I know, another week, and no actual model making. Actually, there's been a hell of a lot of model making, just nothing I can post yet as I'm waiting for things to appear in print. So here's another research trip, to the Science and Media Museum in Bradford.
Bradford is City of Culture this year (stop sniggering at the back), and this museum is a major component of the cultural and artistic efforts of the city. Now I've been very cynical about this place; part of the Science Museum Group, there were efforts made to run it down about 10 years ago. I knew staff who worked here and lost their jobs, as there was an attitude from London that "the North didn't need three museums" (Manchester Industrial, and the Railway Museum). The archives were transferred South, so that Jocastah and Tarquin didn't need to sully themselves slumming it up here on the clapped-out old trains to the concrete hell of Interchange Station.
Then we got City of Culture Status, and various people seem to have realised it might be a negative thing to shut down your main photography museum. But it stayed shut for refurbishment (or putting back all the things that had been stripped out ready for the closure, if you're feeling cynical). Now I've always loved this place, since a trip here from Uni in 2004, and The Wife has been coming here since it operned. So I was very happy it got a reprieve and a refresh, but hadn't had time to get over to see it until a random Saturday when Middle Child was at an event up at the Uni, and we had a few hours to kill.
Quick snap on the way there, old tram-lines uncovered and integrated as A Feature of the refurbished city centre.
So there's plenty here to love from a miniatures point of view- including this from the first Shaun the Sheep film. There used to be a scene from the "Wrong Trousers" too, so it's great Aardman still have a presence here.
Here's an example of something great here- hands-on exhibits, machined miniature replicas of the full-size exhibits.
Here's some fun, which me and Younger Child got into- creating sound effects, in time with the vids.
Moulage! Wish I had a kit like this at The Day Job for doing woundcare.
Costume from the first Alien film, this is amazing. Lovely to see it up close.
Some interesting animatronics on show. Again, Younger Child was really into this.
Another nice bit of miniatures work, and a frontage of the Clock Tower done for a BBC prog's title sequence in the 1950's.
Shadow puppetry.
Cottingley Faeries. Always fancied doing a project around this, being as the real location is about a 15 minute walk away from the house.
Happily there's still loads of vintage camera tech here...
...and some fun newer stuff; the penguin camera drone from "Spy in the Wild", this was fascinating to see.
Overall thoughts? Cynical as I was, the place blew me away. Absolutely loved it, and planning to go back to give it a much longer visit over the Christmas hols, if I can score some leave off work. The place is definitely worth a visit!
