How were the flying sequences filmed?
“We used either close ups of Jonathan … and the rest of the shots were done on this model. This thing was so good we were able to come in very close on it and still fool the camera. This whole thing was connected by wires to a battery that was then run on a huge track. To make it look like the size of a human being you’ve gotta slow the thing down so we shot it at 4 or 5 times normal speed and the operator trying to follow this thing was in a terrible state. We’d set this whole thing up and the clouds would get going and we’d shout “Action!” and it would go Wham! and then this thing would fly through the air “Berrrrrap!” and that was it and it would take us another hour to set it up again. By the end of the day you wouldn’t know what you’d achieved, but come the next morning, you saw the rushes and the film slowed down to the right speed … it’s fantastic, you saw this incredibly graceful, soaring, sweeping figure. That’s what we ended up with on film.” – Terry Gilliam, The South Ba
