MANTA III - Jack Bonner’s Fishing Boat
From the 1985 movie ‘Cocoon’ directed by Ron Howard
The 1985 sci-fi/comedy/drama ‘Cocoon’ is a lovely film. I did a ‘What If kit box’ of the alien spaceship from the film in video #4 – and I thought it would be fitting to do the fishing boat owned by Jack Bonner (Steve Guttenburg’s character) that features so prominently in the film.
This picture is from the night-time escape where a bunch of the residents of the old peoples home make their escape with Brian Dennehy and the others. This is a pretty loose painting. The AMT/ERTL box artwork around this time had a certain style that I have tried to emulate here.
The boat seen in the film is - I think - a 55 foot Bertram Fishing Boat. A real boat was filmed off the coast of Florida. A model kit in 1/87th seemed to be a good scale. Civillian (non military) boats are not that common in the model kit world. Incidentally, 1/87th )approx 7.5 inches in length) is the same size as the smaller miniature built for the film and used in the far away shots. Apparently that ILM model included HO scale figures. .A larger model of approx 5 feet in length included 1/12th scale ‘stop motion’ figures.
The film is worth checking out, with a great ensemble cast; a who’s who of actors from the 1940s, 50s, 60s as well as the 1980s. The film has an absolutely wonderful James Horner score and some really cool vfx. The shot of the manta III rising up out of the water is just incredible. I remember seeing this in the cinema for the first time and being blown away by the optical work and wondering how they got the shot of that sizable boat… that must have been a pretty giant blue-screen. However, upon reading the Cinefex article I found out that the boat was a miniature with stop motion puppets of the people. Amazing.
( As a nod to that I have painted one of the figures at the back of the boat as visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston – who animated the shot – wearing one of the famous VistaVision t shirts.
The film won the 1985 Accademy Award for Best Visual Effects