I stumbled across this film on youtube having never heard of it before. To my surprise it contained some miniature ship shots supervised by George Blackwell.
The technique of miniature ship visual effects.
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Sorry to bother you. I recently purchased a model boat that was used as a prop in a film. I don't know which film, so I'm looking for help figuring that out. It just happened that Peter Cook included a few of my photos of the boat at the very end of his recent blog (https://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/). It looks like the boats pictured in posters for Down to the Sea in Ships (1949), but I haven't found a photo of the actual model used in that film (https://www.modelshipsinthecinema.com/2020/09/down-to-sea-in-ships-1949.html) (visual effects by Ray Kellogg and Fred Sersen). The boat originally had a motor that drove gears that caused the oars to row. I have one oar and an oar handle with a doll's forearm attached. I surmise that the large appendage below is a buoyancy chamber to cause the boat to float at the correct depth. The wood is very weathered, and the wire is brittle, so I guess that it is from the 1930's to the 1960's. Any suggestions as to which film the boat is from? I found a photo of a similar whaleboat model from Moby Dick (1956) (model maker Babs Gray). That boat had the same buoyancy chamber below, but the hull was lapstrake, not smooth, and there were ten oars, not four (made in the same model shop, perhaps?). Another possibility is Lifeboat (1944) for which Sersen also did the visual effects. In another of Peter's blog posts, the lifeboats in Titanic (1953) may be a match to this one; four oars, smooth sides, double pointed ends, mechanical puppets and oars (visual effects by Ray Kellogg).
ReplyDeleteI would really appreciate help in identifying the film in which the model was used. If you send me your e-mail address, I can send you a few more photos of the boat (gspanner@charter.net)
Or, can you refer me to someone else knowledgeable in boat model props for films?
Thank you for your consideration.