realistic snow set for the omaka aviation heritage centre

'museum theming'

The recently opened Omaka heritage museum in Blenheim houses a collection of airplanes and memorabilia from WWI.

Each plane has a theatrical set built around it to create a scene from the war.

A snowy field was required for one of these sets and in this field is a large tree that a plane has crashed into. The plane is lodged in the tree and another plane has landed and parked nearby. The pilot and soldier mannequins add authenticity to the scene. Our job was to create the snow-covered field complete with tyre tracks and footprints in fresh sparkling snow. We used polystyrene that we formed to create an undulating field.

Tyre tracks were cut into the base for the landed plane. We built our field around the fake tree that has the plane in it. Footprints were formed where the soldiers had walked through the snow.

The final look is achieved by laying crystals down on the base.

Fallen branches and trigs were finally dressed into the snow to complete the set ready for opening day.