Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061165
4 4 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 9 R E S O U R C E S A. THE C-17 COCKPIT FROM SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. B. THE C-17 SETUP FOR SHOOTING FROM SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING. C. SPITFIRE FROM DUNKIRK BEING FILMED AT FALLS LAKE AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. PHOTO WARNER BROS. Art Director, details, "The story on Spider-Man: Homecoming originally opened with the hijacking of a C17 Cargo Transport. The Vulture was going to board the plane from the outside and enter the cockpit mid-flight. With due diligence, I looked through all the usual places for rental cockpits. They were disappointing to say the least—all very bad matches for a C17. Both in the window breakups and the electronics (if there were any at all). I felt that for once, we should have an absolutely authentic cockpit and believed it was possible with Scroggins Aviation dedicated to the task. We made a plan. They started acquiring the necessary parts, the nose cockpit shell, consoles, all the existing parts. They were a couple of months into the work. Suddenly, the script changed— it was no longer a standard C17 but a more futuristic, Tony Stark version. Production Designer Oliver Scholl had to come up with a new design that was more than just a military transport. It had a sexier profile—sort of the Audi A8 of transports. But now we had to keep to the cockpit window breakup of a C17. Scroggins adjusted for us and added more custom instrument panel features, special touch pads and joysticks that we asked for. The Stark logo showed that it was Tony's creation (and Oliver's). Marvel was happy to know that the C17 cockpit could play as either a truly authentic version, which recurs in some of their other movies, or as the new, sleeker Stark Transport." In order to be historically accurate for Dunkirk, Nathan Crowley, Production Designer, and Kevin Ishioka, Supervising Art Director, requested a Spitfire mock-up with an additional authentic period instrument panel to be outfitted with gauges. Doug's team first supplied a 1:1 scale Spitfire with an integrated steel structure to facilitate its mounting onto a motion base. This allowed for both a wild nose section and aft fuselage, which provided flexibility for camera angles, as well as the ability to mount a special effects rig to the mock-up. Scroggins also built an instrument panel using historic drawings, sourced period gauges, and even built a specific fuel gauge which was ultimately featured as the hero gauge in the cockpit. The panel needed to resemble a Spitfire MK-1 panel, as it would be placed in the flyable Yak that played in the film. Doug Scroggins adds, "Supplying the full-size Spitfire and making the changes for this production was fun and challenging. We even made rivets and glued them to the sections of the skin behind the pilot and around the canopy frame for A B C C O N T I N U E D F R O M P A G E 4 3