To make a decent film, directors and producers must use the best techniques to procure a sense of authenticity that can convince an audience that what they are watching is realistic.

Set designs, camera and lighting equipment, and other heavy machinery are needed to achieve this effect. Camera equipment makers, set builders and gaffers rely on one particular metal day in and day out for the durability needed in getting the perfect shot – steel.

Hollywood’s Amazing Sets

Acting and directing can only take a film so far, so the rest of the way needs to be paved by the setting and the environment. Often, filmmakers must build their sets to accurately represent the story’s true environment, with some set designs requiring much of the film’s total budget to construct.

The 1995 action movie, Waterworld, led by Kevin Costner, had one of the most famous movie sets ever constructed. The movie’s biggest expense did not come from paying the actors’ high salaries, but from having to build a giant atoll off the coast of Hawaii for the movie’s setting. With a circumference of a quarter mile, the set demanded so much material to build that it created a steel shortage in Hawaii, with the remainder of the steel shipped in from California. The total cost to develop Waterworld’s set skyrocketed into the tens of millions of dollars.

James Cameron’s epic, Titanic, is another prime example of a movie set that was built to mimic reality as closely as possible. A 90% to-scale replica of the actual Titanic was assembled in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, using a steel frame and plywood shell. In addition to the massive Titanic rebuild, the movie also called for 2 enormous tanks that held 20 million gallons of water, and several steel cranes were needed for capturing overhead shots.

Stepping back in time, the 2013 World War II epic, Stalingrad, mesmerized audiences and critics alike with its ultra-realistic settings that perfectly depicted the once war-torn city. Almost a sixth of the movie’s budget, amounting to around five million dollars, was needed to build the buildings, destroy them and to purchase the steel tanks and planes that were scattered across the set.

Moving Cameras and Setting Lights

Maneuverability, for cameras and actors, is crucial for directors needing to capture the perfect shot. Large steel rigs mounted on moving cars, steel camera tacks, similar to train tracks, and other heavy-duty equipment make filming scenes possible.

Stunt rigging, including ratchets, air rams, traveling rigs, camera tracking rigs, descenders and other types of rigging are made from steel to ensure durability while filming and the safety of the actor or stuntman. Stunt rigs are used to drop, crash, fly and pull actors in and out of the lens, creating an exciting action sequence.

Camera dolly systems that look much like train tracks running through sets, are used to run camera operators alongside moving actors, or for capturing a moving shot. Camera tracks provide fluidity and stability to a camera, making for beautiful imagery. Dolly tracks made for larger production cameras depend on steel tracks and straighter paths for heavy use.

Hollywood Depends on Steel

With new technology, computer graphics and camera capabilities, audiences and critics are both demanding and expecting movies to be more elaborate – especially when spending ten dollars on a ticket.

Magnificent set designs and construction, extensive camera reach and the perfect lighting will all continue to rely on steel as cinema’s material-of-choice. Steel allows set designs to create not only movie sets, but environments that capture the imaginations of viewers. It also enables camera operators to mount their cameras on durable rigs and to film scenes smoothly.

The next time you are watching a movie, consider the amount of work and steel it took to entertain you for those engaging 2 hours.

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With the emergence of fighting robots taking center stage in the beginning of the seventies, special effects, animation and overall excitement grew around giant machines battling in epic melees of iron and steel.

From the Drawing Board to the Big Screen

Early on, Japan and South Korea released animations featuring large robots, “Gundam”, “Mazinger Z” and “Robot Taekwon V”, forged from super strong alloys. The machines were built as weapons against forces of evil, and over the course of several seasons, had many successful campaigns against evil-doers.

Popularity for enormous robots built for combat took off not only in Asia, but also in the US, where different adaptions were created. While Voltar the Invincible, Iron Man and other man-made machines kept the world in check, dramatic clashes between Transformers’ Autobots and Decepticons were leaving cities in ruins.

During that same time, robots were being incorporated into Hollywood’s sci-fi and futuristic movie plots more often. The Star Wars saga, Robocop and Blade Runner, all had robots that were built for one purpose – to destroy.

Steel Warriors

Entering in the new millennium, fighting robots continued to thrive. Robots were not only fighting in fiction, but also in reality. The hit 2000 TV show, “Battle Bots”, had engineers from around the world designing and building real-life robots to ravage their competition.

In 2007, director Michael Bay completely reimagined and reinvented the Transformers series into a larger-than-life action-packed film – winning global acclaim and nominated for three academy awards, including best visual effects.

In Roger Ebert’s review of “Transformers”, he says that “the robots, created by Industrial Light and Magic, are indeed delightful creatures; you can look hard and see the truck windshields, hubcaps and junkyard stuff they’re made of. And their movements are ingenious, especially the scorpion-like robot in the desert.”

Building on the momentum of the Transformers series, the 2007 movie, “Real Steel”, soon took the spotlight for sparring robots. In the future, human boxers have been replaced by robots, who just like the Ali’s and Sugar Rays of our time, duck and jab at each other with their human operators, controlling their movements.

The heroic protagonist of “Real Steel”, is not only the former boxer-turned robot operator, but also the almost-forgotten steel robot itself which became a winning success in the underdog story.

Machine’s Last Stand

Giant, earth-saving robots piloted by humans more recently took their stand against even larger prehistoric-looking alien invaders in Academy Award-winning director, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pacific Rim”.

In the film, the gargantuan robots, called Jaegers, were built by the world’s military and are piloted by an elite group of individuals that must connect not only with their partner, but also the machine to defeat their enemy.

Each Jaeger is built differently, and each has a unique ability that will help it bring down the giant alien monsters. After several Jaegers are destroyed in hard-fought battles, the remaining two are victorious against the enemy – with their steel structures largely to thank.

Stories films involving colossal fighting robots will most likely continue to entertain us for some time to come. With space exploration and technology being the main theme around much of the movies that are coming out, there will always be space in the script for an epic giant robot battle.

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It is perhaps the latter element that is the most essential in this epic car chase of a movie. The film’s footage embellishes an exceedingly creative procession of real steel automobiles tearing through the desert at rip-roaring speeds, symbols of power and objects of worship in a desperate time when even humans have been reduced to commodities valued only for their utility. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1JhMUa0)

Behind the Design

Because the vehicles play such an important role in Mad Max, their designs were not taken lightly. Envisioned by production designer Colin Gibson, under the direction of George Miller, one of the film industry’s most innovative visionaries, the creation of the movie’s iconic automobiles began in 2003, when the project was slated to be filmed in South Africa.

Considering the setting of the movie—a post-apocalyptic wasteland—Gibson built the cars by repurposing found objects, the way that they would most likely be built after the collapse of civilization. He spent years scouring the junk yards of Australia and Nambia, searching for vintage pieces and parts that possessed the same personality attributes of the characters that would be driving the titanic vehicles.

The automobiles were built in a workshop next to the art department and set decoration so that a team of creatives, artists, mechanics and even a steel department could easily collaborate and collectively bring them to life. In the end, 88 cars were used in the movie, but 150 were made in total. Of these, half were blown up, flipped or split in half during filming. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1Ll2Sjk) 

Putting the Pieces Together

Despite the large number of vehicles created, careful attention was paid and much consideration was given to each model. For example, for the War Rig, the most important and central vehicle of the bunch, Gibson generated 41 drawings of the colossal truck, working alongside Mark Gatt, Steel Department Supervisor. The steelwork required fabricating, rolling, welding and cutting to modify and build the beast, which incorporated spikes, vents and lighting panels in its inventive design.

The Doof Wagon, which leads Immortan Joe’s troops to battle, and transports the Doof Warrior, a flame throwing guitarist, and his band of drummers, steals the show. The vehicle, seemingly straight out of a heavy metal concert, was constructed from a stripped down eight-wheel-drive rocket launcher truck, and utilizes a supercharged V8 engine, a wall of speakers and steel air-conditioning ducts from the insides of a number of large buildings as drums. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1CrGLjO )

Yet the most terrifying looking vehicles of Mad Max belong to the Buzzards, a scrap merchant tribe that seeks to consume the remains of the old world, and are encapsulated in a rusty shell of metal spikes. One of these vehicles, the Buzzard Excavator is a MAN 6×6 tractor covered in 1,757 steel spikes hand-fabricated from old car panels. Coincidentally, this just so happens to be the same number of quills on the Australian anteater, an animal native to the area where the movie was shot.

As simple and as fundamental as steel is, it’s certain that Mad Max: Fury Road would not be the cinematic masterpiece it is without the metal. Furthermore, the film’s impressive cars are also a testament to the power and importance of steel in a time when nothing else exists. And while Earth may not experience an apocalypse anytime soon, in the case that one does happen, we can rest assured knowing steel will still be as reliable as ever. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bloom.bg/1zXlvqD )