Comics2Film's coverage of our November visit to the set of 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' continues...
After leaving our brunch with Don Payne, we get on a bus and make our way to the studio. We park the bus and make our way inside. We are walked through an area that is clearly used as a set, and we see pieces of the Fantasticar, but only briefly as we are rushed into a small area where ... wait for it ... wait for it ... we find ourselves face to face with the Fantasticar.
And the first reaction, which by now is old news, "The Fantasticar is a Dodge?!?"
We are soon joined by designer Tim Flattery, and the questions start flying.
QUESTION: How did Dodge fit into the story? Did they build the engine, or provide some parts?
TIM FLATTERY: It's a question for Tim [Story], but yeah, there's reference to Dodge's involvement in design for the car. There's definitely reference to it in the script, so I think it plays out, kind of a humorous moment.
Q: Can you talk about the design concept?
TF: I don't know if you're familiar with the Fantasticar from the comics, from the 60s, but it's kind of a neat thing for back then, but not so ... it doesn't apply so much for film. It's more like kind of a flying bathtub. So you know, in sitting down with Tim, we discussed what it should be, and what it's gotta do, and I went away and did a bunch of sketches, and his reaction to them was, 'It's not a predator, it's gotta be something that's really aggressive and cool and yet soft', so I started drawing from nature. A lot of times if I get stuck, I'll start looking through books of bugs and undersea, and kept referring back to manta rays and stingrays, and that's basically where the shape is derived from - you can see an organicness to how it undulates and the ways that it moves. Basically, once he saw it - it was pretty close to this design, and I came into it knowing that I had something that I knew he was gonna respond to ... 'That's it'. Then it was a matter of just refining it from there.
Q: And there's always a challenge of not making it look like the X-Jet or the Batmobile ...
TF: There's always that challenge. And I, having done one of the Batmobiles, I tend to ... people for some reason immediately see Batmobile in everything. I don't know why, I think it's because it's such an icon. So that was a real challenge for this, it can't be ... it's gotta be something that is so individual in its design, recognizable for what it is. So, hence we need something more organic, more soft.
Q: Can it break apart like the original?
TF: Yeah, it does, it breaks apart in three pieces. You can see joints, this is where it comes apart, and then I don't know if you guys remember the stage next door...
Q: We walked by.
TF: Okay, you'll see, that's what it looks like after it's broken apart. It blows apart, you disengage it by these handles up in the top cockpit and the three pieces separate out and then there's y'know, wings that come out and things like that. You'll see.
Q: Why three, not four, pieces?
TF: We kept Johnny and Sue together in the middle cockpit. It was a creative decision by Tim. It makes more sense in this design, too. Just to have one in the front, and obviously an oversized rear cockpit for Ben Grimm. We made these joysticks and painted them, shot them, looked at them, and we said 'Yeah, here's Ben Grimm's joystick', and they said 'There's no way, there's no way, that's way too big, it'll look like a joke on film,' so we went down to Spectral and they put a standard in, in the perfect size, and now it's in the car.
Q: Does each piece relate to that person or their powers? Is there any correlation?
TF: No, only that Reed is obviously in the front, running the show on the car, and that in the rear, Ben - everything is accommodating his size. And once it breaks apart, they're all on their own, but that's as far as it goes.
Q: Did they build practical versions of this to drive?
TF: Well this is a practical version. I mean, even though this flies, it's set up on the gimbal for green screen on the set, all these areas here you can see it's fit for cables, as well as working monitors that the navigation, whatever information they have, obviously they can't see each other, so there's intercom units where they can see each other on screen and talk to each other. So it's a full, working prop. It's not the Batmobile where there's a great block crate motor ... that can go a hundred miles per hour.
Q: Does this seal off for all-weather use?
TF: That's what you have Sue for. Also, the area of the windshield and all the top along the beltline is designed, we paid close attention to it when we did the digital model. That, in wind, it's all flowing over the top of your head. In a wind tunnel, it would force right over the top.
Q: It's strictly a flying vehicle? It doesn't have wheels?
TF: It hovers all the time. It uses the same technology for thrust as ... it's an ion generator, so it's a clean-burning engine that's based on an electrical charge as opposed to a gas motor. It uses a photon accelerator for lift, which is existing technology, too. If you get a chance to look underneath, you'll see in each quadrant there's a fan, and those are the lifting plants. And it's just the photon accelerator that creates the magnetic field and gives it its lift.
Q: How much did it cost to build this?
TF: It's a tough question to answer, because we built this in conjunction with the breakaways, so it was split. I'd say, all in total, a million two.
Q: How long did it take to build?
TF: To physically build this? From the start of construction to the end, it was about four months. And about another month for the breakaways.
Q: Is this the only one there is?
TF: This is the only full vehicle there is. And then, the breakaways, those are the only breakaways. We didn't make two. This is it. This one will also break away for shooting, for shootability; if you wanna take the front end off so you can get a camera in there and shoot up over Jessica Alba and get a close-up of her face from underneath, it will do that.
Q: These are molds that were just rolled and poured?
TF: Yeah, that's actually interesting, when we did the Batmobile, we scuplted the whole thing full-size out of clay, and then molded it from there. But now, we'll take my design and build it digitally in a program called Alias and from that map, we'll mill all the tooling, or the molds, directly off of the model. So we'll mill all the negatives of these skins, and then lay out , this is all high temp epoxy, it's not fiberglass, it's high temp epoxy with a composite core in it. And we'll lay that out inside the mold and then pull the parts off and finish 'em that way. So there's no sculpting anymore to give the shape, it just goes right from the digital model to a mill that cuts it out. Which is a great process, it saves a lot of time.
Q: So, no stopping.
TF: Yeah, otherwise, the Batmobile took us ... it takes forever to sculpt complex surfaces like this. Then you need serious talent to make sure your highlights track and you're getting what you want.
Q: Which Batmobile did you do?
TF: From Batman Forever. And I don't know if you're familiar with what that one looked like, it had the ribcage down the middle and we had to sculpt it in a bunch of different pieces because you couldn't mold it all together like that. If we were able to do that Batmobile the same way we did this, it would've taken half the time.
Q: Was there a particular version of the Fantasticar from the comics that inspired the look, or did you just go off on your own?
TF: Well, I was trying, because I'm a comic nut, I try and pay homage to what's been there, and what I grew up with and what I know people are familiar with. But in this case, what's been done in the comics for the Fantasticar, and it only shows up here and there, wasn't, it just didn't apply to the movie. So I tried to keep it in the back of my head, but really, just the tone of the movie and the tone of the characters in the movie are what drove this, as opposed to the comic. And the homage to the comic is that it does break apart, like it does the comic. And I think in the comic, I remember it being white, this was gonna be blue for the longest time. And then we ended up changing it to a silver later on down the road. It looks sleeker, it helps with the Silver Surfer. It complements him, and the big decision was because of the costumes. We wanted something to accent the costumes.
Q: Was this ever up on a gimbal?
TF: It's up on a gimbal all the time, yeah. The cradle that it's sitting on now, where you see the flanks, that it's resting on that cradle, that's where the gimbal picks it up.
Q: Does the new process help to make this lighter or sturdier as well?
TF: Oh yeah. You have to pay attention to the frame structure, which gets engineered and designed first, and if we were to do this out of, like, a polyester or fiberglass or something like that, to get the same kind of strength, it'd be twice as heavy. But because we're using composites, you're able to lighten that up considerably, and it has a heavy enough frame already. Because it's gotta split apart, you gotta have that structure in there to keep it strong when you're clamping it together. So you really want a light skin, a light thin skin. So you can walk all over this and nothing'll happen to it.
Q: Does that mean you're capable of being more violent with it?
TF: Oh yeah, 'cause you don't worry about body panels cracking on you, twisting or contorting or whatever. They're bulletproof.
Q: The actors must not like you.
TF: Well, [laughs] no, it's not me, it's the guy running the gimbal. Hey, the more jerking around, the more they can get into character. That's the way I see it.
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of our time spent with Tim and the Fantasticar!
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
