American Cinematographer - July 1988 - 68

Flying Saucers for Batteries Not Included
by Ron Magid
quintessential Spielberg
production: a family of flying sau¬

It is the

supervisor Bruce Nicholson.

aspects of this unusual production

Nicholson's task to integrate
the effects believably into the fabric
of the film, where they often were

is that the

and Pa

pocus, save the day for their human
allies in their fight against the evil
land baron who plans to raze their
tenement home. Sounds simple.

required to play off live actors. Ac¬
complishing this chore meant uti¬
lizing every known form of
animation technique, including
wires, rod-puppetry and stop mo¬

Well, Batteries Not Included may
have been just that from a story

tion animation. New variations
were created that boosted Batteries'

point of view, but when it came

reality and which will subse¬
quently benefit future effects films.
"It was a tough challenge to com¬
bine our effects with this very real,
depressed environment," he ex¬
plains. "Normally, we deal with
fantasy environments, so Batteries
Not Included required an unusual
blend of ingredients."

real
"because it allowed us to do some
of our work on the set. Difficult

cers

come

to Earth,

befriend

a

group of destitute geriatrics and,
with a little bit of outer space hocus

time to devise the elaborate space¬

ship

gags on

which the whole pro¬

hung, the problems were
anything but simplistic.
The man who probably
sprouted more gray hairs than any¬
one during the course of Batteries'
lengthy preproduction, production
and post-production schedule was
duction

66

effects

American

Cinematographer

It

was

One of the most unusual

July 1988

flying saucer miniatures
exactly the same size in reality
they appeared in the film: Ma

were

as

saucer were

each about

a

while babies,
Flotsom, Jetsom and Weems mea¬
foot in diameter,
sured

barely three inches across. "I
working in a 1:1 scale a
advantage," Nicholson says,

considered

post-production effects such as
shadows and interactive light
would already be taken care of in
these shots."
While
1:1 scale

was

handling effects in

undoubtedly helpful

for the talented teams of animators,
matte artists

who worked

and optical people
the film, it put a

on



American Cinematographer - July 1988

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