If you Bangshift readers are anything like us, you probably cringe every time a cool old car gets trashed in a chase scene in some movie, or smashed and beat on in a car insurance commercial, etc. I know that every time I see that happening, I always think, “THEY DON’T MAKE THOSE ANYMORE!!!! STOP IT!!!!”. If you think about it from the other end of things, filmmakers are probably having a tougher time finding a 2-door Chevelle to launch off a cliff because the supplies of old iron are a lot less than they used to be. And smashing and thrashing a museum piece is not a sound financial decision, since the classics are worth so much these days. But everyone still loves these cars, so what’s a filmmaker to do when they need something old or exotic to film? Well, now they can get their hands on The Mill’s Blackbird!
This is it. Weird looking, right?
What is it, you ask? Basically, it’s a high tech Special FX motion capture mule in the shape of a car. In production, the FX crew can map just about any car’s appearance with CGI onto the exterior of the Blackbird. The car was built with flexibility in mind, and the chassis length, width, and height can be moved to accommodate all sorts of chassis parameters to shoot a variety of vehicles. It’s powered by an electric drivetrain, and the wheel hubs can accommodate many bolt patterns for all sorts of wheels. While it was built to cater more to vehicle manufacturers filming commercials for new cars, one could see the value in having one of these stand in for shots where old or exotic stuff might get thrashed. And it gets it’s name from the fact that it was built in a facility where they used to assemble SR-71 Blackbirds. That’s pretty cool right there.
The Mill claims that you will be able to see in real time at the shoot what things will look like on a mobile device or tablet. That’s pretty cool!
In this demo, they are working on a Chevy Sonic commercial. The wheels in the ad are part of the actual Blackbird, but as you can see, the rest of it is CGI. Since the chassis adjusts, it’s possible to bake this thing look like just about any thing, save for some Prewar and Brass Era stuff. Very cool!
See that crazy camera thing on the top? What that does is scan the environment using imaging and lasers to help map out it’s surroundings for when they go to make the film/commercial. Since it’s an actual vehicle going down a real road with real wheels meant to be on that car, it will look all the more realistic. I wonder if it’s camera uses similar tech to those weird Google Street View cars’ cameras that can be seen putting around the US?
The value of having this interesting piece of technology for a filmmaker is immense. While I don’t think it will fully replace cars on set, a filmmaker can have an actual car on set for much less time and shoot all the movement with the Blackbird. So, the next time you see that pristine 1969 GTO Judge getting smashed to oblivion on screen, hopefully they used motion capture CGI data from this thing instead!
Check out the video from the guys who built it on YouTube!
You can check out The Mill’s website dedicated to The Blackbird HERE.
This is the best “car” I have ever seen on these pages! Rip out that faggot electric motor, swap in a hot Ecoboost, ditch the camera/laser and enjoy the hell out of it. I think there would be a huge market for these if they were supplied in kit form allowing the builder to choose their own powertrain and wheel/tyre combo.
Come on guys – don’t keep this beauty to yourselves…