A graphic designer from the U.K. is recreating the famous car chase scene from the 1968 classic Bullitt using stop-motion footage of slot cars and a tiny little Steve McQueen.
In 1968, when men were men, cars were muscular and CGI was still just a bad idea waiting to be had, Steve McQueen made a film called Bullitt. It remains famous to this day as the big daddy of all car chases, a clash between a ’68 Ford Mustang Fastback and a ’68 Dodge Charger, two great, snarling monsters of Detroit steel howling their way through the streets and highways of San Francisco. And now, inspired by the release of collectors edition Bullitt slot cars, British graphic designer Steve Day is recreating the whole thing in stop-motion miniature.
He began by building a small set, then took took a few test photos and sent them off to Pioneer Slot Cars, the company producing the Bullitt miniatures. Pioneer liked what it saw and jumped on the bandwagon, sending Day several Mustang and Charger slot cars and enough Steve McQueen figurines to ensure he could get the job done right. Thus equipped, Day filmed a short trailer which has since turned up on sites ranging from Jalopnik to Top Gear.
“This being my first attempt at set building and my first attempt at stop-motion photography, the trailer that I produced was a test really, a way of learning the process and seeing if it could even be done,” Day told the New York Times. “The full movie will be produced with a much higher frame rate, with far more authentic detailing and at least eight full sets to shoot on as opposed to the one set I used for the trailer.”
Day said the full chase scene will be ready for release a little later this year, and it’s gone well enough that he expects to do more such projects in the future. He’s already got some mini Mini Coopers ready to recreate scenes from The Italian Job (hopefully the original) but said he might up end doing a Dukes of Hazzard project first.
