American Cinematographer - August 1987 - 71

fore we got everything working
properly - the right lighting and
the right modelwork. We added a
blue screen pod element later be¬
cause

of the scale."
There were

pull Tuck off the precipice,
quite work. Even¬
tually, the combined weight of
Igoe on Tuck's pod causes them to
slip down towards the stomach,
where they land on something soft
and spongy. Their weight then
causes them to fall very slowly
through a valve, almost like sink¬
ing into quicksand, and they end
up hanging right above the stom¬
ach below, which is this horrible
place filled with acid that you
to

which doesn't

two

different

pod models built by the model
shop: that which belonged to the
hero, Tuck, and that which

was

operated by the villainous Igoe.
While Tuck's pod is a round affair
that looks like

throat. Because Igoe's pod is capa¬
ble of flying around, while Tuck's
is locked in on gravity, Igoe tries

a cross

between the

spacepods of 1001 and the space¬
ship some kids constructed in
Dante's previous film, Explorers,
Igoe's is a sleek, sophisticated
black casket. The differences are
than esthetic: Igoe's pod,
with thrusters placed at the bot¬

never want to

"It's

more

tom, is capable of flight, while
Tuck's, with thrusters at the rear,
is restricted to maneuvering in

fluids. Because Tuck's

pod is the
primarily seen throughout the
body, several different versions

one

were

built, whereas the modelers

constructed

only one version of
Igoe's pod. "The main version of
Tuck's pod was twelve inches in
diameter and

was

trolled," Muren

radio

says.

con¬

"We also

had an eight inch stunt pod that
worked in the Artery Raceway,
and a four inch pod and a one inch

pod used in various places
throughout. We also had a i/} ac¬
tual size pod which was about
three feet in diameter that we used
in close shots. Because Igoe's pod
appears at the end of
the film we only made one pod
that was about a foot long so it
was in scale with our twelve inch
Tuck pod. We only made one of
those because we were on a really

only really

tight budget for the whole show."
The film's climax begins
as a pitched
battle in Martin
Short's throat that ends up as a
battle to the death over the pit of
his stomach, and required some of
ILM's most elaborate effects.
"Tuck's pod is sitting on a preci¬

dry area of the throat,"
explains. "One side drops
off to the esophagus, which leads
to the stomach, and on the other
side is the trachea, which leads to
the lungs. Suddenly, Igoe's mini¬
aturized pod attacks Tuck's pod
and they have this battle in the
pice in
Muren

a

FREE

go to.

a

pretty

elaborate

se¬

quence," Muren admits. "We shot
all of the shots of Igoe's pod blue
screen

with motion controlled

puppets. We had a lot of spacial
things to deal with because the
throat is such a wide expanse com¬
to how tiny their pods are.
Harry Walton and Don Dow did
the programming. Before they
shot it, we spent a lot of time

pared

out the whole design of
what the sequence should look
like and exactly how the action
should occur to keep things really

working

interesting. When Tuck's pod first
falls against the
the stomach acid

valve leading to
pit, you can't re¬
ally tell until the next shot that it's
made up of this quicksand-like
substance. Basically, the valve was
a pretty simple model made of
foam rubber,

and about six of

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pulled the stuff apart and pushed
the pod through it."
Despite the many unusual
approaches Muren employed with
regard to Innerspace's nearly i zo
effects shots, he is inclined to feel
that it is design first, and technique
second, that makes for successful
illusions. "What hopefully makes
shot work better than another
is the design. If you've got good

one

designs and have made the right
decisions and used the right tech¬
niques, then the stuff can look
real. If you don't, then it doesn't.
We spent a lot of time on our de¬
signs for Innerspace and we used a
lot of unusual techniques, both
old and new, and I think that com¬
bination will give the audience
something they'll enjoy seeing." A

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August 1987

69
American Cinematographer - August 1987

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