Something different - "Titanic" Engine Room

Many moons ago, minieffects and I worked for a place called VIFX (which later got bought out by Rhythm & Hues Studios). Anyhow, we worked on a little, low-budget thing called "Jim Cameron's 'Titanic'." I just posted some photos of the engine room miniature on R&H's Facebook page here -
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rhyth...34203473296784

[FONT=Verdana]Scotty - who built that Engine Room before it got sent to us? Vision Crew did the 1/3 scale stuff for the Jeremiah O'Brien, but Doug Miller swears they didn't build the actual engine room......

Anyways, let me see what else I can dig up.......

Gene
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GKvfx said:

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Many moons ago, minieffects and I worked for a place called VIFX (which later got bought out by Rhythm & Hues Studios). Anyhow, we worked on a little, low-budget thing called "Jim Cameron's 'Titanic'." I just posted some photos of the engine room miniature on R&H's Facebook page here -
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rhyth...34203473296784

[FONT=Verdana]Scotty - who built that Engine Room before it got sent to us? Vision Crew did the 1/3 scale stuff for the Jeremiah O'Brien, but Doug Miller swears they didn't build the actual engine room......

Anyways, let me see what else I can dig up.......

Gene
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This is really interesting to me. Was alot of the engine room shot on the Queen Mary and CGi'd to have the con-rods etc moving? I can't view the page, I am not the facebook type lol.

On our (VIFX's) part, there was very little CGI per se, though we were digitally compositing the plates that we shot on (gasp!) film.

They built an Engine Room set down in Mexico, but it only went so far back into the guts of the machinery. For the wide shots we had this miniature to use as either a BG plate that was tracked in to extend the rest of the practical set. Or we used this miniature as the main plate and then tracked in a GS plate of crewmen that we shot that lined up with the catwalks of the miniature. There's a couple of wide, sweeping shots that show off the machinery quite well - that's the miniature. For the shot of the reversing gear engaging, it's the miniature as well.

For some of the closeups of the pistons moving up/down (there is a crewman oiling one of them) - that stuff was filmed on the Jeremiah O'Brien with 1/3 scale catwalks, lights, and details added to the real ship. The JO'B wasn't the same class of ship (obviously), but it had three screws and with the details added, it was deemed close enough for the closeups.

But there was NO computer model built of the thing. Hell, I don't think they even used a laser cutter on it..........

Gene

Gorgeous work Gene and especially wonderful to see traditional model making so skilfully rendered. Although I saw some of the model work done during Titanic I didn't see as much as I would have liked..

A great share.

Highest regards

MARK

That was a great read... Thanks Gene.

Thanks for sharing, Gene. Great work.

Thanks. Interesting stuff!

WOW Gene, that is INCREDIBLE! I always thought that engine room looked 'real', but I figured it was just good CGI! I am amazed at this and how they did it!! Once again, practical models clearly show their use and applicability!! Wish more movies would use this 'sizing' technique! What an impressive model, and writeup!!! Thanks for sharing!
-Sean

GKvfx said:

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On our (VIFX's) part, there was very little CGI per se, though we were digitally compositing the plates that we shot on (gasp!) film.

They built an Engine Room set down in Mexico, but it only went so far back into the guts of the machinery. For the wide shots we had this miniature to use as either a BG plate that was tracked in to extend the rest of the practical set. Or we used this miniature as the main plate and then tracked in a GS plate of crewmen that we shot that lined up with the catwalks of the miniature. There's a couple of wide, sweeping shots that show off the machinery quite well - that's the miniature. For the shot of the reversing gear engaging, it's the miniature as well.

For some of the closeups of the pistons moving up/down (there is a crewman oiling one of them) - that stuff was filmed on the Jeremiah O'Brien with 1/3 scale catwalks, lights, and details added to the real ship. The JO'B wasn't the same class of ship (obviously), but it had three screws and with the details added, it was deemed close enough for the closeups.

But there was NO computer model built of the thing. Hell, I don't think they even used a laser cutter on it..........

Gene

That's awesome work. You all did a wicked job on the film. I'm utterly jealous that you got to work on it. Fantastic work.