Making Monster Movies

How Pedro Mendes discovered the joy of diorama photography

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We are thrilled to be joined this week by Pedro Mendes, a mutual friend and creative collaborator. We asked Pedro if he’d be up for writing our first-ever guest post because we were blown away by what he has been doing with photography, toys, and home-brewed special effects.

Pedro is one of the most talented creative people we know and when he dives into a hobby or passion project, he goes DEEP. It’s a treat when someone opens up their private passion and shares the magic of the process, so a huge thanks to Pedro for doing this. Enjoy!

Have you seen that Godzilla movie where a monstrous alien being, a giant dark ball with a tiny face and long, slender arms, towers over a destroyed village and reaches out to a lone person, stranded in the middle of the street? Neither have I. Because that movie doesn’t exist. But wouldn’t it be cool if it did?

That’s how I play with my toys: posing them in dioramas and using practical effects to create images that look like stills from classic or surreal monster movies.

I have collected and built figures and scale models - mostly giant robots from Anime shows, along with classic Godzilla characters - as well as miniature Japanese villages, for about twenty years. And I’ve messed around with photographing them, with limited success. Early on, I struggled with the storytelling I wanted to achieve because I was missing the core skills and equipment key to miniature photography. So I put the idea aside and my toys collected dust.

But a few years ago, I saw a post on Tumblr (ok, more than a few years ago) about using fiber fill - the stuff(ing) inside teddy bears - to form small balls, spray paint them with a bit of orange and black, put a tiny led light inside and boom: a realistic looking explosion. I created an image using this technique that I love: a retro looking giant robot terrorizing a small village. It could be a poster for a 70s monster movie. 

But I knew at the time that if I wanted to continue down this road, I'd need to invest a lot more time and energy. I had other things on my plate at the time, including starting guitar lessons, so I shelved the idea. Again. My figures collected more dust and I even started contemplating giving them away.

And then a couple months ago, I randomly came across a YouTube video about using practical effects in Toy Photography. Effects like my fiber fill explosions, but so much more. Rain, smoke, streaks of light. And using them to create stunningly realistic images. It was so exciting to discover that since I’d stopped paying attention to Toy Photography, it had grown and matured. A whole community was out there doing this, taking photos so much more technically advanced than my early attempts. 

Now, it shouldn't surprise anyone, of course, that like anything and everything, there is a sizable subculture dedicated to Toy Photography. Hundreds of people around the world posing and photographing their toys. What’s wonderful, though, is that people are being so generous and sharing their lessons and techniques. Instantly, ideas started forming in my mind: fantastical and weird scenes inspired by my love of kaiju movies. To immerse people in strange and wondrous worlds.

I should say, I can’t find anyone else doing that. Most toy photos out there are based on action figures, usually Star Wars or super heroes. With digitally enhanced lasers and glowing eyes. The scenes are gorgeous, but not the kinds of stories I want to tell.

Something else I’m trying to do differently is sticking to only practical effects. Mirrors for bodies of water. Mist from a spray container for rain. Sparklers. A fog machine. Only what I can capture with my camera makes it into the photo, no effects added in Photoshop. I am giving myself the limitation of only using Photoshop to trim and colour correct. This forces me to do a lot more problem solving, as limitations often do.

Like fog. I have an old fog machine, the kind for Halloween parties. You fill it with some liquid, turn it on and it spews enough smoke to fill a room in seconds. But that’s a problem - I want the smoke to stick to my tiny dioramas. Enter another YouTube tutorial. In this one, I learned to attach a flexible hose to the outlet of my fog machine. And to fill the other end of the hose with frozen bottles of water. As the smoke passes out the hose, it’s cooled by the ice, causing it to slow down and crawl across the ground. My problems are still not all solved, though, as fog doesn’t photograph well at different exposure lengths and lighting, so it’s tricky and I’m still learning. But when I get it right, it adds a wonderful, dreamy quality to my photos. 

The biggest creative turning point for me, though, was the idea of using a digital background. Similar to ILM’s StageCraft, I use my TV as a backdrop, displaying images cast from my phone. But I didn’t want to use images someone else had created and I’d find on a Google image search. Instead, I started messing around with text-to-image machine learning. What I love about this process is that I get to tweak the images until I get what I want, but it’s always surprising and unexpected. It’s also unique. And that usually ends up steering my compositions in new directions.

I work as a podcast producer and play Portuguese guitar in my spare time. So I am already being creative most of my day. But what has brought me so much joy about Toy Photography is the completely different set of skills I'm using and developing. I am still trying to evoke emotions and tell a story - or at least encourage a story to take shape in the viewer’s mind - but I get to do it visually, not with sound or music. Not to mention the physicality in building and preparing the sets and then the challenge of taking the photos themselves. And all that seems to tap into a different part of my creative brain. But what I love most is that I have found a deeply satisfying way to play with my toys. 

Creative Prompts

I’ll use my experience to pose a few questions to you:

• Are there creative projects you can take on that don’t use the same skills and techniques you might already be using?

• In a different medium or format?

• Are there creative projects in your past that you can revive thanks to all the information, sharing and learning the web offers?

• And can you separate a creative project’s “value” from something monetary, or even the plaudits of others, and simply enjoy it for its own reasons?

If you’d like to check out more of Pedro’s photography, here is his portfolio. You can also explore Pedro’s passion for men’s fashion at the Hogtown Rake.