Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1043753
APOLLO 11 COMMAND MODULE AND LUNAR LANDER 1/6TH SCALE MINIATURE TYLER PERRY STUDIOS In 2011, I found myself recovering from surgery for five months and decided to learn a 3D program called Modo. I needed a design and modeling tool that could also speak directly to my illustrators and draftsman. Before Modo, I had been a pencil draftsman and model building designer. Those were my tools. Learning Modo was one of the most difficult things I can remember doing. Interstellar was my proving ground. I only used Modo to design the show. I now exclusively use Modo to design, and with 3D printers, I can concept model any design quickly. It allows me to move around architecture as fast as my mind can imagine the space, whereas before, by the time I had drawn it with a pencil, I already had moved through the environment in my head and changed it. From this came the realization that I could 3D print directly from Modo to create small models quickly, and from models came miniatures. If I could bring miniatures back into the Art Department, producing them cheaply on my own 3D printers. I could play with a larger Art Department staff and material budgets, allowing more flexibility with funds. In a sense, an empire is built. I had 3D printed some tabletop miniatures for The Greatest Showman's 1860s New York flyover, which were quite successful and cheap using six Makerbot 3D printers I own. My assistant Jessica LaBarbera ran the printers and printed some five hundred buildings. We forced the perspective to shorten the model using different scaled buildings. Finally, we could produce miniatures in the Art Department at a low cost. No need for endless meetings about miniature vendors (most of whom do not exist anymore) and ultimately, the sidelining of miniatures to post production where they get reduced and lost. We could now make them in the Art Department and potentially shoot them alongside the main unit. Nothing new about the technique, but the process of 3D printing was a game changer. Damien Chazelle came to meet me with the intent of shooting First Man on film and "in camera." This was wonderful news. I shared with him everything I had learned about "in camera" techniques on Interstellar. Front projection, interior builds and full-size exterior crafts were used. Gimbal builds were done on stage to shoot the docking between the spacecraft, which when mixed with full-size