Do you remember this as a kid:

YOU:   “B-2….”
YOUR FRIEND:  “You Sank my Battleship!!”

Well, Hasbro decided it was time to turn this classic game into a movie.

 


This was my 3rd time working with Production Designer Neil Spisak. I was put in the group working on the designs for the Alien Spaceships. In the original game there were 5 ships per side.

Do you remember them?

 


There were:

  • An Aircraft Carrier (5 Holes)
  • A Battleship (4 Holes)
  • A Cruiser (3 Holes)
  • A Submarine (3 Holes)
  • And a Destroyer (2 Holes)

 

That meant that we had five major alien ships to design.  I believe Peter Berg (the director of the movie) gave out names to all of the ships.  The first four were named after the Beatles —  “John”, “Paul”, “George”, and “Ringo”.   And the last alien ship was given the name “Elvis”.

 

First up on my list was was working on the Alien Ship Paul (seen above).   The top “Paul” image is an amazing illustration by concept artist Steve Jung.  I spent a while trying to figure out how the ship could go from deep space flight form (folded up), to an open attack form standing on the ocean surface.

 


Next was  a quick project to create a small water surface ship for the aliens that we called the Fast Cruizer. An interesting challenge appeared as we moved along. It became apparent that many of the alien ships we were designing, did not have the narrow form of the traditional Navy ships in the original game.

We wondered how this would work if they turned our designs into a game to be sold after the movie came out.


The Alien Communication Ship.
This was “Elvis”.
Much of the script was supposed to be about the aliens com ship (communications ship) becoming damaged and crashing to earth; landing at the bottom of the ocean in the area near Hawaii.  Elvis was to be sunk, and then rebuilt on one of the Hawaian islands for the aliens to communicate with their home planet.

 

To the left is another awesome illustration by concept artist Steve Jung.   Using his illustration as a jumping point, I began making 3D computer models of “Elvis”.

We studied it’s total length, and how many bays the ship should have, as well as later changing the number and location of wings per section of the ship.

 

To the right is a great physical study model of “Elvis” made by talented model makers, Scot Erb and Dan Engle.

A brief amount of time was spent investigating designs for Regent Drones.  We were trying to make unique versions with individual personalities.  The one below that i worked on would have the upper and lower parts spin in opposite directions and each ‘point’ would have a unique tool at the end.

 


My last major project on Battleship was working on the ‘Flying Machine’ which we also called the “T-Ship”.  This was to be a Regent transport vehicle.

It was to have hoses hanging off the ship that were to be sucking resources out of the ocean, and use them for power.


There was a lot of experimenting on what the building language of the aliens would be.  We sent quite a bit of time trying to create a “coral-like” structure system to be their architectural language in the above images.

 

I hope you enjoyed the movie, and seeing here a little bit of what my part in the film process was.

Cheers,
–J.Andre.

 


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