ARGHifacts

Test Pilot film reference chart

Test Pilot was filmed on Super 8mm film. The film runs at 18 frames per second, so when you're animating you have to figure out how much your subject should move in each frame of film. Since the "test pilot" on the sled had to go from zero to 100 miles per hour we had to figure out how to break those speeds down to feet moved per frame of film. It's pretty easy when you convert miles per hour to feet per second. You just divide feet per second by 18, and you get the number of feet you need to move the sled each frame. After that, it's just the tedious work of posing on the sled, getting up, picking the sled up and walking x feet, plopping the sled down and posing on it again. In the snow. In the cold.

And if it looks like the chart was typed with an old Royal manual typewriter, that's because it was. The original footage of "Test Pilot" was filmed in 1979 - before ARGH possessed any computers.