485 Poltergeist (1982)
Description
This article is from the Movie Trivia, by Murray Chapman muzzle@cs.uq.oz.au with numerous contributions by others.
485 Poltergeist (1982)
- Movie on the TV in an early bedroom scene is "A Guy Named Joe (1943)" (qv),
a film about a pilot who returns to the world as a ghost.
- The house which gets sucked into a black hole at the end was actually a
model about 4 feet across. The model took several weeks to complete. The
scene was shot as follows: camera placed directly above model, which was
mounted over an industrial strength vacuum generator (the front door was
facing directly up, straight at the camera). The model also had about 100
wires attached to various points of the structure. These wires went down
through the back of the house, and down through the vacuum collection sack.
The camera was turned on, and took 15 seconds to wind up to the required
300 frames per second. When ready, the cameraman gave the cue. The vacuum
was turned on, the wires were yanked suddenly, and several SFX guys blasted
the house with pump-action shotguns.
The entire scene was over in about two seconds, and they had to wait until
the film was developed before they knew if they would have to do it again.
When played back at 24 fps, would take approximately 12 seconds for the house
to collapse. Luckily, they got it right on the first go.
Finished scene was sent to 'Steven Spielberg' (qv), who was on location
shooting "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)" (qv). He gave it to a
projectionist, who assumed it was just the ``dailys'' from ET. The scene
came on, and the projectionist said ``Holy shit! What was that?'' Spielberg
had the remains of the model encased in perspex, and it is now sitting on
his piano. The model itself was worth well over $25,000.
- Mrs Freeling's line ``Mmmm... smell that mimosa'' is taken directly from
"The Uninvited (1944)" (qv).
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