I am happy to say my Late variant Tiger 1 has been used by an amateur film maker for scenes in the film he is working on. I spent eight hours over three days working with Gregory in the grounds of a hall in Clevedon. The film is about a Mosquito pilot who gets shot down and has to escape and evade the Germans with the help of the French resistance and return to Britain with vital intel. The Tiger had a running time of two hours and thirty minutes during the filming which was on grass and various inclines. Some of the inclines were steep and the ground was wet so remaining power became an issue resulting in me having to push the Tiger up the ramps to get it into the van. I did have to adjust the tracks on the second day and had a mishap when I forgot to plug the smoker oil filler tube
The inside rear of the tank now has a coating of baby oil !! It actually worked out ok as there was an huge amount of smoke being produced in one of the scenes just as I mistakenly hit the engine false start on the switch instead of main gun firing . Gregory was happy as he wanted a scene with the Tiger having problems so an engine problem fitted the bill.
I have also realised how mentally demanding it is to drive the tank multiple times as we had to repeat filming scenes and turn, aim the main gun, etc while replicating the previous run.
Unfortunately I was so busy I didn't think to take photos until the last few runs but have a couple showing Gregory setting up his convoy of vehicles. A lot of his models are scratch built or conversions from other vehicles. You may recognise an Action Man armoured car now with German modifications. He uses a mix of real footage, models, actors and has some very realistic props including full size MG42's and half a Tiger barrel.
The whole experience was enjoyable and Gregory was very pleased with the footage, some of which I was able to see. We had quite a few people watching and taking photos during filming. I hope I have done justice to our hobby and promoted Armortek and got some new youngsters interested in model tanks.
I understand the film will either be shown at the Curzon cinema or the Princess Hall dependent on the final image quality after digitalisation and editing have been completed.
Regards
Gary
- Gregory setting up the convoy
- Tiger about to come to the rescue of the convoy
