‘Blade Runner’ chief model maker Mark Stetson adjusts a miniature city section.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner turns 40 today. I thought I would share one of my favorite behind the scenes photos from the film, kindly shared with me by Mark Stetson, who was chief model maker at EEG. He worked directly with visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull on bringing several key elements of the film to life–the futuristic Los Angeles landscapes, the spinners, the blimp, and so many more.
We are so lucky to have Blade Runner.
What you said about us being lucky to have this movie really resonates with me. There have been so many times when I just put in the Criterion LD — or the 92 director’s cut LD, or the DVD or more recently the Final Cut — to revel in the flight across town to the police station, or to the Tyrell approach.
More even than the VFX, I get such a joy from seeing the shot of Sean Young’s Rachel in darkness in Deckard’s apartment, only illuminated by the passage of spinners going by outside. It looks so perfect that I don’t care how much time was spent to achieve it.
And I still think it has one of Ford’s best-ever moments as an ACTOR. When he is on the phone to Rachel trying to get her to come out and meet him, there’s a vulnerability that seems almost totally apart from everything else in his career up till that point, except maybe a few frames in EMPIRE. He hits a similar note in WITNESS, but that wasn’t so much a shock because I’d already seen it here.
You are so right, Kevin. And I do the same…just watch BR just to watch it and revel in it.