Philosophy Friday -- Scene One, Take Two.... Action!

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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“Scene One, Take Two… Action!”


O’dark-thirty… the usual nocturnal stroll through the city… paused a moment to take in the sights and sounds… reflect upon it’s diversity… and whatever the heck that is up ahead lurking in the shadows…
At the far end, a biker bar… its smoky yellow light spills out into the street… illuminating a row of neatly parked hogs.
Next door, a seedy motel. It’s last remaining letters wink out a tired ‘H O’… the rest just flicker glumly. Across the street stands a pair of midnight Madonnas lit in the glow of the one working street lamp cracking their gum and looking bored… watching a small black cat slink its way along the fence surrounding a vacant lot piled high with boxes and urban detritus obscured in the shadows. The railroad track, smelling distinctly of grease and creosote, cuts a groove down the center of the pavement… no trains rolling through here tonight.
Suddenly the quiet night is pierced by a brisk cry off in the distance, “Hey, come back with my pants!”

A masterful modeler, like a good author, tells a story through his models. Just as the author carefully selects his words to

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Mine is simple. I am trying to convey the almost insurmountable task of putting a rail line through the Canadian Rockies in the 1800s. I want people to look at my mountain passes and have them realize what an undertaking it was to build.

Also I wish to show that it is an ongoing struggle to keep the line open, and remind them by displaying an old washout or two where some old rusty rails and ties can be seen falling off into the the canyon below from where a roadbed cut into a canyon wall once stood. And where the replacement now skirts around it by means of an even deeper cut into the cliff.

If you peer below the surface of the lake where the track is cut into the rock face that follows the shoreline, you will see a rusty hulk, that is a Locomotive that has been abandon, just because it was impossible to remove. Further down the line a small Graveyard. Buried there are some of the many workers killed building and later running the Railroad. The Graveyard is all that remains on the site of what turned out to be a short lived Railroad town.

I think the story I am trying to tell is one of accomplishment. If my model can show blood,sweat and tears without a figure in site. I will be happy.

Brent[C):-)]

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“All the world’s a stage…”

I like to think of a layout in terms of a play, rather than a movie. The stage is small, generally only a tiny fraction of the “world” we are modeling. We are the set designers, creating a static space in which our rail-bound “actors” enter, move across while speaking their lines, and leave. Some of us weave intricate stories with our “sets,” drawing the viewers’ eyes in deep, while other provide a bare minimum, a couple of chairs, perhaps, to allow the actors to posture.

“A poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more…”

Well, what do you think “staging” means? It’s a direct line back to the theater, on-stage, off-stage.

“I’m walkin’ down that long lonesome road…”

My “story,” though, doesn’t go down the tracks. It goes along the streets of Moose Bay. The lines of buildings folow the roads, not the rails. The engines blow their whistles, but only at the grade crossings. The people walk on the sidewalks. And yes, there are stories, and names. The Clampett place out by the edge of town, with an old car broken down in the driveway and a hand-pump for water out back. Follow that road and you’ll come to Lady Buc’s clam bar on the bay. Cross the bridge and say hello to Tom and Aretha, Carl and Lenny sitting on their front stoops on Bridge Street. Take Penny Lane from there, through the center, past the Heartbreak Hotel and the House of Haggis, above the subway tracks and you’ll get to the Coal and Oil dealership, where you can look in and see Mr. Burns and Mr. Smithers.

On Phase 2 of Moose Bay, I’m still paving Beaver Street. Down in Mooseport, John’s tale of night people could describe the plans. A slow street-running switcher pulling a few cars past a bar called The Brass Rat, a few ladies looking for a late customer or two, water in the car-float s

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– Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

Certainly. All of our layouts tell a story, even if the story is only about the owner/builder. I want my layout to show a small slice of the American story .

– Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told?

Yes, just as I am a fan of museum exhibits or non-fiction books, which tell a story, rather than simply lay out cold facts. Judging from lines at the museum and the best-seller lists, many agree.

– Does your layout tell a story? Or if you don’t have a layout yet, the one you’re planning?

Small vignettes I have thought of for my planned layout are a southern family arriving fresh off the farm to work the mine or mill, a draft board/recruiter’s office, a war-bond rally in the park, a couple of victory gardens and a military funeral in the small hillside cemetery. The railroads will be busy and a bit weary. You should be able to guess the era and the story from those details alone.

– Do you think it would be helpful for a modeler to construct a “story board” as an aid to guide him the development of his “signature scenes”, and in the general development of his layout?

Oh, I don’t know. As a writer I develop story boards all the time, and for my hobby I prefer to be a little bit less structured. However, I do have a history of the town in my mind to lay supporting backstory into the narrative.

– What other advice do you have for a modeler aiming to tell a story on his layout?

I don’t know if I am qualified to give any advice, not having actually completed anything, but I would think that if you look at your railroad(s

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– Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

A good story sets a sense of time and purpose, so a good layout should do the same. A story has a beginning, middle and end, with the character changing at the end of the story for better or worse. I’m not sure that applies as much, but there are certainly some similarities.

– Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told? (In addition to, naturally, being able to run the trains :slight_smile:

I’ve never seen an entire layout with a story. There are certain scenes within it and usually a general sense of place and time. As long as the mini-scenes match the overall theme, then that helps link everything together.

– Does your layout tell a story? Or if you don’t have a layout yet, the one you’re planning?

Good question. I think only visitors can answer that. My goal was to model lots of industry with lots of switching action. Is that a story? Probably not. The vehicles and trains should set the time and place and the scenes of workers in and around the factory hopefully create a sense of “being busy” to help justify the rail traffic. But I’m not sure it actually tells a coherent story throughout.

– Do you think it would be helpful for a modeler to construct a “story board” as an aid to guide him the development of his “signature scenes”, and in the general development of his layout?

I keep going back to a sense of time and place. I think you need to define that, build everything around that, then everything should naturally pull together. I’m not sure a story board is necessary, but it might be helpful when planning out a more detailed scene. Some people need to draw stuff like that out, others just envision it.

– What other advice do you have for a modeler aiming to tell a story on his layou

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So, My Questions For Today:

– Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

No, not really. I don’t get that impression at all. I think of it as constructing many dioramas. Some of them will be connected. Most will stand on their own.

– Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told? (In addition to, naturally, being able to run the trains :slight_smile:

Yes, very much so.

– Does your layout tell a story? Or if you don’t have a layout yet, the one you’re planning?

I think the big story is about what the railroad does. The layout itself is divided up into scenes (dioramas) and each of those tell a part of the big story. My scenes are being separated by “view Blocks”. These can be a river or stream, a road, hill, or line of trees. This tends to keep you looking in one area for a while.

– Do you think it would be helpful for a modeler to construct a “story board” as an aid to guide him the development of his “signature scenes”, and in the general development of his layout?

Only if he doesn’t have a vivid imagination and has trouble seeing the finished area while he is building it. Some modelers have it, and some don’t. Everyone needs an aid now and then, so if a Story Board will help, go for it.

– What other advice do you have for a modeler aiming to tell a story on his layout?

Don’t try and do it all at once. Put some basic ground cover down on the whole layout as soon as you can to give it something other than a pink, blue, white plaster, or wood surface. Then come back and work on individual areas and scenes as time permits.

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To give the layout life you need people imo and that is the beginning of a story, I don’t see it as a movie but more like a series of short stories about each scene. As we create the scene we see it the way we want it but any one else will see it differently.

For example in the scene below Ms Miller mgr of Miller Milling Co plant #3 (no relation) has just been elected president of her garden club. She put Tonya in charge of a crew to plant some flowering trees. The men hope they don’t have to plant flowers but as long as Tonya is in charge they won’t mind.

Next door at the oil co there’s all kinds of activity are going on. The owner’s daughter is mowing the grass while a motor cyclist speeds by. In the back ground the dispatcher is giving the driver last minute instructions while men are moving drums on the dock.

That’s the way I see it.

Having people in the scenes makes the layout interesting and it is up to the viewer’s imagination to write the story.

That’s my story

Happy Railroading

Bob

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Since the 1920s, some “ordinary people” have longed to become movie stars, and more recent dreamers want to be director, screenwriters or even producers. My fantasy is to be a motion picture production designer.

I have fulfilled that on a small scale, designing TV commercials, a local TV news set,

and designs for my own low-budget experimental films.

This is a 1/12 scale model of a lunar-surface shuttle, photographed 200 inches from the camera, while the full-sized girl standing “under” the shuttle is 200 feet away.

I have seen claims that model railroading is the one hobby tha

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– Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

I do feel that a model railroad must have a sense of purpose - the ‘plot’, if you like. Where are the trains coming from, going to, why are they doing this? Without some sort of story, be it the comings and goings at a locomotive terminal or a supply run to a remote mining site. Waybills and switch lists, or other operating schemas, provide the ‘script’.

Having said that, it could be said that a model railroad is more along the lines of producing a play, more so than a movie. A movie is the same thing over and over again, no matter how many times you watch it, whereas a play varies from performance to performace, much in the same way as no two operating sessions ever run the same.

– Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told? (In addition to, naturally, being able to run the trains :slight_smile:

Yes. If I’m running a train, there must be a purpose for it to be there.

– Does your layout tell a story? Or if you don’t have a layout yet, the one you’re planning?

My layout, the ‘Bradford Branch’, tells the story of a week’s work at the A.N. Bradford mine in Colorado, served by the narrow-gauge D&RGW. Trains bring the miners in for the week, supplies come up and gondolas are loaded & taken away. There will also be vignettes, or ‘subplots’ modelled on the layout - the blacksmith working in his shop, the mine manager inspecting a piece of equipment, etc.

– Do you think it would be helpful for a modeler to construct a “story board” as an aid to guide him the development of his “signature scenes”, and in the general development of his layout?

I think it is important to have a good idea of the narrative your layout is trying to convey, so you’ve got a target to aim for. If a story board helps work this out, by all means, use it.

– What other advic

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Actually that is nearly the exact meaning I had in my head and intended to convey-- except for the camera angle, which-- while I agree it’s important for a movie production-- is not really required for a storyboard. Consider a comic book storyboard, for example. Or in some senses, the storyboard for a modern video game-- although that one probably would include “camera” (view) angles, at least as some small consideration.

John

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“All the world’s a stage.”

– Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

Absolutely, life itself is full of drama, villains, comedy. Why not the MMR? If we strive for realism there must be some sense of daily life and the unusual as well present on the layout. This can be subtle or completely blatant, but is best with some sort of balance like the writings of a great playwright! (I quoted my favorite above.)

– Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told?

Actually, I usually look to see what a person has put there for all to see upon the tiny stage. One of my favorite is a baseball game on a friend’s layout, complete with someone watching the game through a knothole.

– Does your layout tell a story? Ah yes, but of course, my friend.

The guy with the car trouble… Danged Fords anyway!

The nervous horses, tired of waiting while the owner loads the cart.

The crowd enjoying the summer concerts in the park while the old boys have a game of checkers in front of the dinner. We won’t mention the guy in the outhouse…

And since it is 1925, right in the midst of prohibition, we find old uncle Albert over in the woods on Bare Mountain making the principle ingredient for the Sister’s famous “Recipe”. Well he was there, but evidently he had sampled a bit too much of the produce… Gotta make sure it is a good batch you know. He saw something in the woods that scared the livin’ daylights out of him and he is making a bee line to the house to warn everybody!

[IMG]http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h259/slow

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I’ve always said more a play than a movie, but I’ve been on stage since Mom was still pregeannt and banging together sets with me, so maybe that’s just theatrical bias. We use viewblocks to hide the backstage, and seperate scenes from each other. Each train becomes an actor, and the story is very much the work-a-day operations that they do.

the real beauty, is that each character can be it;s own star. And everyone has a role, a supporting job. It all depends on who you want to tell that particular day. The yard job getting things reasy, or the through trains trying to wade their way to the next big town. And all the little side bits, batman or a baseball game. are just fun sidelines, or “easter eggs.” Much like finding R2D2 in theStar Trek flick. (Yes, he’s in there, as space debris)

Not sure there is such a thing as a layout without a story. Maybe a boring one, but they all do something.

Storyboards and webs and the like all prove to be futile to me. I’d rather “freehand” it. I’ll do trackplans, but whenever I write, I find myself going farther tghan I write it if I plan, and then donb’t want to go back and do it all over again. Madison will tell a story, much like a Thomas flick, of a small railroad trying to make up for its size and be more than a speedbump and a slow order as the Chessie rolls West to St. Louis or east to Cinncinati. Unfortunately, I’ve tried to do a lot of follow the engineer stories like the Coal Belt stories in Model Railroader, and I’m just not sure if there’s enough diversity in the CMPA to do that. Every train runs the same tracks, and maybe that’s a sign I need to either diversify or find a new prototype before I start bilding. And maybe that’s where a storyboard helps, to find out if there’s enough interest to be modeled.

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IMHO, constructing a model railroad is like building a theater and equipping it with the necessary sets. The play is what takes place when the model railroad is being operated. I have frequently referred to my `netherworld’ of staging and hidden thoroughfares as the wings and dressing rooms where my flange-wheeled thespians await their cues to come out and strut their stuff.

I enjoy viewing a layout in the same manner that I enjoy attending a play. The sets should look good and provide a proper background and necessary foreground details, but the play’s the thing. I don’t have to play the hero or the heavy to enjoy the play, but a bare set is only the beginning.

My layout tells a story in that the railroad is a latecomer. The geography and the culture were there first. It will also tell a story aside from the operation - ‘minor actors’ will eventually include, but not be limited to, an operating pile driver and a working tunnel boring machine. The railroad is being double tracked - which tells a story of increasing traffic.

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John,

your philosophical questions for the weekend get ever more challenging!

Do you think that constructing a model railroad is anything like making a movie? Or perhaps a play?

The layout I am currently building serves no other purpose than being a stage for watching some trains run on it and having fun building it. But:

Most forum members will remember the number of different layout ideas I had posted in the past two years. My favorite one was an ISL with an Alaskan theme (one day I am going to build this one!). This layout does not only have a theme, but various scenes, different acts and a plot. Aren´t those the elements of a play or a movie?

Do you enjoy viewing a layout where there’s a story to be told? (In addition to, naturally, being able to run the trains)?

Very much so, Sir! Actually, I am part of that story, either in the role of an engineer, or a conductor, or a dispatcher.

Does your layout tell a story? Or if you don’t have a layout yet, the one you’re planning?

Well, again, the layout I am building right now does not really tell a story, it is just a stage for trains somehow “appearing” on a scene. My switching layout was intended to tell a story, something like “A Day in the Life of…” You can add “Bill, the Engineer on the ARR”, or “Trainman Joe” . The story is a day in the work life of this fellow, beginning with the arrival of the car float, the loading and unloading routines, switching jobs etc.

Do you think it would be helpful for a modeler to construct a “story board” as

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Thank you Ulrich, the responses have been pretty interesting this week. They were last week too, for that matter.

I agree with you in general about the frozen moments, over time a frozen scene does start to get old. However, one of the techniques I will be using on my layout is to have a collection of people that are posed in various ways, and fitted with a pin in the leg or posterior (as warranted) to permit them to be set up in a scene, photographed as desired, etc., and then repositioned into a new scene when the present one grows stale. But for scenes that never change, I completely agree, it often seems better to depict action “about to happen” or else people at rest, rather than catching them in mid-motion. Plus it’s easier on the actors that way. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to pause “mid-step about to reach for the door” for any length of time? People don’t realize how much work those little guys have to put out in order to make our scenes! [swg]

John

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Following up on John’s post, I also like to reposition figures and vehicles for photos. We use a product called Mini Hold that I found through Scenic Express. It’s a soft wax that can be warmed up with your fingers and placed under the feet of your figures. You can usually pose figures just about anywhere on your layout temporarily. Here’s just one example: 0129011135b-Stan

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Cool! That’s good news. I’ve never heard of that before, but I’m making a note. Much better than having little pin holes all over the place! LOL :slight_smile:

Great photo too. Got any more?

John

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John, I’m glad you like it! That stuff works great. you can position guys hanging on the sidw of the rolling stock as well. Here’s another look.PRR 4471 at water tower

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John, That stuff is handy, and you can mount figures on rolling stockPRR 4471 at water tower with it too. here’s another pic. -Stan