CRASH LANDING ON MARS

[@brentcleever7290]

Just watched this DS.....brilliant. Nice to hear that Nottingham lad finally made the space program.....

[@bhangrafan4480]

As a boy I was greatly inspired by such films, making alien landscapes out of plaster of Paris on hardboard, and making spacecraft out of 'Squeezy' bottles, toilet roll tubes and ping pong balls etc. Hours of constructive fun in the long summer holidays!

[@Diorama42]

This deserves a 30th Anniversary Edition DVD Boxset with special features, digital remastering, and director's commentary! :D

[@Modmart]

The Siss strikes again! That was excellent stuff. How is it you never ended up going into this sort of thing in some sort of professional capacity? Given your skill and passion even back then as a young kid. Brilliant.

[@TheMasterNo6]

Really cool. Well done! Like the custom Action Men pilots - and the suits they had were great.

[@Skkredd]

AWESOME! Absolutely fantastic! Sharing with my friends who loved making Super 8 movies!

[@RichVoyages]

Great mechanical effect.Always looks good on film.

[@JoshBernhard]

This is absolutely incredible (and inspiring)! Thanks for sharing.

[@Spaceman042]

@@JoshBernhard it was certainly fun but quickly brought home the reality of having to ‘make everything’ you see in each scene and often in different scales. It’s a huge amount of effort to make physical props and then try and make them work and move when required without wobbling and stay in focus.

[@JoshBernhard]

@@Spaceman042 I'm in awe of what you were able to do, truly. I can understand somewhat the monumental effort and time involved, and then I'm sure the reality was double that. So glad you preserved it and were able to share for all to see.

[@JoshBernhard]

@@Spaceman042 Is this footage from a high-quality scan of the original film? Was it scanned in standard def or hi-def?

[@Spaceman042]

@ not it wasn’t a good scan,lol, just simply projected onto a small area and refilmed with my digital camera. It was just done as a bit of fun to see the film again after so many years, maybe one day a proper scan could be done.

[@SpaceIntruderDetecto]

Great Job David. I really loved reading all the articles you wrote for SF Fantasy Modeller back in the 90's. You are one hell of a great modeller! It's great you posted your early efforts after so many years. Your video of the breakdown of the 44" eagle was mind blowing! Would love to see videos of the UFO minatures you have too. As that was my favorite of the two shows.Cheers!

[@stuartyoung4182]

Always wanted to do things like this as a kid...my parents never had any kind of video camera, though. I'm impressed!

[@Spaceman042]

Simply project the film onto a sheet of white card about 3 feet away, so the image is not too big. Then filmed it with a cheap (£50) digital stills camera set to movie-mode. The results aren't perfect, but the free editing program with the camera helped to polish the image, improve contrast and brightness, add a few minor tricks plus titles and sound.

[@marceloribeirobarros]

Amazing !!!!

[@Venling]

Freaking AWESOME! I love the sound effects and the background sounds. It doesn't need exciting music. HOW did you capture 8mm to digital? What is the process?

[@bhangrafan4480]

Is that an action man flying it?

I am right to believe you used sound effects from the film Doppleganger? It was a great Anderson real action movie with some great explosion sounds :)

[@bhangrafan4480]

Another job for Thunderbirds!

[@Spaceman042]

I believe that it was freon gas - it came from an airbrush air can that I just held upside down.

[@RichVoyages]

Did you use Freon for the Main Engine thrust effect or just regular compressed air canisters?

[@nemesis9808]

How old were you at the time?

[@Spaceman042]

Only about 19-20 years old. Unfortunately the limitations of super-8 and working in my parents (often hot) small loft space did rather work against me. Be nice to try again with decent modern equipment and a budget.

[@gmosphere]

The only thing I can say about this is the audio is too jarring