RULERS was my dinosaur movie. I wanted to do a dinosaur
horror movie and see if we could pull off the dino effects. I think we can, even on a small budget. I made the mistake of
shifting back to film from video. I love film and its driving me crazy I can't afford to shoot in that medium at the moment
(I hope it changes soon).
My father, Warren Disbrow SR, is amazing. When he was a kid when you bought a
model airplane kit it was nothing like the highky detailed, totally prepared plastic castings you just have to glue together.
Instead you got blocks of wood, directions and patterns to trace on the wood to do it for yourself from scratch! Now that's
REAL model making!
Anyhow, my father made the full size dinosaur puppets out of aluminum like huge
toys with motor driven legs and cable controlled neck, head and jaw movements. He also got the eyes working! My contribution
was to draw on several tapped together poster board the shape I wanted them to be so he could bend the metal to it. I also
sculpted dinosaur skin and the heads and eyes. My skin was used to cover his beautiful metal dino skeletons.
We shot Super 16. Lots of movies are shot on Super 16 these days because the
film stock is so damn sharp and free of grain its tough to tell Super 16 from standard 35mm anymore. I own all my own film
equipment so it came down to the raw film stock and lab work. But to small independent filmmakers those costs are an problem.
I started shooting and we shot for a number of weeks before I pulled the plug
on the movie. It was the only time I can remember I didn't complete something i started. RULERS would have been finished if
I had shot in on video, but instead I ended up with maybe 15 minutes of acting and action scenes featuring the dinosaurs.
All is not lost. I plan on shopping the footage and raising the money to make
RULERS properly. though its been many years since I shot footage on RULERS, we still have the aluminum dino full size toys
and I still have all the molds to pour fresh skin and heads... did I mention sharp teeth too?
The dinosuar heads on this page are two of the ones I sculpted. I'll post more
pictures ASAP of the full 20 foot long, 12 foot high beasties we tinkered together. The speed of the leg movement was adjustable
and they ran on rails from above so they could chase someone across a lawn in reality, no CGI stuff. They can interact physically
with the same environment as the fleeing actors. We also did smaller Raptor size Dino puppets too and they are still with
us too today.
One of the smaller dinosuars is in very good condition and I used it in SCARLET
MOON. You can see a picture of it on the SCARLET MOON page.
(to be continued)
