jayson Scott Adams working on bears body armour

Above: Miles Fletcher making dozens of miniature military helmets for bears,
by chopping up plastic balls. 

Above: prototype space helmet made from one of those fake CCTV camera domes 

available in the pound shop.

Above and Below: Pulse rifles, made from water pistols with real laser pens added!

Note: the grips utilise velcro, so the bears can actually hold them. 

 Above and below: laser pens installed.

Above and Below: Alice Hume and her team working on costumes.

Above and below: miniature pants created by Alice Hume 

BUILDING THE SHIPS INTERIORS

Since the story is set aboard the Thundermaus, various interiors had to be designed and constructed in miniature, to the scale of the bears. Rooms such as the bridge had already been built and would also need to be re-jigged to perform other roles, such as the rest room area and the engine room. Other things that needed to be considered were the interconnecting corridors, a latrine, an airlock and various bulkhead doors, which had to open and close on a sliding mechanism and also contain illuminated signs.

 Above and below: Thundermaus Bridge under renovation. 

 Above: Kevin Alan Wilkins, building corridors. 

 Above and Below: corridor surface details, using either strips of straws 

or cast using silicon moulds and expanding foam.  

The idea was to give the corridors a padded feel to them. 

 Above and Below: the illuminated signs and bulk head door frames. Made from push-light bars and lengths of plastic conduit casing, cut to angles and glued together. 

 Above and below: Kamile Janusaityte working on the surface details of the airlock door frames

  Above and below: Illuminated sign boxes and door frames 

mounted upon the sliding door mechanism 

 Above and below: The sliding door mechanism 

 Above : Alice Hume examines the durability of silicone rubber moulds. 

 Above: Kamile Janusaityte working on the moulds for the corridors. 

 Above: A corridor assembled on a pasting table, with various wooden frames to keep its shape. 

 Above and below: Miles Fletcher works on the electronics 

that will illuminate the bulkhead door signs 

 Above and Below: A three way junction room. 

 Above: a makeshift barricade in miniature

 Above and below: the bridge, redressed as the refractory area, 

complete with deli counter and pool table. 

 Above and below: The entrance to Airlock 2. 

BUILDING AN AIRLOCK

The story entailed an airlock scene, where the Mechanaut would be brought aboard the Thundermaus ship. This required an interior and exterior shot of the mech being brought into the said airlock. Thus appropriate sets had to be designed and built. To achieve this, camera man Kevin Alan Wilkins designed the basic shape of the airlock, using 'Sketch-Up' and constructed it using cardboard, which was later re-enforced with fibre glass resin. 

 Above and Below: 

Some basic set up shots using the bears and a resin mechanaut, 

to gauge how they might look inside the airlock. 

Above: The Air Lock - constructed by Kevin Alan Wilkins.

 Above and Below: Miles Fletcher, coating the air lock film set with fibre glass resin. 

Above and below: The finished airlock. Director, Jayson Scott Adams added the finishing aesthetics such as an elevator platform,  a removable roof and general surface details, (mounted on velcro panels)  also designed to be removable,  so to 're-dress' the airlock,  should it be needed as some other room or chamber in a future episode. 

Above: Alice Hume about to test the elevator system for the air lock.

Above: a teddy bear being tested for the airlocks elevator system 

Above: the final product. A Mechanaut being lowered from the roof entrance into the airlock. 

Above: one of the many caged light fittings that would be attached to the airlock ceiling, 

(pictured below)

Above and below: the entire airlock mechanism, mounted between two tables, 

where a operator would lift the elevator system from below. 

Above: the projector became an invaluable tool for scaling up designs and tracing them out for templates, such as the enormous aperture, (below) used for the airlock. 

Above: Kevin Alan Wilkins and Miles Fletcher trace out the templates off the projector to build a large portion of the Thundermaus space ship hull. 

Below, the section of said hull is constructed using a framework of interconnecting cardboard. The large round hole will accommodate the iris mechanism for the airlock. 

Above and below: the hull section is covered in fabric to attain the desired shape. The idea being that the skin of the Thundermaus is not unlike that of an airship, only made from a more durable substance, perhaps even grown. 

Above: Miles Fletcher tests out the iris mechanism on the hull section 

Above: Kamile Janusaityte holds part of the enlarged girder section, that will be added to the hull section. 

Above: the enlarged girder section, finished and painted to give a rusty aged look. 

Above and below: The completed hull section ready for filming 

Above: the airlock section composited in post production 

 Above and Below: Alice Hume takes on the role as puppeteer. This is part of a scene where the Mechanaut is brought aboard the Thundermaus airlock.

 Above and below: Basic back projection 101. 

Puppeteer Kristaps Zalitus dangles a mechanaut prop in front of a Tv screen. 

AIRLOCK: SCENE BREAKDOWN

Below are some tele-snaps of the entire airlock scene: one of the few scenes completed for the episode. 

1. The Thundermaus comes across a debris field in deep space...

2. The Thundermaus enters the debris field to search for items of value.

3. The crew discover a Mechanaut floating in the debris and decide to bring it aboard.

4. The Thundermaus airlock door opens and sends out a tractor beam.

5. The Mechanaut is caught in the tractor beam and pulled from the debris field.

6. The Mechanaut is pulled towards the Thundermaus airlock.

 7. Inside the airlock, a platform raises from the floor up to the airlock entrance.

 8. The Mechanaut lands on the platform.

 9. The platform lowers with Mechanaut. 

 10. The Mechanaut is now inside the airlock.

 11. The Airlock iris door begins to close.

12. The airlock starts to re-pressurise. 

CREATING THE DEBRIS FIELD

The story opens with the crew of the Thundermaus finding a debris field.  Many methods were employed to create the illusion of many random objects floating in the zero gravity of outer space. Some of these methods employed running a camera passed junk laid out on a black sheet, filming junk suspended on wires against black backgrounds or filming thin bits of stamped foil shapes floating on black water. 

Above and below: composite shots of the Thundermaus entering the debris field. To achieve these scenes, chrome key effects were applied to various shots of debris hanging on wires or floating on water. They were then added over a still image of space and the Thundermaus model added later. 

Above: Kevin Alan Wilkins and Kamile Janusaityte try their hand at 

filming debris floating on water,  in the confined space of the office sink! 

Above: various debris laid out on a black sheet to be filmed. 

The idea was to hang a camera on a H-frame over the debris 

and have it spin in various ways to achieve a space ships perspective. 

Above: Box of Delights. To achieve space debris, various random objects were spray painted to give them a pitted and tarnished appearance. 

Above and below: a corridor was made of black sheets and decorated with various pieces of junk hanging on wires. The idea would be to drive the camera through this, to give the impression of flying through space debris. 

Above and below: Kamile Janusaityte helps to set up the debris field film sets

Above and below: Miles Fletcher tries out various filming techniques. The main problem was trying to film miniatures under different lighting conditions without losing focus. So, to save money, we adapted our cameras with additional home made lighting rigs.

Above and below:  The Debris Field. Basically lots of junk sprawled across a length of black sheet. Unfortunately we couldn't afford a dolly track so we had to improvise. We often resorted to having someone run a camera  over the length of it.

Above and below: Cameraman Kevin Alan Wilkins spent two days filming Mechanauts and various pieces of junk suspended on wires against a black screen, that would later be used to cut into the scenes where the Thundermaus explores the debris field. Director Jayson Scott Adams also built a derelict space station made out of beer cans.

Above: one of the resin cast Mechanauts suspended on wires for the debris field scenes. 

Above: one of the attempted shots was to drag the Thundermaus ship on a truck wheels. The idea was to film from above, to achieve the impression of the ship passing through the debris field. Unfortunately the camera couldn't handle the low light levels and the footage was unusable. 

BUILDING THE MECHANAUT

Although several Mechanauts had been constructed already using resin casting,  it was only in hindsight, that we realised that they were in fact not terribly in proportion to the bears and were being dwarfed by them. 

Above: one of the resin cast Mechanauts dwarfed by its co-stars

They also didn't stand up too well to close up shots and so a 'hero prop' was required. This new prop would be much larger and ideally be radio controlled. Below are a few production pix of how it was put together, designed and made by Jayson Scott Adams.

Above: a basic paper template was made to assess its proportions. 

Below: construction begins, using plasticard, then assembled with cardboard sections to ascertain proportion. Cardboard sections would soon be replaced with plastic. Resistance was futile. 

Above: Hero Prop  almost completed. 

Below: Hero Prop with vent details and completed chimney system. 

The idea was to make the Mechanaut as formidable as possible. 

Here it is crushing a bears skull!  

Mech parts being spray painted metallic blue 

Above and below: the corners that supposedly join the whole Mechanaut together. 

Mainly strips of angled plasticard with tiny hemi-beads used for decorative use. 

186 beads were painstakingly glued on. 

Above: Hero prop  assembled after painting with beaded corners added

Above and below :  Mechananut Hero Prop, painted and near completion 

     

Above and below : Some basic set ups 

to experiment with how the Mechanauts measure up to the bears on screen.  So far so good. 

Above: Grand Final: how the final scene with the hamster might have looked. 

Above and below: This is actually a stunt Mechanaut made from card and plastic. 
it was intended to fill in, as the exploding prop for the ending of the story. 

Above and below : Spot the difference - Stunt Mech vs Hero prop

Above: Stunt Mech, hero prop and several resin mechs ready for action...

Above and below: Test shots of the hero prop with the bears. In this scene: Deloris, Captain Ted and Pepperdine examine the machine in the airlock, where it has been recently brought aboard and our heroes mistake it for a harmless space heater. Already the new hero prop holds up well to the camera, where as its smaller resin counterparts, lacked all the surface detail required for this type of shot. 

MINIATURE WORK 

Several of the scenes required the Thundermaus to weave in and out of a debris field. To achieve this  a four inch miniature of the space craft was used, built by Jayson Scott Adams and fitted with LED lights by Miles Fletcher. 

Above: Miles Fletcher, working on the electronics for the Thundermaus miniature. 

THE THUNDERMAUS SPACE SHIP

The original Thundermaus prop was little more than a paper lantern. For subsequent episodes it was replaced by a more durable fibre glass counterpart, that took nearly a year to build by series creator Jayson Scott Adams. Here are a few snaps of it below. 

Above: series creator Jayson Scott Adams, working on the Thundermaus prop

Above: Miles Fletcher fixes the Thundermaus, after every single light bulb had blown ! 

Above: The completed Thundermaus prop in action. 

RESIN-CAST MECHANAUTS 

Before the hero prop was constructed, several Mechanauts were already built for the previous Thundermaus episode Exit 13,  for the 48hr Film Festival. These were made using fibre glass resin and cast in silicone moulds. Unfortunately we did no have the means to cast them properly (using the vacuum method to remove bubbles),  resulting in a lot of Mechanaut castings losing details due to bubbles in the resin. However, somebody suggested that they should just be painted to look 'rusty' which seemed to help mull over the issue. They were later re-used in this episode mainly for long shots and for the debris field scene, where one is found drifting in space.  

Above and below: various castings of mechanaut parts using resin fibre glass and silicon moulds. 

Above: Mechanaut straight out of the mould. 

Above: basic components painted. 

 Above: a row of completed castings painted to look slightly rusty. 

 Above: various pleated lamp shades picked up from charity shops 

 Above and below: the pleated lampshades are cut to length and attached to the Mechanaut props

Above: the Mechanauts chimney, the fluted part made from toy trumpets. 

Above: Rusty Mechanauts  

Above: general design

Above and below: one of the resin Mechanauts being used for test shots. 

BRIAN THE ROBOT 

Finally Brian the Robot. Originally built for The Pepperdine Method, Brian is the ships cleaner and is radio controlled. For this episode, a few minor modifications where made. Mainly to his mouth piece,  (the white strip beneath the dome) which originally was too high and needed to be thinner. The main reason for this was to add to his character. With a thinner strip for his mouth, it gave his sour personality a little more grimace. His eye lid was also replaced, as it protruded too far his dome, often giving him a surprised look when shot at certain angles. So a flatter eye lid was added to maintain his glum persona in camera.

So far so good.

Currently the script is complete and an audio track of the episode was recorded, featuring the voices of Heidi Wilding and Jayson Scott Adams. However, despite several scenes were shot already, The Last of the Mechanauts episode has been shelved, until funding can be secured to complete the  complex demands of filming miniatures, special effects, mixing audio, music etc and editing it all together into a workable and entertaining episode.

Watch this space ...