Horizon Line - Large Scenic Props and Artem Backlot Shoot

Fuselage and seabed

We built the fuselage of a crashed GA8 plane for a sea-bed shoot, up-scaling it by 20% on actual size and making it entirely from aluminium to be suitable for underwater filming.  A pneumatic rig was devised to push the fuselage over the edge of an undersea cliff edge. The undulating sandy surface of this seabed was made from GRP in sections at Artem’s workshop and then assembled by our technicians in the underwater stage at Pinewood. We also provided bubble rigs and air lines.

Artem backlot shoot

Further plane scenes involved the building of a large shallow tank (18m x 8m x0.5m) and a cyclorama (7m high by 15m wide) in Artem’s West London backlot so that the production could shoot the impact of the plane as it hit the water. Artem created a rig to smash a number of black buck elements, representing different sections of the plane, into the water at speed, and also created a debris-flying-through-air effect for this shot. To cap off the backlot shoot Artem technicians lowered the crashed fuselage prop upside down into the water using our telehandler.

The crashed plane prop was later refurbished to use in the studio, mounted on an air bellows rig for a rocking motion and a ring bearing to rotate it by 360 degrees.

Boats and rigs

Artem also created two large-scale boat props for the movie: one was a ‘wet boat’ section to sit on scaffold towers in the studio tank with a pneumatic system to create a rolling action and the other a replica full-sized boat deck – from the water line upwards – mounted on a wheeled rostra. Both boats were dressed with props and Artem technicians attended the shoot to provide support and to create splash and wave effects.

Dive shop

Finally, we created a dive shop set, fully dressed with props and pre built in sections for assembly in the studio. This later converted into a bedroom set. Both sets were installed and supported in the studio by Artem.