FORD TRIMOTOR from ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas
The Indiana Jones films need no introduction. The Ford Trimotor features in the second movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’,
The plane is featured as the start of the movie and is portrayed via an actual plane and a miniature. This shot of the plane flying over the great wall of China had me fooled for a long time, and it was only upon reading the Cinefex article that it confirmed that it was a model. And in fact the Great Wall of China and surrounding countryside is also a model and the shot is an optical composite. Superb stuff.
This artwork pays homage to that shot, but instead of the Great Wall, I have created an environment that represents Pankot Palace – seen at the top of the hill in the distance. There is the river canyon where Indy, Willie and Short Round escape their mine tunnels. And I put in the rope bridge. I think the geography may not be quite right and the sizes are scales are cheated. I tried to match the look of the cliff-face to what is seen in the movie – all incredible matte paintings by the ILM matte dept.
There are a few things not quite right in this painting, but I am happy with it as an imaginary box top.
The corrugated metal skin was a bit laborious, but thanks to ‘photoshop’ I was able to make a pattern of parallel lines a slightly different shade to the main fuselage and then twist and bend them to the contours of the plane. I erased and scuffed them up to reduce their opacity and general uniformity.. so it does not look too regular and ‘stuck on’. Roy Cross did not have this luxury when doing the air fix box art! I put the Lao Che logo on this side of the plane, although I this k this piece of artistic license is not borne out on the original plane. It was a lot of work, bit it I am really happy with the end result, I really wanted to celebrate that great wall of chine shot!
This painting imagines a classic Matchbox plastic model kit from 1984 when the film was released.
Visual Effects supervsied by Dennis Muren
Production design by Elliot Scott.
Matte Paintings by Chris Evans, Michael Pangarzio and Caroleen Green
What If Model Kits #10