Ian Hunter - Super Model
Ian Hunter is the co-founder of New Deal Studios. He’s a model maker and award-winning visual effects supervisor for Hollywood films.
Ian’s worked on some brilliant movies (as well as some he describes as somewhat less brilliant) - and in recent years has collaborated with Christopher Nolan to bring some incredible visions to the screen: Inception, Interstellar, the Dark Knight films… but that’s just the tip of the iceberg in a career spanning over 70 films to date.
He’s blown up, burned down or otherwise destroyed most of the things he’s built over his career, all in the name of art - and has made miniatures that are significantly larger than most full size objects.
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
miniature, visual effects, models, movie, blow, create, shot, christopher nolan, film, artists, interstellar, build, special effects, work, realise, scale, people, part, batman, images
SPEAKERS
Ian Hunter, Andrew Dubber
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. I’m the director of Music Tech Fest, and this is the MTF podcast. Now if you’re looking for a line of work that brings together art and science, the hands on craft of the maker and the intellectual insight of the physicist, you want it to be glamorous, but you also want to get your hands dirty. You want to create exquisite objects, but then smash them blow them up or set them on fire. Ian Hunter has the job you’re after he’s an award winning special effects supervisor. He makes miniatures and models for well let me name a few movies you might have heard of The Abyss, Blade Runner, Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Alien Resurrection, Godzilla, X Files, Pitch Black, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, X Men The Last Stand, Bad Boys 2, Spider Man 3, Diehard 4, Fast and Furious 5, Night at the Museum, I Am Legend, The Incredible Hulk, Dark Night, Watchmen, Green Lantern, Inception, Interstellar, First Man. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of his 70 or so Hollywood films to date. 16 Oscar nominations, 2 wins. I was lucky enough to sit down with Ian in a little chapel in Scotland, where our story kind of begins. Here’s Ian Hunter. So Ian, you make models for movies? That’s got to start somewhere. Tell me about your first models, huh?
Ian Hunter
Yeah. So I had a father who’s Scottish in June, and he was an artist moved to the states and had a family. I have two brothers. I’m the baby of the family. I’m like over six foot four. But you know, there I am baby of the family. Anyway, he encouraged us to be creative. And he encouraged us to draw and paint and everything like this. But the other thing I think he did was he gave us model kits. And I think that was to get us out of his hair. Okay, speak. So as the younger one might have
Andrew Dubber
something to keep you occupied. Yeah,
Ian Hunter
yeah. And but but you know, models are great for that. For someone with a creative mind, you’ve got all these parts pieces, and you have a goal, which is to put them together and create this finished product. And, and then so in your head in your imagination, you’re flying Spitfire, you’re flying measures met or whatever. And but you’ve got all the pieces in front of you. So to get to that point where you can let your imagination sort of run wild, you’ve got to get it built. And so that, for me was a very early part of my development, to see models and see the goal, which was to get them completed and see all the parts. And Funny enough, in visual effects. There’s a very similar method in terms of creating visual effects, which is you have this goal, which is the final product. And now you, you have to take it apart, you have to reverse the process, make it into its pieces, once you’ve made the pieces, you then go forward again and reassemble them. But you’ve got that goal in mind, which is going to be the final product. And Funny enough, you know, starting out as a child building models, I never thought that I would ever be able to use that skill set was really interesting skill set. Because it’s not just a creative thing, or an artistic thing. It’s also an incredibly technical thing as well. And you seem to bring those worlds together really clearly, which leads Do you think the creative is the lead, but the creative is a wandering child without the technical. And what’s been so great for me is I realised that I had the ability to sort of take the bigger picture and see the broader worldview of something like a visual effect sequence. And, and then, by decimating it into smaller pieces, I could find the right people that have the skills to apply them to the particular parts, you know, so I’ve got craftsmen who are great at sculpting or fabricating pieces, I’ve got engineers who are brilliant, who technically can build something that can work reliably, and tough and blow up and do all these other things. And very few of them, though, I think have the ability to sort of look at the overall picture and be able to fit it all together. But that’s okay. Because their specific skill set and a plot and then me having the ability to see where they fit into that puzzle, and create that team.
Andrew Dubber
So you have the overview and how not just how all the parts of the of the miniature fit together but how all the parts of the team that make them get there as well.
Ian Hunter
And it’s funny how you can get a team going and the trick is to find the personalities and not only have the skill set, but have the ability to work together and, and have that common goal in mind. And if you can inspire them and explain to them what they’re striving for. Then they keep going In that direction, if you keep information from them, they feel isolated. They don’t feel like they’re being artists who are contributing to that greater product. So I’ve also found that over the years, you need to be inclusive and make them feel part of the team, because they’ll give you much more effort. And if they feel like they’re being appreciated as artists, even though they’re doing technical things, but every, you know, a welder is an amazing artist, if they’re concentrating on doing the perfect weld and doing the perfect metal fabrication. So encouraging technicians, encouraging artists and couraging craftsmen to apply themselves. You get tenfold the results, versus isolating them and and saying you don’t need to know any of this. You don’t need to know this stuff. You just need to use a little part of the job. They want to know what it is that they’re working on. They want to contribute they want to feel, you know, the analogy is it’s funny, we’re in a for those listening. We’re at a church and and there’s always the old story about the two bricklayers. You know that story where the man walks across and there’s two guys laying bricks. And first guys laying bricks and the man ask, what are you doing? And the guy says, huh, I’m laying bricks. It goes to the second man. And the second man’s got a huge smile on his face. He’s very happy what he’s doing, and says, What are you doing? He says, I’m building a cathedral. Right?
Andrew Dubber
Yeah.
Ian Hunter
It’s the same job. But knowing that this is ultimately going to be you’re going to be part of a greater whole makes a huge difference. It also helps if you know what you’re working towards.
Andrew Dubber
Yes, yeah. Yeah. So in terms of where you end up, I mean, not. I mean, lots of people, when they’re kids, they build models and their father sends them off with kitsets to make Messerschmidts that don’t all end up blowing things up for Christopher Nolan. So what is the path that takes you there?
Ian Hunter
didn’t think it would go that way. I always wanted to work in films, always love films, always, of course, was attracted to special effects right off the bat. Huge fan, my brothers and I, my father even of Ray Harryhausen, who’s sort of the penultimate, special effects practitioner, but I was also very appreciative of a guy named Albert Whitlock, who is lesser known, who worked on Hitchcock movies and things. He was a matte painter. And so while Harryhausen worked in fantasy, Whitlock worked in dramas, okay. And so his work was always hidden, it was always part of the narrative part of the storytelling. And, and when I found out that, you know what, he did his matte painting, or you build little models, he worked on the movie, the Hindenburg, and he shot the Hindenburg once in a while, and to see his work and realise what he was doing, extending the story telling, also inspired me, but you know, that’s me as a kid, I get out I, for some reason, think that I can go into aerospace. And so I have the, the technical side was engineering studies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And unfortunately, I ended up sort of dropping out and not pursuing the aerospace. Because I was told that, well, you’re not going to build aeroplanes, you know? And I was like, but this one would do, I’m gonna get my hands dirty. And so sorry, got disillusioned with the aerospace part. dropped out. Got a job building plastic tanks for soaking circuit boards in acid. Okay, so I’m working with plastics and chemicals. awful, awful job, can’t stand it. Got to get out of it. So I actually saw an advert for model builder. I thought, well, I used to build models. As a kid, I still build models. I’ve done a little bit of work. I’ve got some pictures of it. I’m going to apply for this job. It’s got to be better than working in plastics and chemicals, which I’m doing now. I go interview fantastic start Monday. I’m like, Oh, my God, they must be really impressed with me. And I start working. And there’s two other people working with me building models for a movie, I’m so happy. And there’s a girl next to me and a guy next to me. And I say I need her. I’m a model maker. And what do you do? And the woman says, Well, I’m a student at Cal Arts, which is the art school in California. I said, Okay, well, you know, you’re an art student. That’s great. You’re building models, but I’m building models too. And then I look at the guy next to me and I say, I mean Hunter, I’m a model maker, what do you do? And he says, I am Dimitri I am a ballet artists and just got here from Russia. And like, oh, they’re hiring literally anyone off the street to do this work so so as little disillusion with all modelmaking but it turns out, I’m pretty good at it. And and that movie was the best so it was the very first movie that I sort of professionally worked on.
Andrew Dubber
Wow. And that’s that’s legendary for visual effects as well. So it’s,
Ian Hunter
it’s I think it still holds up very well today. And it was great movie because And combined what we call analogue effects, you know, practical miniatures and things like that. But it also had one of the very first digital creations, which was the water tentacle that comes through. Yeah. And it was very impressive. So a nice sort of initiation to be able to work in a James Cameron film that was respected so well for a visual effects.
Andrew Dubber
Absolutely. And so just for clarity, if we’re talking about visual effects, we’re talking about special effects. What what’s the difference how these things defined,
Ian Hunter
um, special effects, primarily relates to actual practical effects that are happening on set. So if you’re flipping a car, if there’s rain outside the door, the fires going on, and there’s actors involved, and you see that, that’s special effects. Visual Effects is a bit broader term. These days, that means normally 98 99% of the time, it means digital effects,
Andrew Dubber
presumably, that number is getting Yeah,
Ian Hunter
so so what I do, which is very niche is miniatures, which is still a visual effect, because it’s not something you do live on set. It’s, you know, you’re building something smaller than full size. So therefore, it’s no, it’s, it’s an illusion, it’s a visual effect, again, that you’re trying to make people believe what you’re seeing is real. And in fact, it’s not. But it also involves practical or special effects in that we have to pull it with blow it up, we have to do all those things. So we take all the disciplines that were in practical effects, special effects, which is the live real stuff, and apply it to the miniatures. And then often what we’ve shot, then goes into Visual Effects, where it’s combined with the live action combined with digital backgrounds, etc. So I think the best work is hybrid. When when filmmakers have the, you know, a full toolbox of both special effects and visual effects available to them, and can pick and choose and combine them together to create the best illusion, because I’ll often say no, you should do that digitally. Or you should do that as a matte painting, you should put you know, I’ll push people that direction when I think creatively, and technically that’s a better solution. But I’ll also advocate shooting it for real, if possible, because real is real.
Andrew Dubber
Right? To what extent does that matter anymore?
Ian Hunter
Um, you know, the thing is, when you’re dealing with, I would say, the superhero movies where you’re dealing with or transformers, we’re dealing with the suspension of disbelief, you know, you’re in a fantasy world, you know, these people really can’t fly, they’re not really turning into screen giants. But you’re accepting them anyway. Yeah, then at that point, I think digital animation and all this other things that we’re doing in that world are completely acceptable and completely. You know, something I can I can watch the movie and enjoy it. I know, it’s a fact. But I’m fine with it. Yeah. And it’s getting better. You know, that the simulations of people and skin and the believability that you’re looking at on a real character that could cannot exist in the real world? I buy it, I’m fine with that. Yeah. Where it becomes I think different is when you’re doing a drama, which is supposed to be set in the real world. And if a digital effect is not perfect, in a drama, which is supposed to be realistic, it takes you out of the storytelling, it breaks that fourth wall and you’re like suddenly realising subconsciously, you’re not looking at reality. So it’s, it’s it’s a higher bar, I think, on a drama to to create effects, either practically or digitally. That don’t take you out of the story.
Andrew Dubber
Right? To be clear, when you say miniature The first thing in my mind, is something the size of this coffee cup. But when you when you say many do you mean something usually quite more substantial than that?
Ian Hunter
Yeah, for me, miniature means less than full size and, and wheda who did the Lord of the Rings movies, when they film those, they built some models and they built these miniatures that were you know, larger than then something that you could fit on a tabletop these these miniatures, filled spaces in stages. And so they were, you know, 30 feet across and 16 feet tall and things like that. And they started calling them big archers. Okay. Oh my god, they’re so huge the big archers, and like no, it’s still a miniature if it’s less than full size. And, and I actually worked on the movie. Waterworld, right. And, and we built the Exxon Valdez as a miniature in eighth scale. So even though it’s a miniature, because it’s based on this giant oil tanker, the miniature was 108 feet long and could be seen from space. Yeah, so it’s bigger than this coffee cup here,
Andrew Dubber
this coffee cup. Yeah, so so so what we’re doing is even though it’s smaller than full size, we still have to build it large enough to do the effect. It has to do, right? If it’s involved in water, it needs to be big if it’s going to burn or blow up, it needs to be big enough for the physics to still work. Because that’s that’s a really interesting aspect of this, because there’s a lot of physics and what’s involved, particularly when you start getting into explosions and trajectories, and all those sorts of things, does the scale, you know, to what extent does the scale matter. And at that point, whether it’s eight scale of six scale, or 16th, or whatever it might be,
Ian Hunter
well, the smaller you get, and scale, the higher frame rate, you have to go in order to create the illusion of mass and, and gravity, okay. And basically, what my analogy is this, if you were standing there, and you had a tennis ball on your, in your outstretched arm, you dropped it. And if you’re normal sized person that’s about five feet in the air, and it’s going to take maybe half a second to hit the ground. Okay, everyone knows that subconsciously, that’s a person dropping a tennis ball. But if I’m supposed to be a giant 50 feet tall, and I dropped that tennis ball, which is like a person or something, and it hits the ground, and half a second later, well, I know, they know I’m not the gravity, that’s all gravity is, yeah, it’s like it should be slowed down, it should take longer for that to hit the ground. So you need to speed up the camera speed of the camera to create the illusion of mass by slowing down the action. And the bigger the scale, of course, the slower you can get the camera to go and still create the illusion of mass. But the other thing is, is an issue which is especially with water is the size of water droplets, water has a certain surface tension. And it’s really hard to like, change that, you know, use a different material, hit it with air, you can do some sort of some tricks to break that apart. But again, subconsciously, a person looks at that. And if it’s if the drops are too big, they know they’re looking something it’s not full sized. So in the case of of water work, we tend to build diminishes much larger. And then when you start getting into fire, you can get away a little bit smaller, when you start blowing things up. Because you’re adding force you’re adding the explosive energy is actually moving things at a greater rate than would happen with gravity, you can actually start getting smaller and scale. So as a for instance, we did a movie called Godzilla where we had to blow up the Chrysler Building. And that was 24 scale. So person would be about three inches tall. But we were able to build that model, which was still 16 feet tall. But we’re using pyrotechnics to blow it up. And it looks correct and scale because we were shooting at the right frame rate and the explosives were the correct size. And they looked slowed down because we were shooting at the frame rate. So it’s all dependent on the physics is all dependent on what the function is going to be. And and then experience.
Andrew Dubber
One of the things that for me really communicates the mass and the scale of something that has been made smaller, but as designed to look big is the sound and the music and those sorts of things. How closely Do you work with that?
Ian Hunter
Interestingly, I don’t get to work with the sound department very much. I would hope that they are looking at something that’s convincing them that they’re looking at something real. So they’ll apply their skills to that do work with the editors quite a bit. Because editors sometimes have a tendency to look at visual effects as sort of this redheaded stepchild part of the industry. And so they just want to sort of cut this thing in and they don’t realise that it’s no, it’s part of your it’s part of your film, it’s part of the storytelling. So pick the right part of the scene and pick the right part of the shot that works and tells the story. So I tend to shoot things longer than necessary to give them the flexibility to find the sweet spot. Yeah. So editors are more important. But here’s a here’s a funny story. So I worked on the Disney movie and one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and we shot this miniature waggon and it’s supposed to be Johnny Depp is pulling this waggon through and they never got the shot. So we shot this waggon it’s on fire, but we build it in quarter scale. So the fire held up. And we got it done. And they went to editorial. And the supervisor said, Okay, did you cut in the miniature shot yet? And the editor said, Oh no, no, we found we found a live action shot. We put that instead. And then the supervisor looked and said, Oh no, no, that’s the miniature shot. So the editors didn’t even realise that they were getting a special effects shot. We had done a good enough job to fool them. If we fool them, then we’ve done that’s amazing. And and
Andrew Dubber
the list of films that you’ve worked on us as as far as visual effects goes pretty substantial and pretty impressive. I mean, obviously inception, Batman films Christopher Nolan ones and now you have an Oscar. Yes, you want to tell me a little bit about that?
Ian Hunter
I have two Oscars actually. Um, so I
Andrew Dubber
apologise.
Ian Hunter
It’s okay. I know this. So yeah, I ganging Oscar to me is is Richard Branson’s definition of luck, which is Branson was asked, you know, did you feel lucky being a billionaire, whatever, whatever he’s worth these days and, and he said well luck to him was when perseverance meets opportunity. So I’ve been in this business for a long time, I’ve always strived to do a good job, you know, I don’t want to cheat people on what they’re what I’m providing them. I’m an audience member. So I want to look at my work as an audience member and, and do a good job and be impressed by it. So I’ve been very fortunate over the years to work with some good directors and great directors, and Christopher Nolan is one of them. And by maintaining that quality of work, you start to move up and you can start to get nose for what you’ve done. And it culminated in the work for Interstellar, where we got the visual effects Academy Award for that along with the other three supervisors. So that was great. But that to me, that was like, Okay, well, this is this is because we’ve all worked towards the same goal, which is to good quality work. And we’ve maintained that quality throughout the years, and now we’re being recognised for it. And then, very quickly, on the heels of that I worked on, first man. And first man, again, was another film that received the visual effects Academy Award, and I got one of those two. So now I’ve got two for doing space movies. I don’t want to be typecast. But both instances, which which was good was we are working with great directors who had visions and who could communicate those visions to their crews, and who had that respect. So I think it’s just this convergence. Christopher Nolan’s make good movies, I happen to work on some of them. Damien chazelle, make good movies, I work on his last one. It’s, you know, they’re brilliant movies are my opinion. But you know, the brilliant movies are good movies. And, and these guys encourage good artists to do good work. And I think that’s just
Andrew Dubber
people finally recognise that what’s really interesting to me is the difference of approach of those specifically, those two films in space, one of them being shot against a black background, and one of them being shot against this incredibly huge screen that that you built, I guess to sort of provide the, the realistic reflections and so on.
Ian Hunter
Yeah, so Interstellar, actually. There were projectors, we used digital projectors on front screen material for outside the windows of the spaceship. So whenever you were looking through the windows, and the actors were there, they were actually looking at Space being generated there. So Interstellar also is a film that there’s only one green screenshot the whole film, the rest of it was either done in camera as much as possible. Or in the case of our special spaceships, we shot against black, and then used digital rotoscoping abilities to isolate the models and put the space backgrounds in. But that kept the images very pure, and we didn’t get spill and all these other things. So it was worth the effort because the purity of the images that were being created. In the case of first man, you know, it was only a few years difference between Interstellar and first man. But by then, technology had advanced enough that we now could take the LED screens and create the giant wall of LED screen setting was 60 foot by 30 foot tall, 60 foot wide, that we could put the spaceships against. And that was used primarily for the full size, mock ups and cockpit. So again, you’re looking out the window and you’re seeing the images. And the actors are able to react to it. We were doing one take where they were shooting the landing of the moon. And, and Ryan Gosling is looking at the window and the camera operators like what’s he looking at and was able to pan over and look out the window also. So having the images there informs the actors and forms the performances but also informs the operation of the camera operator and everybody else, just having that image there, as opposed to just having a green screen and you know, filling it in after the last minute. So it’s very important. It’s it really affected the shoot. The trick doing that is if you just have a green screen, you can add it in post. Yeah. When you have that LED screen there and you have to have it in camera. That means you have to create the effects before photography circles. Yeah, sure. So that was a that was a very front end loaded movie. To to do that, and it only would have worked because Damien was very prepared and he had storyboards. And created this, you know, environment, the scenario that he could shoot those backgrounds in camera as much as possible. Funny enough, most of the miniature work we did on that we also shot against black, but very much like we did in interstellar. And then DNEG, who also did the work on Interstellar. We removed any of the mana movers and any of the rigging it showed and just put it against pure black background. Interestingly enough, because we’re trying to be very realistic in first man, if you look at the actual footage, that was, we were matching. Oftentimes, if you’re facing the sun, in space, you see no stars, because they’re blown out by sunlight. So sometimes we would have stars in the backgrounds, but oftentimes, we would just be in the black void, which would be very realistic for the photography. Okay.
Andrew Dubber
And I guess that your career, particularly with the kinds of films that you’ve ended up working on, but and I’m thinking here of the Batman films, for instance, you spend months making something and then see it destroyed in seconds. And then I guess, start all over again, what’s that? Like?
Ian Hunter
You know, Batman, it’s been an interesting world for me, because I actually worked on Batman Returns, which was the Tim Burton. Okay, and then, like, Ah, that’s great, you know, and at the time, it wasn’t as well received. Now it’s sort of considered the citizen, you know, or certainly better than Canada. And then, and like, Oh, that’s great. And then I got to work on Batman and Robin, which is not the Citizen Kane of Batman cheese. And, and we’re proud of the work but man the movie was, was not. We call it Batman on ice, which was not very good. So it’s like, down down low. And then Christopher Nolan comes along and does Dark Knight and we get asked to work on that, and Dark Knight rise. And so we sort of got redeemed from the Batman and Robin world. And I was told by the supervisor on Dark Knight that we were never dimensioned, Batman or Robin, and that was verboten. So I just wanted to forget about that. But here’s the funny thing about what we do. I mean, we’re storytellers, we’re creating these images that are going to convey something that’s happening, destruction, or, you know, some sort of pivotal moment in the story. And so we’re building these models, but these models are sort of like, better lack of a better term, they’re there. They’re part of a performance art piece, if you will, yeah. They are created to be destroyed, where they’re creating them specifically to put them into this scenario and into this event, and we’re capturing that phenomenon with cameras. And so we want to see how it blows up. And so I guess destroys the film is the cathedral
Andrew Dubber
and not the miniatures. Yeah,
Ian Hunter
yeah. And that’s the difference too, is I’ve I’ve worked with people who are like, obsessed with the model and think that, you know, like, Don’t touch my precious model. And like, No, you don’t understand it’s, it’s a means to an end. My mentor, a guy named Mark Stetson, who was a supervisor who sort of worked with for many years, taught me that very early on he says, The model is, is just what’s how you get, that’s how we get there. It’s what we put on on the screen. That’s going to be the lasting peace. And so if we build the fortress for inception, yeah. And it’s supposed to be destroyed and we don’t do it well, then it’s it’s not it karma has not been fulfilled, it’s it’s now this sad thing that like wants to be destroyed and reborn. And if we don’t destroy it, it’s it’s,
Andrew Dubber
it’s meaningless. That’s an incredibly impressive construction. That isn’t one of the things he pointed out that that was me.
Ian Hunter
Yeah, yeah. That was the for New Deal studios, which is a company that was the largest model we build is 47 foot tall, huge miniature mountainside. And, and we were very involved in designing the sequence in terms of how it fell apart and how it broke up and working in the previous so it’s satisfying to be at the genesis of that, yeah, to work out the creative aspect of it and then do all the technical and finally pull off the shot.
Andrew Dubber
Is the kid making models that at a young age happy with where he’s into
Ian Hunter
here’s, here’s the unfortunate thing I mentioned my father, who was an artist and he taught my brothers and I to be our own worst critics. Like you know, a really true artist will always look at his work or her work and say, Well, what can I do better? What could I’ve done, you know, something like that. So funny enough, as much as I’ve done the thumbnail all these movies and yes, gotten awards and yes, recognition and yes, the work is good, great. And my people did fantastic. I often say Look at the work and think, what could I have done better? What can we do to improve that? Or, you know, what’s your next opportunity to
Andrew Dubber
do that?
Ian Hunter
Another space movie but the but one I’m gonna have a lot less pressure on. It’s going to be a I can’t say the title or talk too much about the plot but it’s going to be a rom com set in space. So so that is going to be like pure fun actually, and, and kind of a relief to be able to watch when something blows up. Oh, about every five minutes, something blows up. So
Andrew Dubber
fun. And thanks so much for your time. That’s Ian Hunter. And that’s the MTF podcast. If you enjoyed that, and you’ve heard podcasts before, so you know what to do by now, subscribe, share, like, rate and review, maybe even go back and listen to a few earlier episodes as well while you’re at it, or just tell someone you know, as you may have heard, we’re an Örebro next week running AI labs and an MTF track athon in residence at the university. They’re bringing some brilliant mtfs from all around the world to invent the future of intelligent machines with humans in the loop. And if you didn’t know that, then chances are that’s because you’re not subscribed to our newsletter. It’s absolutely free. no reason not to join, and you’d be an excellent company. Pretty much everyone ever featured on this podcast are all signed up. Just go to Music Tech fest.net slash newsletter. And I’ll leave you to go and do that. Have a great week and we’ll talk soon. Cheers.
