Logan's Run ---- Life Clock

[epoxinator]

Jintosh: And here it's getting a tiny bit farther. My Facebook friend directed me to make the following change: adding back the central pyramid nested within the 4 center ones. He also said I should remove the double facets around the tops of the larger crystals and go back to the single. But that will be another day.

What doesn't satisfy me about your version ( and I don't mean to offend) is that it looks too flat to me. On all my copies and the photos I've seen the center crystals are set well below the outer crystals, like a little well in the center. In fact, I might scale the ones in mine so they don't stick up even this much.

One of the features that sets mine apart from the original the most is that it's completely radially symmetrical. The originals were, I believe, cut by hand and so are all different from one another. It was hard enough for me to find even one who's shape I understood. Finally I chose one that I felt most nicely refracted the light back, and mirrored that and duplicated it to fill in the form.

Wow, an hour seems pretty good from what I hear. I've had prints done by Shapeways that I feel are just too sandy-looking and low detail to give me the results that I want, and most of the home printers whose results I've seen look like that. I would rather send it out and get the result I want without worrying about the print going bad, or babying the printer, but I do acknowledge that I'm probably paying a hefty price for that.

 

[19narvik40]

I did some Googling and found this image,


I tried to clean it up but my graphics skill suck.


does this look reasonable to anyone?

 

[epoxinator]

19Narvik40, I have this photo as well. This is the larger version of the crystal, that appears throughout the City: in Carrousel, in the Lifeclock room in DS Headquarters, in the Mazecar stations, etc. It's a bit different in layout from the palm crystal, and a lot more symmetrical and evenly laid out. The outer crystals come to even sharper points than my version of the palm crystals do.

 

[SiR]

I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade here but I keep seeing references to a 'hero crystal' and I honestly believe there was no such thing .
Think about it; most of the other props - including the working flame guns and the wooden followers - don't really hold up to very close scrutiny so why on earth would they bother making an extraordinarily detailed palm crystal when you don't even see them in extreme close-up in Logan or Jessica's hands?

It is far more probable that the poor quality recasts seen on this thread and others actually represent the true shape of all those worn by actors in the original movie.

 

[Jintosh]

Jintosh:
What doesn't satisfy me about your version ( and I don't mean to offend) is that it looks too flat to me. On all my copies and the photos I've seen the center crystals are set well below the outer crystals, like a little well in the center. In fact, I might scale the ones in mine so they don't stick up even this much.

In your render, it looks kinda flat as well, can you measure the height of the center crystal at the highest and the height of the tallest point of the outside crystal to find (just) the difference?

But, yes, I think my center crystals are high. It's just hard to come up with a proper height.

 

[Jintosh]

View attachment 592836It is far more probable that the poor quality recasts seen on this thread and others actually represent the true shape of all those worn by actors in the original movie.

My version is just a cleaner version of what you display here. So, yes, I feel I shouldn't get far away from this appearance.

 

[Jintosh]

The two crystals that the arrows point to are NOT the same shape...but they are both the left half of a pair of crystals.
My crystals are all identical. Should I try to duplicate the non-symmetrical nature of these crystals ?

 

[epoxinator]

Jintosh: Only if you want to. I actually prefer the symmetrical look, and that's why I have taken mine in that direction. It's also my way of marking mine as a reproduction, not as an original.

I imagine that all these separate crystals were cut by hand and then fitted together to make a master mold, so they are not going to all be the same shape. The problem with trying to find these original shapes is, the copies are so blobby and so uneven that parts of the original didn't make it into the cast, and parts you think are original are a bit of flash that whoever made the copy didn't properly remove, and subsequent casts of the copy and recasting has made it even harder to figure out exactly what the original shape was.

 

[Jintosh]

Good point. My crystal is an idealized design...not an exact copy.

In looking, I think it is more typical of the outside crystals to be pointed instead of a flat side in the middle.
I may rework that.

 

[Jintosh]

I've tried to find a happy place between ideal and organic.

 

[SiR]

The Japanese dvd release has a closeup of (presumably) Jenny Agutter's green crystal. This is about as good a shot of a 'hero' lifeclock as you're likely to get - hope it helps.

 

[epoxinator]

SiR, I think this is a composite photo, because the perspectives of the crystal and of the hand don't look the same. The hand looks angled down while the crystal looks angled up.

By the way, if anyone is interested, this site has a crapload of screen grabs of the entire movie, grabbed a second or two apart:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/6f2l4gdf59rpe/Logan's_Run_(1976)

You can go through 60-odd pages and pick which you want, or download 3 ZIP files containing every picture. Each picture is 1920X800. Here is a sample:

 

[HaggardSage]

This is one of the reasons why I love this place. So many great props from movies I had forgotten about. Nice work! If it were a larger size, I could one of these as a paper weight at work for things that need to be taken care of during the current week.

 

[epoxinator]

This isn't the palm crystal, but I've finally gotten Pepakura to work and am trying out making a paper cutout crystal.

 

[epoxinator]

It's been since March and I wondered if any more progress has been made on your lifeclock.

 

[Jintosh]

Yes, I'll post something either Saturday or Monday.

I started multiple projects, but I promise I'll come back to this one soon

 

[kbsfx]

Just read this post. I've been in the film industry since 1976 and was given a set of life clocks by the propmaster way back when as I started my career. I can see there is a debate on what the actual clock looks like, so if anyone care for it, I can do a set of macro shots of the originals that I have and post them.

Many Blessing
K

 

[Jintosh]

Just read this post. I've been in the film industry since 1976 and was given a set of life clocks by the propmaster way back when as I started my career. I can see there is a debate on what the actual clock looks like, so if anyone care for it, I can do a set of macro shots of the originals that I have and post them.

Many Blessing
K

That would be AWWWWWWESOME !!!!!

Yes, please !

 

[Jintosh]

...........

While we're waiting, here's the most recent pics.

 

[epoxinator]

Still hoping KBSFX will post macro shots of the film-era lifeclocks.