Battleships for VFX "Midway"

Some years ago I was tasked with recreating accurate models of the USS Vestal, the USS Arizona and many other ships and planes of the US and Japanese fleet for the movie Midway. This meant finding the accurate blue prints of these ships in the military archives and make sure they match the dates of the Pearl Harbor attack (difficult since these ships had just been upgraded in the weeks before). Finding lists of armaments and correct model numbers was difficult but in the end very rewarding.

The production's idea was to use my models early on during the pre-viz stage but also to use as a guide to build the physical sets. the VFX department subsequently used my models to extend the sets in CG and make then VXF-ready.

In the video you can catch a few glimpses of my work. As usual "motion blur" hides the mistakes ;-)