Howard Lydecker
Howard Lydecker

 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea


 

Theodore Lydecker
Theodore Lydecker


Miniature
Effects Geniuses

Howard & Theodore Lydecker

They produced reasonably priced yet totally believable
special effects back when miniatures were big.

     Once upon a time, many years ago, there were no computers.  Certainly, none sophisticated enough to create living breathing dinosaurs, super-atomic spaceships or . . . futuristic nuclear submarines so realistic you could feel the tons of crushing, killing water over your head.  It was a time when if you wanted to thriftily create a special effect, you either had to paint it (glass and matte shots), build it full size (not so thrifty), or construct it in miniature and blow it up (as in ka-boom!) while filming in slow-motion.    

lydecker_explode.jpg - 6179 Bytes
Lydecker miniature goes ka-boom!

     If you were a young matinee-goer born with the miniature visual effects gene, you probably just couldn't get enough of the work of two guys named Howard and Theodore Lydecker . . .


Preparing for conflaguration.
Howard, Theodore and crew members check a large scale miniature prior to touching a match to it for Flame of Barbary Coast.
    The Lydecker brothers worked at Republic Pictures, a second-tier but thriving movie studio.  The brothers created all sorts of nifty vehicles, gizmos and miniature sets during the 30s, 40s and 50s.  After they built them, they usually burned them down or blew them up, and boy, did that look cool.  They were largely responsible for creating the verisimilitude that pre-pubescent matinee-goers everywhere knew as the stuff that made any Republic serial better than the competition.  By a country mile. The other studios (Columbia, Universal, et. al.) simply couldn't hold a candle to Republic's effects team. 
    So what was it that made the Lydeckers' miniatures so darn good?  In a nutshell, it was their policy of "build it bigger and shoot it in natural light."  Miniature effects created by the other studios often employed relatively smaller models built with lesser detail.  They often ended up looking just like what they were-- little models dangling on the end of a thread shot against jiggly rear-screen footage.  Even the youngest matinee-goers could spot this kind of thing for what it was.  There was a not time in the old town tonight.
    In addition to the use of relatively large scale models and natural light, there is a third factor in making miniature photography look real --the use of slow-motion.  During the shoot, film is run through the camera at a higher speed than normal (determined by the scale of the models) and when projected at normal speed, the slow-motion effect gives the end product the right appearance of mass and size.



    Go back and take a look at virtually anything of any size blown up in a Republic serial, and it was quite probably done in miniature.  Most of the time, you couldn't tell.  Certainly audiences of the day couldn't.  Don't believe it?  Take a gander at the flying sequences in Captain Marvel.  Or watch as one of those fine black sedans goes shooting over a cliff to an explosive end in many a Republic serial. 
  
Flying Wing model from Dick Tracy
Above, a studio publicity shot of the miniature plane used in Republic's Dick Tracy .


Little does this model know it'll soon be toast!   
    At left, Howard Lydecker tests the track of a miniature car on a carefully constructed matching-scale roadway.  Photographed from the correct angle, the tracks in which the model ran remained unseen, and the finished footage looked incredibly real.  It didn't hurt that all the serials were shot in black and white.  It's easier to match miniatures so filmed to full scale footage. 
    The secret of Republic's miniatures was the Lydeckers' insistence on the use of meticulously detailed large-scale models photographed, whenever possible, outdoors under natural light.  Sometimes the backdrops were carefully built miniatures, although just as often the models were shot against natural backgrounds, with the camera positioned to imply full scale.  In the photo at left, propped at an angle behind Howard Lydecker is a segment of totally convincing model desert.

All photos on this page copyright Republic Pictures and Jack Mathis Advertising

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