Miniature Movie Set Diorama - The Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson

I have finished a miniature Movie set Diorama of the Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson in 1/12 scale. The diorama is a wonderful gift for any film student or lover of Wes Anderson movies. I am a huge fan of the Grand Budapest Hotel movie and find the directors approach to this movie really fascinating. But let's start at the beginning how this project came about. 

You might have seen my recent blog post "Lets Go to the Movies" in which I explained that I am making 1 12 scale miniature movie props for a group project on Facebook. As one thing let to another I got the idea to make a miniature diorama of a movie set hat could sit on a desk or on a bookshelf. 

 

I watched a lot of videos about Wes Anderson's style of shooting movies and learned that he likes symmetry. He is also a stickler about positioning the main camera in the center of a scene, a perfect clue to how to position the props for the miniature movie set. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fictional building that was build in miniature on a set in front of a green screen. I had to chuckle about it being a miniature, it is gigantic when you make things in 1/24 scale! Since I am working on several portrait commissions this was a weekend project and there was just not enough time to actually try to build the hotel itself. So I did the next best thing and found an image of the hotel, scaled it to size and printed it on Canon Glossy Photo paper . The image was cut out and then glued onto layers of foam board to that it could stand on its own. 

 

The diorama has to sit on something and I thought an old frame would work really well to keep the scene contained. The backing, glass and hardware were