Miniatures have been at the centre of movie making for over 100 years. From Star Wars to Lord of the Rings these tiny worlds are a big part of both the big and small screen. Canadian miniature artist Marina Totino lets us into her studio and shares a look at the talent that's landed her jobs in the TV, music, and video game industries.
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00:00This is Marina Tutino, and she builds tiny worlds.
00:04She's made a literal career of creating the most amazing tiny things, and there's a reason
00:09that her creations are being sought out for movies, TV shows, and album covers.
00:14Hey, I'm Alex, and today we're pulling a Ms. Frizzle and shrinking down to explore the
00:19world of miniatures.
00:21If you want to blow up the White House, fly the Millennium Falcon, or visit Hogwarts,
00:26there's only really one way to do it right, miniatures.
00:30A trip to the moon started the trend over 100 years ago in 1902, and since then we've
00:35gotten blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings and Blade Runner 2049.
00:39The towering city of Minas Tirith still holds up 20 years later, and the level of detail
00:44in the futuristic sci-fi Los Angeles of 2049 would blow your mind.
00:49Now I could legitimately sit here all day and simp over the technical ability of these
00:53artists, or we can go on a field trip.
00:56Montreal is home to more than 40 visual effects companies, making it one of the largest post-production
01:02hubs in the world.
01:03So it's no surprise that we have some serious local talent here.
01:06Marina Tutino is a photographer, digital artist, miniaturist, and filmmaker.
01:11She's worked on movies, TV shows, and commercials, but miniatures have become an obsession, and
01:16she's building all of it right here out of her Montreal apartment.
01:19I started out making miniatures because I come from a film background, and I studied
01:24filmmaking.
01:25I've always loved filmmaking, but I also have, I was going to say I have a hard time.
01:32I love stop motion, and I wanted to get into stop motion.
01:35So I'd written out this entire script, I started building out characters and fleshing out ideas,
01:41and I started making this set.
01:43And I started in 2017, just building this little house.
01:47That was one of the first dioramas or miniatures that I'd built.
01:51And I fell in love with it instantly, and I couldn't stop building miniatures.
01:54And it came to a point where I realized I don't want to necessarily do stop motion right
01:59now, I want to focus on set design and focus on making miniatures and creating these spaces
02:03that don't exist so that I can film inside of.
02:06What draws me to it is the ability for me to express myself and express a lot of the
02:13darkness and isolation that I often feel.
02:16I love playing with light, I love creating atmospheres, feeling, and revisiting places
02:22that might have existed at some point, but no longer do.
02:27I play a lot with nostalgia, I play a lot with vintage aesthetics and stuff like that.
02:32I got into film when I was younger, as a kid, I played a lot with Windows Movie Maker and
02:37my webcam.
02:38You can make people disappear and add dumb titles, add credits, and I'm like, wow, people
02:43are going to know me now.
02:44So I got into filmmaking through that.
02:47I worked in the film industry and the transition from film to miniatures happened when I lived
02:50in Toronto.
02:51And that's why I went there initially, because there's so many U.S. productions that go there.
02:54So if you're looking to make it into the industry and want to work on big sets, Toronto is the
02:58place to be.
03:00I was already very artistic and wanted to do my own thing and always knew that I would.
03:05So I think that was more of a gateway into what I actually wanted to do.
03:09And being on set was super helpful for me anyway, because now the stuff I'm shooting,
03:14I incorporate a lot of the stuff I've learned from set onto my miniatures and filming those.
03:18So my process works by me thinking of a very small idea, and usually it just kind of grows
03:25over time.
03:26And the way that I think about miniatures is I think about scenes, I think about how
03:32they would look cinematically.
03:33So then when I think of an idea, like the laundromat, for example, I'll think of what's
03:37happening in there.
03:38There's something in the laundry machine, it's spinning, and I'll think of actions.
03:43I often create spaces where there are no people involved, mainly because I don't know how
03:47to make people yet.
03:49But also because I love the idea of creating spaces where it seems like someone was just
03:53there and just left.
03:54Once I sketch it out and figure out the scaling, I do a lot of the scaling work separately
03:58on a graph sheet and figure out sizes, because miniatures is really all just shapes.
04:04It's just putting shapes together and tiny shapes and figuring out how big you want certain
04:07things.
04:08So again, I'll have the idea.
04:10I'll come up with the composition in my head from a photography slash cinematography standpoint,
04:16and then I'll sketch it out and start building that based on that idea, based on that sketch.
04:22And then when I start sketching things out, it'll be something like the TV there, which
04:26ends up here.
04:27I'll kind of sketch out an idea and then make little notes of what type of material I would
04:32use, what color this part's going to be.
04:35I use a lot of styrene.
04:36I use a lot of balsa wood, basswood, cardstock paper, glues of all kinds, things of all kinds.
04:44Sometimes I'll be on the street and find a bunch of shit, and I'm like, I can use this.
04:48There was the ice storm in Montreal.
04:51Branches and trees fell onto the streets, and I took that opportunity and took a bunch
04:56of branches inside and started placing them into one of my miniatures, the clown head,
05:03as trees.
05:04And it looks pretty good.
05:06So is everything made from scratch?
05:08Yes.
05:09One of the biggest things I worked on was one of the first commissions I ever had as
05:13a miniature maker.
05:15It was for a TV show for Crave Canada.
05:18It was a Quebec TV show called Le Fin Fond de l'Histoire, and it's a true crime TV series.
05:23They asked for 10 miniature sets, and I had to build all 10 within a span of like four
05:28months.
05:29It was insane.
05:30I didn't even trust my ability yet because I had just started, but I said yes to it,
05:33and I was like, I can do this.
05:35And I really pushed myself, and I built these 10 miniature sets, and the host comes in and
05:40he kind of plays around with all the little pieces, kind of explaining what happened in
05:44the crime that took place, and he explains the scene.
05:48And I didn't know what I was capable of until I was put under that much pressure.
05:54And it was so awesome.
05:55It came out really cool.
05:56I got to make the cover art for a song by Lovejoy, which is a UK band, very awesome
06:02band.
06:03And I got to create a plane that was crashing down into the water.
06:08That was such a fun project to work on because I didn't, again, know if I could do it.
06:13And I kind of just say yes to things and then hope for the best later.
06:16That plane crash was also in the music video for Call Me What You Like.
06:21They asked me to shoot shots of when the plane was pristine and then also when it was crashing.
06:26So I just shot little shots of the model kind of moving in the air, and I had people helping
06:30me carry it across the screen and stuff like that.
06:34It was very cool.
06:35How long does it take to do a project like this?
06:38For something that I'm shooting that I don't have to send off, so something that's not
06:41necessarily like an art piece that you can put up on a mantel, it takes a lot less time
06:47because I'm not so worried about what the outside looks like and how to deliver it and
06:53what materials I'm using for the walls and for the base and all that.
06:56Whereas if it was a bigger piece or like an art piece like my video store, that one is
07:01built from the inside out all the way around and that could sit on someone's mantel.
07:07So that one takes longer because I'm really particular about the details everywhere.
07:12Whereas a set like this, like the airplane, was shot in such a way that the plane was
07:17in the middle, the background was further away, and then the water was even further
07:22front.
07:23So if you shoot it at a certain angle, it looks like everything's all together.
07:26But if you look at it from the side, everything is like dispersed, so it's not an actual diorama
07:30piece.
07:31It's like an illusion that you create with all the pieces.
07:34This was just a small look into the even smaller world of miniatures and the incredible talent
07:40behind the magic that gets custom built for movies, TV shows, and the music industry.
07:45Big shout out to Marina for letting me into her studio space to freak out over every little
07:48thing she's built.
07:49If you want to see more of her stuff, you can find her info in the description below.
07:52That's it for me.
07:53I'll see you in the next one.