Building Sets

 

When filming model train videos, one must always consider scale. In real life, locomotives are these almost "larger than life" vehicles that carry just as much power as they do weight. When building a set, I usually try and make a physical example of a "picture painted" in my head. Think of trying to bring an illustration to life. In a way, whatever space you are working with is your canvas - so you must fill your canvas with every detail the illustration introduced.

There is a difference between making a "set" and making a "layout." A layout is like a miniature world - specifically honing in on a very small part of this world and highlighting all of it's features. A set however, is just placing the details necessary to convey visually what you are trying to get across.

Building sets and layouts in O gauge is massive. People think they could never imagine to make a set in G scale, but to be honest, the jump from HO to O feels like G scale. Take a moment to look at the set in this picture above. In the video this set came from, the only parts visible to the viewer in the actual video were Percy's track, the barn, grass, and the sky backdrop to the right. But when building "a scene", everything else that contextualizes that area needs to be accounted for. The rails much stretch on further than the "frame" of the shot so to speak. Not only so Percy can move in and out of shot cohesively, but to make the world seem that much more believable. What if you saw the track suddenly end right in front of Percy? The audience would assume the line ends there - but the story of the video implies this is a railroad line that stretches much further. If in the context of this world Percy must go further, we need the track to go further. 

Here is an example of how much of the set viewers actually see in the video. Note only 3 trees are visible and only a few bushes. Notice how there is a slight hill/incline from the fence up to the barn. A lot of care was taken to sprinkle grass all over the grass mat to make it appear lush and lively. But the viewer only sees one third of this in the video. But in order for the world to seem believable, details must be present to be stretching beyond that "one third."

I hope this little example has helped those who are considering working in O gauge for modeling videos/pictures. Always remember that first picture up above: for O gauge, you need A LOT of space, and a lot of it isn't even going to show up in your frame. Expand, expand, expand.