

Building the Mad Max machines - fezz
http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/jacinta-leong-building-beastly-machines-mad-max-fury-road?none

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sp332
This article from Jalopnik has crazier details about the actual cars. "So what
about the War Rig itself? Well, it’s a Tatra with six-wheel-drive powered by
two supercharged V8s, a 1940s Chevy Fleetmaster welded to the back of the cab,
and a Beetle cabin mounted to the tanker. And it’s the least insane thing in
Gibson’s armada."

Edit: yup, forgot link [http://jalopnik.com/how-the-man-behind-the-machines-
of-mad-m...](http://jalopnik.com/how-the-man-behind-the-machines-of-mad-max-
put-a-hellsc-1704037927)

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fezz
The peacemaker is awesome:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-CFRAwSShs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-CFRAwSShs)

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jacquesm
Gah that autoplayed and I forgot I had my headset still on. Wow. At least I'm
fully awake again. Recommended but turn down the volume on your computer
before clicking because that's _really_ loud (un-muffled V8 on a tracked
vehicle that makes most Bombardier stuff look very tame in comparison).

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spiritplumber
The new Mad Max is not a green-screen-fest and it shows. Beautiful movie and
it has a physicality that, say, Transformers could never have.

Just give yourself five minutes before you drive home ;)

~~~
brudgers
Much like _Road Warrior_.

On the other hand, making a movie where the villains are simply villainous
because they are willing to use violence to take oil from people who simply
want to live their lives and keep it, that's not exactly the sort of big
budget theme Hollywood can stomach. These days the oil scarcity narrative
works better for blockbuster audiences with the political subjugation of women
as the primary determinant of villainy. Women fighting invaders to protect
hearth and home, just don't require enough rescuing for the 21st century.

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kposehn
> I didn’t meet Shira, but I would like to; we corresponded by email while I
> was in Australia, and she was in Namibia. I did not travel to Namibia for
> the shoot, so I sent files to her to continue.

This is one of the more fascinating tidbits. Two art directors on a major
motion picture that never once met - conferring by email.

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waterlesscloud
I don't know, but I bet they used Dropbox. Dropbox is huge in the film
production world. Lots of files to share among distributed teams.

EDIT- LOL. This comment is currently at -4. I have no idea why.

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nathanaldensr
Your comment reads--at least to me--as an advertisement for Dropbox.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Hmm. Maybe so. HN is odd about that sometimes.

My intent was merely to add some color commentary. It's not unusual for people
on a film project to collaborate remotely, sometimes never meeting. Happens
all the time since it's expensive to get people in the same (sometimes far
away) place. One of the main tools people use is Dropbox, it's one of those
things that really did make the workflow much easier.

Even a small indie film project with no visual effects can have thousands of
files that need to be shared between people all over the place. Scripts,
schedules, budgets, manifests, insurance documents, rental documents,
storyboards, concept art, contracts of a 100 different kinds, lighting
diagrams, blueprints, music cues, dailies, etc etc etc. It's really nice to
have a tool that makes that easy.

~~~
goatforce5
Apparently iPods (as drives) were the sharing method of choice during Lord of
the Rings production.

[http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipod-
helped-t...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipod-helped-to-
make-lord-of-the-rings/)

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beat
The drivability and safety of the vehicles is impressive, given the aesthetic
constraints. I grew up around motorcycle and car drag racing, and I know how
squirrelly such vehicles can get!

I raced as a kid myself, but quit after one try at racing my dad's bike. It
was full-race B-modified Kawasaki Z1, capable of 155mph in the quarter mile.
It would start to shimmy around 130mph. Scared the crap out of me! He was mad
that I didn't have the guts to just hang on and ride it through.

~~~
jacquesm
A bike that powerful is something to treat with proper respect and I'm kind of
surprised at your dad's reaction. With machines like that it is never the
machine that is the limit but _always_ the driver and if you're not confident
an accident is just around the corner. Confidence you can fake for humans but
machines are fairly unforgiving and the kind of punishment meted out at
130mph+ is not the kind of thing you'd normally wish on your kid. Kudos to you
(as a dad...) for knowing your limits rather than ending in hospital. I've had
only one major bike spill but it was my first _and_ last in one go, it cured
me of my sense that I was in control all the time in a split second (just a
bit of loose gravel in a corner that was usually clean, nowhere near 130mph).

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beat
My dad is an asshole.

And yeah, race track conditions are very different. A drag race is a straight
line over more or less flat and smooth asphalt, that can easily be kept clean.
The hard part is the vehicles are so fast that even keeping them straight over
the width of a two-lane road is a challenge (especially when the front wheels
may not be touching the ground for the first hundred feet or more).

I saw a guy get killed racing once, when I was a kid. It was a mixed
car/motorcycle event, and the motorcyclists were arguing with the NHRA to get
haybales put up around the guard rails at the end of the track. It didn't get
done, and a top fuel bike (~7.8 second quarter mile those days) lost control
and went into the rail at close to 200mph. That was sobering.

I don't ride motorcycles anymore. Too much sense of my own mortality.

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caminante

        "A specific challenge designing the vehicles was achieving 
        esthetic qualities as well as functionality. Our vehicles had 
        to look amazing, but beyond that, they also had to drive safely 
        at speed!"
    

This is an understatement. I was impressed.

~~~
devonkim
I'm curious if the sound effects were directly recorded from their respective
vehicles or if they were mostly done in a studio. A massive component of the
Mad Max movie for me was the phenomenal sound work starting from the brilliant
score to the unique purr of each vehicle's engine. Only the dialogue mixing is
flawed as far as I can tell as I was dumbstruck for two hours straight each
time I saw it.

~~~
nitrogen
Based on a Top Gear (RIP) interview with one of the actors, all of the dialog
had to be rerecorded because the engines were so loud. I wouldn't be surprised
if they used actual engine noise, given there was so much of it available.

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meesterdude
Honestly, watching this movie I felt like an 8 year old at a monster truck
show. Such satisfyingly clever and innovative designs of the vehicles, all
REAL machines and not just CGI... really jaw dropping. You just don't see that
kinda thing these anymore. I'm still excited by it days after having seen it.

17 years to make this film, and so many chances for it to have died. Amazing
the perseverance it must take.

~~~
bduerst
Any word if the director is moving on with the second one? I had heard that he
wanted to do it anime-style, like _Akira_.

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devsquid
Hehheh the movie looks like post apocalyptic wacky races

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jackvalentine
If you wanted to watch something in more detail, some minor celebrities in the
Australian modified car scene did a marketing job for the movie and made their
own "Mad Max" style car.

It's an S15 Silvia with an LS1 v8 on knobbly mud tyres.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp0KnUFYB--
g_NcNczfkX...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp0KnUFYB--
g_NcNczfkXW_T7izPjMHcI)

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huuu
Those machines are nice but somehow I got the feeling they look way too clean.
Almost no rust. Very safe. Almost no cracks bumps and what not.. There is
missing some creativity here. I think the old movies got this right.

But still: great work!

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kibibu
> Almost no rust

They're basically a cult that worships vehicles and being "shiny", I think
they'd have rather well-maintained vehicles.

The cars in the first movie were all in pretty good condition, from memory.

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CatsoCatsoCatso
In the first movie civilisation hadn't completely collapsed yet so the cars
and bikes look in pretty good nick - which is how they should have looked.
It's only in the second film that things get really post apocalyptic & rusty
since at that point civilisation was all but gone. (I watched both films back
to back last night)

