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A burning question:

A

atari2600a

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May 25, 2006
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In the movie "A Beutiful Mind", during the scene where they're walking through the warehouse, there's like 5 UNIVAC terminals. Where they actual terminals or just good replicas?
 
I doubt they were replicas. The movie houses generally rent items from prop companies who collect stuff like that. In the rare instance when the prop maker doesn't have a specific item (if one is needed) or when the items are too expensive to keep as props (classic cars are a good example of this) they'll turn to the community at large for stuff.

I know of some folks who have participated in stuff like that. . . :)
 
Does that include yourself? Because you brought your Altair 8800 to last year's Homebrew Computer Club & reprogrammed/re-enacted Fool on The Hill & Daisy. (I still can't get over how tight that was!)
 
That wasn't for a movie (although it did make the news as well as some DigiBarn video, etc.

I've had folks contact me asking for this or that for a commercial, TV show or movie. I've usually been able to refer them to someone who could help.

I haven't yet had any of my machines involved in a production, but I'm guessing that it's only a matter of time.
 
Usually whenever I see a movie with Classic cars - their
usually get damaged - are they able to restore things like
cars or something if they hire them out?

Does it pay much for people to hire things out?

CP/M User.
 
It pays pretty well for things like cars, but they usually don't smash up the ones they rent.

Typically the smash-em-up cars are purchased by the studio and they usually have several of them to film, some to drive and some to blow up.

For particularly rare or expensive vehicles they'll build replicas to destroy.

But that's a bit off topic.

Few computers are destroyed in movies. Usually they are background items used to set the tone. Often they are looking for Blinking Lights, spinning tape drives and rattling teletypes for period pieces, for instance.

Those will rent by the day and get returned in good condition. Like the cars, the owners can often get on-set to watch, as well.
 
A friend of mine lent his beautiful Volkswagen microbus (1963) to a film company, who (without asking the owner) repainted it! He was gutted, as especially the vehicle had original paint before that incident. It took about a year's worth of legal battles to get the company to pay to have it repainted to a high standard back to original.

On a note of vintage computers (on topic now ;)) I visited the Universial Studio's set when they where filming (I think) Apollo 13. Pretty cool the amount of old computer equipment they managed to turn up :)
 
Hey Erik, did you by any chance talk to the prop guy for Terminator 3? (There was a PET 2001 at the last scene)

Also (I think I asked you before about 2 years ago in an email) There was an episode of Malcom in The Middle where an Altair get's completely destroyed. Do you know if THAT was real or a replica?
 
Yeah, there was a PET and some other old stuff stacked up in there. Nothing coherent, though, like the rest of the movie.

I remember you talking about the Malcom in the Middle episode, but I know nothing else about it.
 
That Altair was nothing but a generic PCB with an Altair 680b front panel. When I heard about it I had to search out that episode just to check :lol:
 
It was snapped in half over someone's knee, so the front panel was fine. To be honest I don't think it was damaged as you didn't see it after.
 
After watching my laserdisc copy of Total Recall again (& realizing there's a million things wrong w/ it; I'll list them after the following), I noticed a portable computer during the scene w/ Stomach-man-guy-person-thing. From the looks of it, it looked like a Compaq. Did anyone catch what model that was?

...& that list, as promised:
-Mars DOES have an atmosphere, just a thinner one & w/o oxygen.
-There's less gravity on mars than on earth, & therefore the people would have alot less muscle, & therefore look alot different!
-Come on, even when this movie was made, they had Color LCD's (though they where still pretty rare)! Vertical CRT's!? Who's idea was that!?
-Why is there an early-'90's - late-'80's PC in a futuristic Scifi movie!?
 
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Erik said:
Few computers are destroyed in movies. Usually they are background items used to set the tone. Often they are looking for Blinking Lights, spinning tape drives and rattling teletypes for period pieces, for instance.

Those will rent by the day and get returned in good condition. Like the cars, the owners can often get on-set to watch, as well.
Click to expand...

When i was in my early 20s our computer repair workshop was bought out by Granada television, (kind of sad, as it was formerly owned by british airways, and employee perks went from 1%-of-ticket-cost air travel, to 10% off video tapes, and motorway service station sandwiches) anyway... they decided to borrow (against the better judgement of the senior engineer responsible) a (about 20 year) old mainframe, big dark blue 19" racks, loads of tapes, blinkenlights, (core store!!) the works, for use as a prop. It was the machine we used as a test bed to keep the old computers running the London Underground working, as they had been trying to upgrade to PCs and still hadn't got the software right in 5 years.

THEY BLEW IT UP!!!

it took the guy who designed the thing, about a month to clean the carbon off & put it back together again, meanwhile, it was getting very touch and go as to whether the Underground would have enough spare parts. and London very very nearly stopped working.

if only they had had reality TV back then, it would have been far more interesting watching the drama the drama caused.
 
alexkerhead wrote:

> Movies aren't supposed to be realistic. If they were,
> they'd be no fun.

Well actually one of my favourite-of-all-time arguibly called
Sci-Fi films looks very realistic. It's been dubbed Sci-Fi
though & while I guess while nothing of this kind has happened
yet, certainally it maybe something to eventually happen -
unless it already has, but as human life knows it - ain't
aware of it. While the Sci-Fi film is quite old now, it blows
away your typical 50s sci-fi - to a degree Metropolis (a movie
which is 80 years old) may become reality! :-D

I just don't see a bunch of Marchian's arriving & blasting
everyone! :-D

CP/M User.
 
Would that make Granada a terrorvision network?
Click to expand...
It's the North-West division of ITV, methinks.
What was that movie called again? "Martians Attack" I think it was? I should try to find that on laserdisc...
Click to expand...
Not heard of that...There was the Sci-Fi mickey take 'Mars Attacks' by Tim Burton...
 
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