FILMING TABLE TOP EARTHQUAKES (Dec, 1935) FILMING TABLE TOP
EARTHQUAKES by EARL THEISEN – Honorary Curator of Motion
Pictures, Los Angeles Museum. When the director calls for
floods, train wrecks, and volcanoes, the miniature men create
the scenes. Read how they produce these effects. BEHIND the
studio walls tucked off in a corner may be found the miniature
department. It is hidden away where persons will not interfere
with its work or find out its secrets. To the miniature man
everything is possible from the fabrication of airplane crashes,
train wrecks, explosions, floods, to the bringing to life on the
screen of prehistoric monsters. In this department of the
studios is filmed those things that cannot be photographed or
are too dangerous to be photographed in full size. The miniature
men are specialists in reproducing literally on a table top
practically anything that occurs in real life. In a picture
entitled, Last Days of Pompeii, the destruction of this historic
city by a volcanic eruption can be seen o