How The Miniatures In Your Favourite Movies & TV shows Are Made (In Montreal)
Miniatures have been at the centre of movie making for over 100 years. From Star Wars to Lord of the Rings these tiny worlds are a big part of both the big and small screen. Canadian miniature artist Marina Totino lets us into her studio and shares a look at the talent that's landed her jobs in the TV, music, and video game industries.
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:00 This is Marina Tettino, and she builds tiny worlds.
00:04 She's made a literal career of creating the most amazing tiny things, and there's
00:09 a reason that her creations are being sought out for movies, TV shows, and album covers.
00:14 Hey, I'm Alex, and today we're pulling a Ms. Frizzle and shrinking down to explore
00:19 the world of miniatures.
00:21 If you want to blow up the White House, fly the Millennium Falcon, or visit Hogwarts,
00:25 there's only really one way to do it right, miniatures.
00:30 A trip to the moon started the trend over 100 years ago in 1902, and since then we've
00:35 gotten blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings and Blade Runner 2049.
00:39 The towering city of Minas Tirith still holds up 20 years later, and the level of detail
00:44 in the futuristic sci-fi Los Angeles of 2049 would blow your mind.
00:49 Now I could legitimately sit here all day and simp over the technical ability of these
00:53 artists, or we can go on a field trip.
00:56 Montreal is home to more than 40 visual effects companies, making it one of the largest post-production
01:02 hubs in the world.
01:03 So it's no surprise that we have some serious local talent here.
01:06 Marina Tettino is a photographer, digital artist, miniaturist, and filmmaker.
01:11 She's worked on movies, TV shows, and commercials, but miniatures have become an obsession, and
01:16 she's building all of it right here out of her Montreal apartment.
01:19 I started out making miniatures because I come from a film background, and I studied
01:24 filmmaking.
01:25 I've always loved filmmaking, but I also have, I was going to say I have a hard time.
01:32 I love stop motion, and I wanted to get into stop motion.
01:35 So I'd written out this entire script.
01:37 I started building out characters and fleshing out ideas, and I started making this set.
01:43 And I started in 2017 just building this little house.
01:47 That was one of the first dioramas or miniatures that I'd built, and I fell in love with it
01:52 instantly, and I couldn't stop building miniatures.
01:54 And it came to a point where I realized I don't want to necessarily do stop motion right
01:59 now.
02:00 I want to focus on set design and focus on making miniatures and creating these spaces
02:03 that don't exist so that I can film inside of.
02:06 What draws me to it is the ability for me to express myself and express a lot of the
02:13 darkness and isolation that I often feel.
02:16 I love playing with light.
02:17 I love creating atmospheres, feeling, and revisiting places that might have existed
02:23 at some point, but no longer do.
02:26 I play a lot with nostalgia.
02:27 I play a lot with vintage aesthetics and stuff like that.
02:32 I got into film when I was younger.
02:34 As a kid, I played a lot with Windows Movie Maker and my webcam.
02:38 You can make people disappear and add dumb titles, add credits, and I'm like, "Wow, people
02:43 are going to know me now."
02:44 So I got into filmmaking through that.
02:46 I worked in the film industry and the transition from film to miniatures happened when I lived
02:50 in Toronto.
02:51 That's why I went there initially because there are so many U.S. productions that go
02:54 there.
02:55 So if you're looking to make it into the industry and want to work on big sets, Toronto is the
02:58 place to be.
03:00 I was already very artistic and wanted to do my own thing and always knew that I would.
03:05 So I think that was more of a gateway into what I actually wanted to do.
03:09 Being on set was super helpful for me anyway because now the stuff I'm shooting, I incorporate
03:15 a lot of the stuff I've learned from set onto my miniatures and filming those.
03:18 So my process works by me thinking of a very small idea and usually it just kind of grows
03:25 over time.
03:26 The way that I think about miniatures is I think about scenes.
03:30 I think about how they would look cinematically.
03:32 So then when I think of an idea, like the laundromat, for example, I'll think of what's
03:37 happening in there.
03:38 There's something in the laundry machine, it's spinning, and I'll think of actions.
03:43 I often create spaces where there are no people involved, mainly because I don't know how
03:47 to make people yet, but also because I love the idea of creating spaces where it seems
03:52 like someone was just there and just left.
03:54 Once I sketch it out and figure out the scaling, I do a lot of the scaling work separately
03:58 on a graph sheet and figure out sizes because miniatures is really all just shapes.
04:04 It's just putting shapes together and tiny shapes and figuring out how big you want certain
04:07 things.
04:08 So again, I'll have the idea, I'll come up with the composition in my head from a photography/cinematography
04:15 standpoint, and then I'll sketch it out and start building that based on that idea, based
04:20 on that sketch.
04:21 And then when I start sketching things out, it'll be something like the TV there, which
04:26 ends up here.
04:27 I'll kind of sketch out an idea and then make little notes of what type of material I would
04:32 use, what color this part's going to be.
04:35 I use a lot of styrene.
04:36 I use a lot of balsa wood, basswood, cardstock paper, glues of all kinds, things of all kinds.
04:44 Sometimes I'll be on the street and find a bunch of shit and I'm like, I can use this.
04:48 There was the ice storm in Montreal, branches and trees fell onto the streets and I took
04:54 that opportunity and took a bunch of branches inside and started placing them into one of
05:01 my miniatures, like the clown head, as trees.
05:04 And it looks pretty good.
05:06 So is everything made from scratch?
05:08 Yes.
05:09 One of the biggest things I worked on was one of the first commissions I ever had as
05:13 a miniature maker.
05:15 It was for a TV show for Crave Canada.
05:18 It was a Quebec TV show called Le Fin Fond de l'Histoire and it's a true crime TV series.
05:23 They asked for 10 miniature sets and I had to build all 10 within a span of like four
05:28 months.
05:29 It was insane.
05:30 I didn't even trust my ability yet because I had just started, but I said yes to it and
05:34 I was like, I can do this.
05:35 And I really pushed myself and I built these 10 miniature sets and the host comes in and
05:40 he kind of plays around with all the little pieces, kind of explaining what happened in
05:44 the crime that took place.
05:45 And he explains like the scene.
05:48 And I didn't know what I was capable of until I was put under that much pressure.
05:54 And it was so awesome.
05:55 It came out really cool.
05:56 I got to make the cover art for a song by Lovejoy, which is UK band, very awesome band.
06:03 I got to create like a plane that was crashing down into the water.
06:08 That was such a fun project to work on because I didn't, again, know if I could do it.
06:13 And I kind of just say yes to things and then hope for the best later.
06:16 That plane crash was also in the music video for Call Me What You Like.
06:21 They asked me to shoot shots of when the plane was pristine and then also when it was crashing.
06:26 So I just shot little shots of the model kind of moving in the air and I had people helping
06:30 me like carry it across the screen and stuff like that.
06:33 It was very cool.
06:34 How long does it take to do a project like this?
06:38 For something that I'm shooting that I don't have to send off.
06:41 So something that's not necessarily like an art piece that you can put up on a mantle.
06:44 It takes a lot less time because I'm not so worried about what the outside looks like
06:50 and how to deliver it.
06:52 And you know what materials I'm using for the walls and for the base and all that.
06:56 Whereas if it was a bigger piece or like an art piece like my video store, that one is
07:01 built from the inside out all the way around and that could sit on someone's mantle.
07:07 So that one takes longer because I'm really particular about the details everywhere.
07:12 Whereas a set like this, like the airplane was shot in such a way that the plane was
07:17 in the middle, the background was further away and then the water was even further front.
07:22 So if you shoot it at a certain angle, it looks like everything's all together.
07:26 But if you look at it from the side, everything is like dispersed.
07:28 So it's not an actual diorama piece.
07:31 It's like an illusion that you create with all the pieces.
07:34 This was just a small look into the even smaller world of miniatures and the incredible talent
07:40 behind the magic that gets custom built for movies, TV shows, and the music industry.
07:45 Big shout out to Marina for letting me into her studio space to freak out over every little
07:48 thing she's built.
07:49 If you want to see more of her stuff, you can find her info in the description below.
07:52 That's it for me.
07:53 I'll see you in the next one.
07:54 [music]
07:57 [music fades]
07:59 [music fades]
08:01 [music fades]
08:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]