How To Make A MULTIPASS From Fifth Element.

I was browsing one of my favorite places for inspiration and research for props www.propstore.com.

they were selling a multipass and they had posted some really good close up photos of the multi-pass used in the film Fifth Element. 

So i decided i wanted to use those photos to make some Multipasses for my self and my wife. 

I screen grabbed the photos from the www.propstore.com

 

Using these pictures makes it very easy to replicate the prop myself.

Drawing up the plans. 

Using the photos from the prop store and Adobe illustrator i traced around them to make some plans for a laser cutter.

To get the scale and size correct i used some screen grabs from the movie.

Cutting Parts and Assembling

Using the plans i made i cut out all the parts on the laser cutter.

The white backed parts are 1mm thick perspex and the green backed is 2mm thick . 

Assembling the Multipass. 

I glued all the front parts together and left the rear half of the frame as i need to insert some of the fine detail in-between the front and back later on and don't fancy masking it off when it comes to painting.

Little details discovered.

When i was looking through the Prop store photos i saw a code on one of the parts, so i searched on my favorite internet search engine and discovered its a little diode readout think so i ordered some and that also helped with the scaling of the whole multipass.

Under coating all the parts. 

Keeping all the parts face up i gave them a coat of undercoat paint. 

Once the face up coat had dried i turned all the parts over and undercoated the rear side.

Art work.

While the paint was drying  i worked on the artwork for the multipass

Using photoshop and the screen grabs from the propstore i made the front and back for the cards. the fronts will all be different due to the difference in the people on the cards.  

I made one for leeloo from the movie and one for me and one for my wife.

i printed them on thick paper and cut them to fit the multipass frame, both front and back. 

Adding the details. 

i got some translucent acrylic rods for the fine details and cut them to size.

i cut the red rod to the same length as the hole for the diode and i cut the green/yellow rod to the length of the gap between the button on the chain hole. These parts will need further work before being attached to the final prop.

Final paint and final details.

I gave all the parts a coat of dark metallic paint. 

The green/yellow rod had to have a notch taken off the end to trim it down to the thickness of the middle layer of plastic (2mm) so the rear face frame can fit correctly. 

 

 The small red rod had one side of it sanded to a flat surface so it would be easier to glue it to the main prop.

The diode is just inserted into the hole cut for it.

To make the Yellow button i got some 25.4mm domes and sanded them down to fit inside the hole in the multipass.

I made many more than i needed as i scratched some and its always good to have some redundancy when making things.

Once i had filed the domes down i printed some yellow off and cut it into circles and glued them to the rear of the filed domes.

These will then be put in the hole for the yellow button (or whatever it is in the film) 

I glued the yellow button in so it would not move as i am using the back panel as the activation for the lights.

All three of the mulitpasses without the diode or the art work.

I used spray adhesive to mount the artwork. 

Front                                                            Back.

here are the passes with all the parts in place.

Connecting the diode.

I bent all the wires on the diodes towards the yellow button, this allows for the back to fit and the battery to be connected.

There was very limited space in the back for the battery and a switch so i just bent the wires that i soldiered onto the top LED of the diode (that was more than enough to light it up) the bottome wire was bent so it would always be in contact with the battery, the second wire was bend and taped so it doesnt actually make contact with the coin battery.
This is so when the rear of the battery compartment is only glued along one edge it acts as the switch for the battery to light up the diode. 

This is only the top LED of the diode lit up so it is more than enough to light the whole thing up. :)

once you have done all of the above you will have a cool looking MULTIPASS.

The final touch will be adding a Ball Bearing Chain through the chain Hole, then you will have an awesome looking prop from the movie :)

Thank you for looking and if you have any questions please ask and i will do my best to answer them. 

Star Wars Film Cell Light Box.

I love star wars and a while back i got a lot of film cells on ebay of the three original star wars films.

  I guess these are from the remasters from some times in the mid 1990s.

I got loads and chose 8 of them and backed them onto a piece of card and used to have them on a shelf. 

They weren't getting looked at as much as i really wanted, so recently i decided to see if i could make something more cool and useful.

This is how i went about making some film cell light boxes. 

I started with the film cells. 

Using my ipad as a back light i looked through the cells that i had to choose the ones i wanted. 

After i had chosen my favorites i started to work out how to go about displaying them. 

  

I measured all the film cells and found that i had six of one side and two slightly longer. 

I could have made all the display mounts the same size and just crop out the top and bottom of the longer one, choosing my favorite cells from the long sets, but i decided to show all of the long cells. 

After measuring them i drew them out and got a frame. The frame i got (i got two of them) was a deep shadow box style photo frame and was 12inch square.  

The reason i got a deep frame shadow box was so whatever lighting i put behind the film cells would have space to diffuse and spread out and illuminate the film cells correctly. 

After getting the frame i got some card to fit in the frame.

 I cut out the holes for four of the film cells. there will be four cells in each frame. 

I divided the cells in to two groups, one for the rebels and the light side and the other group for the dark side and the imperial fleet. 

 To mark out where to put the lights to illuminate the cells, i out the card into the frame and left the glass out so i could draw directly through the holes in the card onto the back board of the frame.

 Once i had drawn through the holes i marked a middle line for the LED strip. 

I sanded each frame down to make it nice and smooth 

 

Then i painted them a nice mat black. 

 

 While the frames were drying i started on the lighting.

 

 The LED strip i got had places for you to cut it every set of 3 LEDs so i cut the strip to the closest (but always longer) length to the holes cut for the film cells.

After Wiring the four strips together following the positive and negative markings on the LED strips, i glued and taped them into place on the frame back board.

 To fix the Film strips onto the back of the picture frame card mount i cut very thin (narrow) strips of clear tape and taped them to the very edge of the film strips. Also on some of the strips that extended more above and below the tops of the holes i used more tape to hold the film strips in place. 

Once i had them in place i then taped a sheet of Layout paper (pretty much tracing paper but just a little thicker) to diffuse the light from the LED strips. 

Once i had every thing set and fixed in place i added a small press button on the reverse bottom of the frame to complete the lighting circuit.

 

 I chose a momentary switch so the frame wouldn't always be on and run the battery out, also you have to interact with the frame when you want to view the film cells.

I like it because new people come to our house and ask/look at the frames they have to discover what they look like for them selves.