The Little World

The next time you are tempted to spend $ 300 on a model kit, reflect on how many bottles of rum and how many popsies you could buy for that same price.

At the same time, cast your eyes around your building space – whether it is a complete workshop or just a tea tray on the sideboard – and see what materials you have lying about. It is very likely that you’ll have more than you think, and that they can be converted into a fine modelling project.

I recently decided to make a feature film about Jasma Hari – Queen Of Spies – and decided to have an opening sequence set outside a Moorish palace. No Moorish palaces locally, and Spain is off the travel roster for many reasons. Not even a Moorish palace app or program you can buy – shows how poorly served we are.

But I had foam-core board, paint, scraps of balsa and wood strip. I had shiny paper that goes into my inkjet printer. And I have long experience with Photoshop Elements for the graphic design work. If the Moors could build it out of stone, I should be able to glue one together out of paper…

So it has proven. The scene needs a facade with an opening door. It could have been done on a two-dimensional sheet, but where’s the challenge in that? I made a gallery, cut 7 windows, glazed and screened them with decals, and spent a desperate morning learning how to make a tiled pattern for the walls. All the materials save the ochre paint were in the workshop scrap piles and have gone from garbage to model in a week.

The sequence will be shot at night, lit by a high blue spotlight simulating the moon. The windows are lit from inside by an LED set I picked up on sale at Altronics – a throw-out line. Even the fake water, trees, and the travelling camera carriage were in the studio stocks.

So – next time you are at a loose end, tighten it up with a bit of scratch building. It need not be as detailed or imaginative as Othello’s digs, but you can make many accessories and diorama bits from whatever is lying around – you’ll get a new model and the place will be just that much cleaner