This movie was based on a comic series by Dave Stevens and has the nostalgic feel of a 1940's Republic Pictures serial with effects by the Lydecker Brothers.
The main "aircraft" in the film is a human with a rocket pack strapped to his back. For many shots he was represented by a brilliantly animated 1/4 scale stop motion puppet with animated exhaust effects supervised by Wes Takahashi added later optically. The subtle movement imparted to the puppet by Tom St Amand is very effective at depicting the out of control nature of the first flights, followed by the gradual mastering of rocket thrust using a helmet mounted rudder. At one point the hero, Cliff Secord, rescues a stricken pilot dressed in a clown outfit which is also represented in a couple of shots using a stop motion puppet.
The puppet armatures were designed and built by Tom St Amand with the figures sculpted by Richard Miller and cast in foam latex. The miniature costume was crafted by Jean Bolt and the miniature backpack was made by Steve Gawley who was the show's supervising modelmaker.
The puppets were photographed with a motion controlled camera by Peter Daulton.
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| The Rocketeer Puppet next to the Stop Motion Armature. |
There is an interesting clip on YouTube that shows the stop motion process for Rocketeer.
In one of the shots of the Rocketeer plummeting towards the ground, a miniature landscape model was built and mounted vertically with the camera dollying in towards it to depict the falling POV.
Another landscape miniature of the Hollywood hills complete with Hollywoodland sign was constructed at 1/10 scale and shot outdoors at night for later in the film showing the villains final demise.
A Nazi Zeppelin the Luxembourg, also appears as miniature in two scales. The larger model used for the fiery destruction was 34 feet long with a smaller model 12 foot long used for motion control shots. The models were built with an interlocking lattice framework structure made from laser cut plywood with a skin of Solatex, an iron on, heat shrink plastic film designed to simulate the fabric surfaces on radio control model aircraft.
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| Ira Keeler and Steve Gawley feeling trapped in their work. |
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| A couple of other ILM aircraft miniatures from Die Hard 2 hanging from the ceiling. |
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| Ironing on the Solartex covering. |
The Production Company (Disney) was advised that it would be prudent to build two large zeppelin miniatures in case the first destruction attempt failed. They ignored the advice and the first attempt at the high speed destruction had some of the pyrotechnics go off in the wrong order ruining the shot. Steve Gawley and a crew of nine model makers then had to construct another 34 foot zeppelin in 5 weeks, the original having taken four months.
It seems there were a couple of extra close up parts of the zeppelin built, larger scale sections of the gondola and the tail fin.
A 1/8 scale autogyro complete with figures was also built for motion control photography.
Source Cinefex #48 1991
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