If you've ever seen films two and three in the Mighty Ducks film franchise, you're likely more than familiar with the "knucklepuck." If you haven't seen either of those films, or don't know what the knucklepuck is, let us just start off by saying that we're surprised that you chose to click and read this article. But we're happy you did, as you're about to learn not only what the knucklepuck is, but how the filmmakers were able to create the effect on screen.
For the uninitiated -- the knucklepuck was a technique mastered by the character Russ Tyler in D2 & D3, played by current SNL cast member Kenan Thompson. Here's what it looked like.
On the most recent episode of 'the Quack Attack' -- the Internet's top source for anything and everything Might Ducks related -- the guys Eric D. Howell on the show, a man who worked as a special effects assistant and stuntman on the first and third film.
While discussing some of the effects used in the movie, Howell explained in great detail how they made the knucklepuck come to life with an interesting rig set-up.
Probably the coolest thing I was able to do was help build and design a rig…for what was it called? A knuckle puck rig?
This was a cool rig that attached to the camera. And we had the camera on a sled dolly, and if you would imagine two arms, two rods that would stick directly out from (the) camera. And on those rods was a roller. And think of a football goal post.
We built a football goal post, a miniature version that had a tungsten wire that went straight across through a puck that made of styrofoam. A perfect replica puck that was made of styrofoam. And so it would spin, and if you bisected the puck with that tungsten wire that doesn’t show up on film, it would spin and we put a pneumatic air hose underneath it and it would spin the puck. And now you put that on a dolly, and you run across the ice, and the puck would spin as we’re dollying, so it was kind of this in-camera visual effect.
We took that and we added one more element, we put it on a motorized – what’s called a work screw. And we motorized it so it would ride on this sort of piece of plywood that we would cut these bumps into it, sort of like a key. And it would ride up and down on there, and now the puck would move up and down in there in the frame as we were dollying forward.
So we could modify it so we could get it to do whatever we wanted. Turned out to be this really cool rig that we used a lot and saved them all sorts of money and special effects.
Easy enough, right? So if you ever want to build your very own knucklepuck rig, now you know exactly how to do it. Howell also shared an image of the prop puck they used, and judging by how big it appears to be in his hand, that thing was about the size of a dinner plate. If only there was a banana in the picture for scale.
For more behind-the-scenes stories and info on how the stunts in the films worked, make sure to listen to the full episode of the Quack Attack, here!
(H/T: The Quack Attack)
