Jaws 3D par Romain Néophyte

Un lecteur Genevois (accessoirement fan de Néophyte) m’a récemment fait remarquer que je ne parlais jamais de la Suisse sur www.Jaws-3D.com… Et pour cause, je ne possède absolument aucun matériel promotionnel « from Switzerland » dans mes cartons! Rien si ce n’est cet ouvrage de près de 500 pages rédigé par le directeur de la cinémathèque suisse Freddy Buache en 1985! Et encore…

Voici donc les quelques lignes consacrées au chef d’oeuvre de Joe Alves. C’est mince mais ça devrait donner l’illusion que je m’investis toujours autant dans mon travail… J’en profite pour m’excuser auprès de Carl Gottlieb d’avoir lâchement oublié son 74ème anniversaire. Mais quelque part ça lui apprendra à faire la sourde oreille à mes nombreuses demandes d’interviews…

« Romain, je m’inquiète énormément… Tu sembles avoir disparu de la circulation. Aurais-tu abandonné lâchement ce formidable projet?  » Pas du tout mes amis! Je suis juste particulièrement occupé en ce moment (Néophyte en tête). Mais laissons de côté mon emploi du temps de ministre et focalisons nous plutôt sur la star mécanique de Jaws 3D: Bruce III.   Tous les privilégiés qui ont visité le parc d’Orlando pendant l’année 1983 se souviennent de ce modèle d’exposition à la taille respectable et au look incomparable!

La plupart des photographies qui illustrent ce nouvel article sont tirés des archives personnelles d’ Erik Hollander (réalisateur du documentaire malheureusement encore invisible The Shark is still working). Ces clichés apparus sur la toile au début des années 2000 permettent ainsi aux fans d’apprécier pleinement le travail de Roy Arbogast sans avoir à user de leur télécommande (comme chacun sait le requin des Dents de la mer 3 n’apparait qu’une fraction de seconde hors de l’eau sur les 97 minutes qui composent le film de Joe Alves)! Ils semblent même confirmer la taille de 25 pieds (cf tableau d’informations) qui fait encore débat 29 ans plus tard! Mais qui peut réellement dire que ce monstre est bien celui utilisé lors du tournage? Pour cela, il faudra attendre la seconde partie de cet article!

Que les choses soient claires: cette horreur ne mérite pas la somme déboursée! Je me demande encore comment j’ai pu tomber aussi facilement dans le panneau! Fabriqué localement par l’obscur Tv Pinball, ce jouet minuscule (2 pouces sur 3) aurait, selon la légende, trouvé sa place dans les paquets de céréales commercialisés sur le territoire argentin. Aussi injouable qu’ ennuyeux, il a dû faire le malheur de dizaines de milliers d’enfants… Impossible à dire, cependant, si cet objet est sous licence Universal ou s’il s’agit d’une grave entorse au principe de Copyright. Comme on peut dénicher sur la toile aussi bien des modèles estampillés Slipknot (chez Rock Pinball) que Ben-hur (au mécanisme strictement identique) on a toutes les raisons de rester méfiants… Peu importe, la photographie du requin (un vulgaire screenshot selon moi) apporte une formidable touche d’exotisme et le logo Tiburon 3D est juste magnifique! De quoi aider à faire passer l’addition…

Ces escaliers et ce panneau d’avertissement vous semblent vaguement familiers ? Ces briques recouvertes de peinture blanche et cette police d’écriture Comic-style ont comme un air de déjà-vu? Et pour cause, ce local a servi de décor à votre film préféré: Les Dents de la mer 3. Prévisible me direz-vous! La scène réalisée entre ces murs est l’une des plus mémorable du long-métrage puisqu’il s’agit de la rapide autopsie du corps d’Overman après sa réapparition surprise dans la foret de corail de l’ Undersea Kingdom. Pour les plus courageux d’entre vous, sachez qu’il est tout à fait possible de se rendre à l’endroit même où la magie a été crée puisque ce local est toujours situé à proximité du bassin à requin du SeaWorld d’Orlando (là, où on peut profiter de l’attraction Shark Encounter) !

Je bâcle ce petit article (on ne peut pas tous les jours être au top!)) qui n’avait que pour seul but de rassurer nos lecteurs. Malgré le peu de mises à jour, www.jaws-3d.com n’est pas encore mort. Je suis juste complètement pris par la sortie de mon quatrième album Faux Mouvement. Mais je vous réserve quand même quelques surprises dans les prochaines semaines (script de Carl Gottlieb, photos inédites, un retour sur les figurants…) ! D’ailleurs, si vous souhaitez que tel ou tel sujet soit abordé, faites moi en part rapidement à: neophyte.punk@gmail.com

Comme vous le savez, je m’interdis généralement de parler d’objets qui n’appartiennent pas encore à ma collection. Mais bon, voilà… Noël est passé et le barbu n’a pas jugé bon de me ramener des Etats-Unis ce carton contenant 24 boites (chaque boite comporte 36 paquets) de trading-cards Jaws 3D… D’un côté, que voulez-vous que je fasse avec autant de boites et de chewing-gums périmés? Non finalement, je suis tout à fait content de mes coffrets Blu-ray de Star Wars, Nightmare on Elm Street et mon DVD de 91 The Year Punk Broke… Mais bon… ça reste quand même un beau carton aux couleurs de mon film préféré… « Reprends-toi Romain, tu ne vas quand même pas dépenser 500 dollars pour une boite en carton?!? » Vu sous cet angle…

L’année 2011 est, vous l’aurez compris, sur le point de s’achever. Il sera bientôt temps de faire le bilan de ces 12 derniers mois et de commencer à compter les jours nous séparant de la sortie en BD-3D du film de Joe Alves. N’hésitez donc pas à me faire part de vos suggestions afin d’améliorer ce site et répondre ainsi aux attentes de chacun…

Dernière partie de notre dossier consacré à l’artiste Mike Schultz au sujet de sa collection 2012 qui contiendra, comme vous le savez, une version NTT de notre Bruce III préféré! Bien évidemment, www.jaws-3D.com suivra de très près la conception et la réalisation du monstre tout au long de ces prochains mois. En dehors d’ un potentiel Blu-ray, le Bruce III NTT est à coup sûr l’ évènement de 2012! Quoi qu’il en soit, je viens de récupérer de nombreux articles assez rares qui devraient nous aider à patienter jusque là… Restez nombreux à soutenir ce site!

In your opinion what really differentiates Bruce 3D from Bruce and Brucette?

**This is a VERY rich area for discussion!
In my opinion the Brucette from Jaws 2 is VERY close to how the full-scale Bruce 3D shark appeared on film in many ways. I am not saying they are the same, I am saying that they are far more alike than they are different!
Much of this goes back to how a skin is framed and padded out. I know from all the mechanical dinosaurs and the 7 different mechanical sharks I have make in the last 30 years. You can take the exact same skin and stretch it on a different frame, or pad it different and you will have both looking as unique and individual from each other as the Tow Sled Shark was from the Platform Sharks from the first movie!
In fact, the head that is blown up at the end of the first movie was from the same molds but not stretched out at all, but rather just hung on a lose framework; it looks nothing like any of the Bruces’ that any of us would recognize.

Many people get into trouble when they attempt to model a Bruce by using Junkyard Bruce materials.
It may have been made directly from the original molds, but it was never stretched on any animatronics style framework. Like 2 different sized people trying on the same small shirt; one person fat and the other skinny; you will have two very different ‘looks’ when compared together at the end…

The same for the Bruce 3D and the Brucette from the 2nd movies. They have very intense similarities.
I can tell screen-grabs and behind the scenes material apart at a glance due to memory. But recently new photos appeared of the Brucette without teeth, and the coloring and off-angle pose made them look almost a dead-ringer for the Bruce 3D for me. The differences are that subtle when key features like the lower lip and scars are hidden from view!
Of course we can all tell from the big things like the burn-scars, or the overly jutted lower jaw. The teeth and inner-mouth are a dead give-away as well. But it is that triangle of eye to snout to nostril that is nearly identical, and measures nearly the same as well for the 2nd and third sequel Bruce’s.

In my conversations with Mr. Alves he has greatly detailed for me how they made changes to the Bruce mold to achieve what they did with Brucette for the second film. The upper skull area is the same. Everything both below the cheek-bone area and behind are different, including of course the neck and gills. So, in a few scenes here and there you can see the original beloved Bruce in Brucette very clearly.

Interestingly enough, in the first movie you can also see some of Brucette in Bruce!
When Bruce’s mouth is nearly closed and the upper skull is lowered and the jowls are hidden then it is clearly exactly like Brucette for that upper head area.
It’s in how they made the shark’s carry themselves on-screen as well though.
Bruce nearly always had his mouth wide open and his upper skull raised high and agape. Brucette nearly always had its mouth nearly closed and upper-skull lowered like a cruising White shark.

Similarly the Jaws 3 Bruce was most like the Brucette in its standard pose, with the upper-skull lowered.
This gave it the same look of it’s eye being higher in plane than the snout-tip. Both of these sharks also featured extremely weak looking jowl-muscle areas.
In trying to back away from the tiger-shark or catfish style jowls of the first Bruce I believe that they became unbalanced and went overboard in losing that look and made their sharks look VERY weak-jawed.

Both of these sequel sharks featured similar pinched-style hinging at the cheek corners to help defer the bulging and bowing as the mouth’s flexed. I too fought these same problems as a teen making my first set of mechanical sharks. If you don’t design this area right then the entire head balloons or draws thin as the mouth operates, no matter how you frame and pad the skins out.

Of course the mouths and teeth and gills are entirely different as well. The first Bruce was truly the slimmest of all the sharks. Brucette used the same frame as the original, but that frame was heavily modified and larger. This is also made reference to in the Jaws 2 Log. After Bruce, the following sharks became much fatter and roomier on the inside. The throats also began to become less deep as additional room was taken up with ballast or floatation aiding gear.

Now if you want to talk bodies I am currently still crunching numbers on the Bruce 3D shark. But so far I can tell for certain that the Bruce and Brucette used the same body molds. But in order to maintain screen-used accuracy for my Brucette I will have to alter the fatness of the body and trim the dorsal and tail fins differently.
Simply put they used the Bruce body molds over a fatter frame and trimmed the fins differently,
so I will have to make an entirely new body mold for our Brucette as well.
So far the Bruce 3D body seems to be the same as the Brucette body but it was framed and padded differently as well. So I will also have to make an entirely new body for the Bruce 3D as well in order to make it accurate.
Once discerning fas have their entire Bruce NTT Shark Collector’s Set in front of them on the shelf then they will see and understand and appreciate all these nuances and unique features themselves. And I honestly do believe that we will continue to receive ‘Thank you’ letters for many years to come for doing our due-diligence[s] in honoring exactly what these sharks really were both for the camera, and behind the scenes; instead of just trying to let talent and guesswork roll the dice like most other artists have done all these years.

Romain, I sure do thank you for your time, and for asking me to be a part of your efforts at Jaws 3D.
If you want I would love to keep you and your readers in the loop about us at SCO and our efforts. I may not have the armchair-general knowledge memorized verbatim like so many seem to rattle off on forums so often.
But I do have over 30 years of making these sharks in various forms, as well as the Dinosaurs to be able to place a practical and experienced base edge to my writings. I am open to whatever you or your readers may want us to provide.
Please keep us and www.sharkcityozark.com in mind. Our chief goal is to get our Sharks professionally mass produced by one of the great companies out there like Toynami or Hot Toys. We simply cannot survive forever trying to put a Shark on every shelf all by ourselves.

There is plenty any friend of SCO can do to help out. Feel free to send photos of our SCO sharks and an email to ANY toy or collectibles manufacturer and ask them to pick us up and produce some one or all of our sharks!
* Make and keep your favorite site current with our products, photos or art-work.
** The more that the right people, the Big-Players hear about www.sharkcityozark.com or Mike Schultz the Shark Guy
then the more open they will be to utilize us and or our materials.
Besides, If our Sharks get mass produced by the right people than they will be FAR More Affordable for everyone!

N’ayant définitivement pas le temps de rédiger de nouveaux articles à propos de votre film préféré, je vous invite à continuer notre longue entrevue avec notre ami Mike Schultz. Une entrevue passionnante qui devrait vous faire patienter pendant quelques jours… Sachez que la majeure partie de mon temps est consacrée à la sortie de mon quatrième album: Faux Mouvement (dont vous pouvez écouter quelques extraits sur le site de Néophyte).

There are many different shark in Jaws 3D. Are you planning a synthesis of all these models, or you focus on one?
No, we are limiting our All New Full Length Bruce 3D NTT Shark to the actual full sized underwater filming model from the studio Tank. As you and your readers know, all the 3D sharks were pretty much night and day in difference from each other. The miniatures looked nothing like the full sized models.
To try and blend them into just one model would seriously diminish what the 3D Bruce really was.

I believe this was Mr. Nicotero’s expressed reasoning for the large Bruce Shark head that he built, and the mods that he performed on the NTT that I sold him. He stated to me that he felt that Bruce was Bruce and that he did not really care for the differences between the filming models to be pointed out.
However; his expressed preference was clearly for the Tow Sled Shark. The majority of the reference materials apparent in photos of them building it [the 1:1 head] feature mostly Sled-Shark materials.

There is nothing wrong with either approach. But we are making scale model replicas at SCO. And any scale model builder can tell you that they want a scale model to be accurate, not just something based on an artists feelings or limited by his/her skill or abilities. They want an F-16 Falcon based on real world measurements and study, not something artistically based like the G.I. Joe Toy F-16 down at ToysRus.

Those that have studied the shark’s from the first movie know that the sled shark uses a skin from the same generic Bruce molds, but stretched over an entirely different frame. Its eye cut-outs were very different, its jaw hung slack and it was framed very much fatter, especially around the neck area.
So Mr. Nicotero chose to make the shark’s more like a Sled Shark, but also appeared to have mixed in the ‘feel’ of the Platform Bruce’s as well in some areas. As you can tell by looking at his sharks, they indeed are very Bruce-Like. He does FANTASTIC work! But they are not like any one particular Bruce or scene from the movie. They are good, VERY good. Just not any one Bruce as recorded by history is, is all.

We don’t want to lose what we all grew up with, in an attempt to somehow conglomerate the Bruce 3D experience into one pseudo-shark. That is not recording history, this is not mathematically-accurate reproduction for future generations and the current generation of collectors.
We may be wrong about this, after all its only our opinion and how we approach things. But we want to be remembered for being the first people who provided what we said that we would provide the community. And that is, a mathematically accurate scale model of Bruce.

Specifically our original NTT Shark is as perfect a scale model of the Right-Sided Platform Bruce Shark from the movie’s 3rd act as has ever been made in 30 years. This is what we are delivering on for the Jaws 3D fans as well. Our All New Bruce 3D NTT Shark coming out 3rd Quarter of 2012 is going to also be the only mathematically perfect scale model ever made of the full-Scale underwater filming model of that Bruce 3. Now we are also going to model the Baby Bruce in scale, but that will only be available to those that purchase the entire set of 4 sharks. We love to include bonuses like this for those that are as over-the-top as we are. As if we needed to add any bonus material though. Literally nothing of any accurate styled value has ever been offered by anyone for the 30 years of this incredible Shark franchise. We have come along and not only finally delivered something worth collecting, but far more worth even double what people have paid for them. I base this on what my original NTT sharks are re-selling for currently, and this is double what I made them for and sold them for last year alone! Now that says something dramatic about the quality of my familie’s vision and work in this field and community!

Bon nombre de sceptiques me font part de leurs doutes concernant la possibilité de voir apparaitre prochainement sur le marché une reproduction fidèle du requin des Dents de la mer 3. Effectivement, le matériel promotionnel concernant la star du film est assez maigre et ces interrogations sont parfaitement légitimes. Il me semble donc judicieux de poser directement la question à notre ami Mike Schultz qui ne manquera pas de nous rassurer.

There are very few promotional material and informations about the Jaws 3D shark. From what document you’re working on this model?
« Our version of the Bruce 3D shark is based solely on the full scale underwater filming model as depicted in the sketch that I provided you for this article We are pleased to announce our alliance with you and your site. If it were not for your help and direct feedback , as well as critique and supply of photo reference materials than I would most likely fail in replicating this shark faithfully. Thankfully you have supplied me with some incredible material, enough to measure and scale up to match the scale of our other Ultimate Bruce Shark Collector’s Set. Your provided reference materials and the photoshop enhanced screen-grabs from the movie have provided everything that we have needed and then some. Bruce 3D will be both Dynamic and Incredible!

From your provided material I have been sketching the Bruce 3D both on paper and in clay. My latest 2 models are already much more accurate than the old dusty head on my shelf from 2010. We are confident that the All New Full Length Bruce 3D NTT Model will be absolutely screen accurate in every way. We have even found a few nice surprise details to include. That’s one of our favorite things to do is to include little known details into our models to educate fans with. Discovery is a fun thing!

You see, our background is in producing Museum Displays. Oftentimes full scale ones at that. The purpose of our models is two-fold; to record history and also to educate. We know that most people buy them just because they are pretty cool and perfectly accurate.
But that doesn’t mean that they can’t have neat things to discover and learn about for years to come too.. We tend to think of our Shark Displays as well rounded experiences for our friends and fans. They are not just any Shark models, they are the best of the best so far.
It is often very difficult to follow behind perfection! »

N’ hésitez pas à me contacter si vous souhaitez en savoir plus sur tel ou tel aspect de la réalisation du très attendu Jaws 3D NTT.

L’année 2012 sera assurément un grand cru pour les fans de Jaws 3D… Pour la première fois en près de 30 ans, les collectionneurs pourront mettre la main sur une réplique de la star du film aux dimensions de rêves! L’homme derrière ce fantastique projet? Le très réputé Mike Schultz à qui on doit déjà le désormais épuisé NTT (nose to tail). Comme vous pouvez l’imaginer, nous allons suivre de près toutes les étapes dans la conception de cette oeuvre d’art. De façon presque hebdomadaire, nous donnerons donc la parole à son créateur. Une occasion pour nos lecteurs de mieux cerner les détails qui font du Bruce III de Roy Arbogast le requin le plus abouti de la saga.

Could you describe your activities and projects that you have for 2012?
« Yes, I love to talk about our Sharks. 2012 is going to be our most impressive year ever. It is almost like my family has been ‘in training’ for the Olympics this year. Cathy, my wife works on the website www.sharkcityozark.com , and she keeps the books as well as building the miniature display stands and mechanical inserts for the 1/6 Bruce busts.
In like manor my girls Stef and Rae work on the videos and editing and music for our product videos as well as much of the mold-work. The boys and I run resin and sand seams etc. I am charged with the prototype making of course and do the final assembly, and all painting and detail work on each of the sharks that we ship out.

Well, all year we have been working our production-line like little ‘Shark-making Elves‘. It is almost like we all trained and honed our skills on the big 37 inch long Nose To Tail Bruce Sharks that sold out earlier in the year. The rest of the year we have spent filling the orders for the newer 18 inch long Open Sided Bruce NTT Sharks, and the HUGE 1/6 Bruce Shark Head Mounts. But next year we take it up several notches higher!

I have finally been freed up from the more time consuming chores on the production line such as casting each and every piece. Just for the NTT there were 9 molds! The Open Sided Shark requires 14 molds! I also have been freed up from having to clean-up each and every piece as well as primer painting them all. I essentially now just show up for the final assembly, airbrush work and fine detail paintings. The upgrade to our productivity is through the roof now as I am sure you all can see. What used to take me 2 weeks to put out just one NTT Shark, well, we are now shipping 4 NTT’s, 5 Bruce Busts and 3 to 7 OSS sharks each week, on average, and sometimes much more!

So this has left me with HUGE amounts of free time to study and make the Prototypes for 2012. In the last year I have been able to start, and or finish an amazing number of Prototypes. So far the HUGE 1/6 Brucette Shark Head Mount is over 55% completed. I also have a 37 inch NTT version of Brucette up on the rack, but it is to remain just for me I think.
I have 2 versions also of the ALL NEW Bruce NTT Shark 2.0 completed as well, one larger, one smaller. We also have a few versions of the Bruce 3D shark head sitting on the shelf; and admittedly very dusty. I have a Revenge Bruce head in the works, in scale for a future Nose to Tail or NTT model as well.

What we are doing for 2012 is The ALL NEW Ultimate Bruce NTT Collector’s Set.
Each quarter we will release an all new display of a Movie Shark!
Quarter 1 will be the release of the All New full Length Bruce Shark NTT model. It is based on the powerfully brand New version of Bruce before it ever was water tested. It is widely agreed that this is the favorite variation of Bruce almost unanimously. This is the Shark that Mr. Alves and Mr. Spielberg envisioned.
Once it hit the water they discovered those water-proof materials were more like plastic sponges. And the Bruce from the behind the scenes material was born; the saggy, baggy, wrinkled, torn and patched shark that Mr. Spielberg referred to as ‘the Turd’ is what the ocean did to Bruce.
Well, not so with The Ultimate Bruce NTT 2.0 coming in 2012!
Clean, sharp, tight, muscular lines define this Shark’s build. Based on direct feedback from over 500 fan emails and postings!

For the 2nd Quarter we will be releasing the Sequel’s Full Length Brucette NTT Shark . It will be to the same scale as all the other Ultimate Bruce NTT Sharks. Then finally in the 3rd quarter we will release the Bruce 3D NTT Shark and then end the year with the Revenge NTT Shark.
All the sharks will be in scale to each other and will ship out with free display stands and our signed SCO certificates of Authenticity that each of us worked on and puts our names too!
We have proven ourselves in the fan community for well over a year now. If we post that we are going to do it then we do it. We have honored every agreement, posting, contract and deal. We have always released ahead of schedule and we always ship out more than we advertise and riddle our Shark Displays with awesome little surprises. We take care of our customers too, as can be plainly seen on our Feedback page.

J’espère que vous êtes aussi excités que moi par ce projet! Au prochain article, je vous offrirai l’ un des premiers dessins préparatoires de Mike Schultz estampillés Jaws 3D! Restez connectés.

Douze mois se sont donc écoulés depuis la tragique disparition de notre Philip FitzRoyce adoré… Inutile, cependant,  de revenir une fois de plus sur sa formidable carrière et sa faculté à rendre ses personnages hautement attachants… Juste un dernier hommage appuyé, donc, à celui qui a fait de ce Jaws 3D un film inoubliable (« ah oui, le troisième c’est celui avec Manimal ? »). Pour l’ occasion, voici donc trois photos (dont l’ une- la première- est tout simplement inédite) du 16ème comte d’ Haddonfield qui devrait certainement vous donner l’ envie de vous replonger immédiatement dans le classique de Joe Alves! Souhaitons qu’ à l’ avenir, nous soyons capable de resurfacer la majeur partie des documents (vidéo, photos, interviews) concernant son implication dans ce troisième volet. L’ entreprise s’ annonce bien évidemment compliquée mais l’ optimisme est toujours de rigueur… Tu nous manques tellement, Simon…