Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: Sydney city model

One very common usage of miniature sets is to take a real-world location and – devastate it!

At the end of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Jedediah flies Savannah and the other children away from Bartertown, and they arc over the ruins of Sydney, decimated by some unknown holocaust.

The entire city was built in miniature by model coordinator Dennis Nicholson and his crew, with a ruined Opera House looming over a dried-up harbour as the centrepiece.

This production still captures the extraodinary skill of the set designer. Sadly, at the end of filming the models were too big to be put into storage and were destroyed.