Hi...Here's the next election of Action Man images from my archives....enjoy....
The Falcon Master is included here together with the "Ninja" .....a landscape setting in the ruins of a castle....and the Ninja Bike ....this was featured on the New York Street Set I built for some of the PhotoStories that required an urban city location...
it was a big 1/6 scale model set...eight feet wide and twelve feet in length ...it was built in an industrial unit in Blackpool which I rented during the period I worked on Action Man....
the extensive set building in those eight years that I designed and built would remind some people of the "supermationation days" at AP Films near Slough...if they had visited my studio in those days....sadly when the Action Man range was withdrawn.....the sets all went into a skip and history .....
Regards
Richard Dixon
Lancashire
UK
Those sets were huge. They deserve some articles too - what materials were used for such a large scale, and what existing items were you able to use ? Any behind-the-scenes shots ?
ReplyDeleteGreat archive pictures Richard. They capture Action Mans second time round perfectly. Thanks for sharing your collection.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul / New Zealand and Paul in Yorkshire....
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comments....will try to answer your questions...firstly a little background....
I joined the Action Man Team in 1996 /1997....I had done work with ...Hasbro on Action Force and GI Joe Toys....so my style of work was known to their Marketing Managers....when Action Man Comic with Marvel Comics UK / Panini Comics started to get off the ground .....it became clear to everyone connected with the Comic that to depend on the Advertising Photography done for the product at Hasbro Studios in Spain and London that their would not be enough actual visual material available to keep a monthly comic going forward....enough for a few months , thats it !!....thats where I came in....following three model shoots at two of my studios in those days for my first three covers for the comic......I didn't have enough space to do Action Man and the other Toy Products I was involved with at the time.....so I ramped up into an industrial unit to do the Action Man Comic and decided to spend some time creating permanent sets for the comic photography....increasing my photography studios to three units....it was very hectic !!!...moving to do shoots between the three units...my three strong design team started building landscape sets and I supervised and did the photography....all the cover set pictures were designed by me for the comic....four camera systems were in use...all film type....no digital...two Pentax 6x7 and two Mamiya 6x7....with various lens units - 90mm , 100mm macro , 50mm wide , 140mm short telephoto....chipboard baseboards....2 by 1 wood sections for framework to construct backgrounds - building framework etc.....foam board to cover the frames....plaster work and foam mouldings for buildings....lots of paint !!!.....the local garden centres used to love me as they sent round three truck loads of ferns and plants....all very "Century 21Gerry Anderson"....I designed streets , airport runway scenes , we had a water tank - actually a garden pond.....we filmed on five permanent sets with three "guest sets" for each of the monthly comics stories....eight years....the fifteen photo story adventures also were filmed at the industrial unit .
We produced over that time for Action Man....over sixty monthly cover pictures.....over 200 poster and competition pages photography and 15 photo story - five to eight pages per comic story adventures for the summer and winter special editions of the Comic.....the Action Man Greetings card Range for Gemma Cards in the UK and Pedigree Books Action Man Annuals were also filmed at the same studio unit...unfortunately after the eight years of production all the sets went to a skip....I closed the Action Man industrial unit as I did not need the space when that Comic closed down...
I do have some behind the scenes images still with me....which I will dig out and send to Moonbase Central for you all to see...it was a busy time for me then , but very exciting to be part of Action Man's miniature world ....which I created for the Children's Comics.....Richard Dixon TPD STUDIOS UK .
Family memories Richard and thanks for letting us in that world, like you say, very Century 21 sounding too! You must have enough material for a book. Collectors love background and Action Man is always popular. When you retire perhaps?
DeleteFab memories I meant!
ReplyDeleteHi Paul.....Thanks for that....appreciate your comments...."retirement".....not yet my friend...still got some interesting stuff to do....will send you some more things shortly....Best Regards Richard Dixon .
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