The director of the film is a guest from the future. “Guest from the Future”: unknown facts

HOW THE FILM "GUEST FROM THE FUTURE" WAS MADE

While “Terminators” and other “Predators” were being filmed in Hollywood in the 1980s, in the approaching collapse of the USSR, two film events thundered that, without a hint of irony, have the right to be called cult. The adults of the still vast country wholeheartedly empathized with the Brazilian “Cinderella” Isaura, and every summer children waited for the return to the screens of the futuristic good magic called “Guest from the Future.”

For many the culmination summer holidays were the same five happy days, when on one of the two or three available channels the little girl Alice looked with huge eyes on the other side of the TV screen, promising “beautiful things are far away.” And few people doubted that, albeit not soon, but someday, in the new century, we ourselves will see the Institute of Time, Cosmozoo, humanoid robots, vending machines with free distribution of various goodies and, of course, we will be able to fly on flips or take a vacation to the moon. Of course, the future we live in is no less futuristic with its gadgets, social networks and many things that are not shown in the film, but we digress, let's return to the story of the making of the film.

The premiere took place on March 25, 1985 at 16.05 Moscow time.
Director Pavel Arsenov has always made serious, adult films, and no one expected that he would suddenly make a fantastic “shooter” for children. But one day on the train, Pavel Oganezovich got into a conversation with director Richard Viktorov, who directed “Moscow - Cassiopeia” and “Through Thorns to the Stars.” Viktorov invited his colleague to try himself in a new genre. Arsenov knew Kir Bulychev, who wrote the book “One Hundred Years Ahead” about the adventures of Alice, and was inspired by the idea. So it began big story"Guests from the future."

Many beautiful pioneers were auditioned for the role of Alice, and Natasha Guseva, as usual, was noticed by chance. She came to the studio with a friend to look at her favorite science fiction writer, but when the director noticed the girl, he immediately decided: “This is Alice!”

Although Alisa in Bulychev’s books was lively and bright, and Natasha, on the contrary, was uptight and shy (even during filming, the guys often “overwhelmed” her in the crowd, Arsenov had to remind who was there main character). But Natasha’s unearthly gaze and her mysterious smile looked like greetings from other worlds. When Natasha Guseva was first introduced to Pavel Arsenov, when asked “What is your year of birth?” the girl was so excited that she mistakenly said “1872.” Arsenov laughed and said: “Well, you are our guest from the past.”

The rest of the actors were chosen among schoolchildren.

Some of them already had acting experience - for example, Alyosha Fomkin, who played the time-travelling Kolya Gerasimov, starred in Jumble

The film was difficult to make; almost no one believed in its success; the studio and television bosses believed that similar stories Soviet schoolchildren Not needed. There was a catastrophic lack of money to “create” Moscow in the 21st century and a zoo of alien animals. And yet, the film was a success thanks to the acting, the kind and witty script of Kir Bulychev, the charm of the leading actors Natasha Guseva and Lesha Fomkin, and, of course, thanks to the enthusiasm of Pavel Arsenov.

The book “One Hundred Years Ahead” was written by Kir Bulychev back in 1977. Director Pavel Arsenov began filming a film based on this book in 1983, which ended in 1984, and it was decided to move the action to this time. By the way, during the two years that “Guest from the Future” was filmed, the child actors grew up a little, and this can be seen in the film. Filming began with the episode of Yulia and Alice's escape from the hospital. The next time you watch the film, take a closer look and you will see that Alice's pajamas are clearly too big for her. Although during the scene in the ward it was just right - because this episode was filmed a year later.

“Beautiful Far Away” greeted the audience and Kolya Gerasimov with the sterile cleanliness of the Institute of Time. Inner part buildings were filmed in a pavilion at the film studio named after. M. Gorky. The room with the time machine was covered with white wallpaper and lit as brightly as possible. The set, simulating the endless corridors of the institute, was in fact relatively small, and the effect of confusion was created only thanks to the acting and special shooting from different angles.

To illuminate the corridors of the “future” they used standard incandescent light bulbs at that time. They were inserted into special boxes made of frosted glass, and voila - the result was lighting that was quite futuristic for those times.

The entrance to the Institute of Time, surrounded by greenery, was filmed in Botanical Garden Moscow. But the building of the institution itself is nothing more than a model about 50 cm high. It was suspended on cables and prospectively combined with the clearing on which the institute supposedly stood.

According to the film’s production designer Olga Kravchenya, what is easily done on a computer today, back then had to be created long and painstakingly by hand. Take the same spaceport. For general plans filmmakers painted it top part, which then had to be aligned on film with the lower part of the scenery. “The movie was shot on film, on which it was necessary to work with “masks,” that is, they shot one part of the image, and then “imprinted” another. It was also necessary to combine the light and color in both images so that the connection line was invisible. The work of many professions, including production designer, planners, costume designer, and make-up artist, was combined into one single whole under the leadership of the film’s chief operator,” recalls Olga Kravchenya.

To create a “cosmic” atmosphere inside the spaceport, it was decided to use glass tubes used in chemical plants. At the same time, the film crew was worried whether the fragile material would survive until the required episode.

Cosmozoo was partially filmed in the Botanical Garden of the capital of the USSR, and an area near the VDNKh metro station was chosen as the entrance. Initially, they wanted to film the space zoo in Gagra - the nature was too suitable and exotic. However, due to prolonged inclement weather, the film crew had to leave with nothing, turning their attention to the Moscow landscapes. Of the material filmed in Gagra, only the footage of the waves that can be seen behind the doors of the “bus” with instant teleportation was useful.

By the way, the appearance of the flat plywood bus, unusual for science fiction, was invented by the director of the film. Pavel Arsenov did not want to invent remote controls and a clutter of buttons that were already an eyesore in every film of a similar theme. Why not make the process of instant travel as simple as possible in the future - open the door, and you are already on the other side of the Earth?

In Adler, where they planned to film a lot, but in the end they only filmed an episode at the stadium, the director forced the guys to really train, run and jump. He was very concerned that his students would not have problems with their studies, and devoted three hours to lessons every day. Everyone had to sit in their rooms and study. But Arsenov did not take into account that the balcony was shared and the children’s classes took place on fresh air. No textbooks.

It was more difficult with the image of the myelophone. The device that caused the whole “mess” was not really described in the original source; we had to come up with it ourselves. Designers had many options appearance device for reading thoughts. But after the director saw the crystals used in the production of cameras, he settled on the idea of a “crystalline myelophone.”

It was much more difficult for a film studio to make a time machine. The prop shop employees were used to creating a historical setting using imitation stucco and unusual “fairy-tale” textures, but shiny plastic was beyond their capabilities. Some things had to be made to order, but a Rubik’s cube worked to decorate the remote control. Why him? Yes, simply because in the 1980s the Hungarian puzzle was extremely popular.

The time machine is associated with the most advanced video effect for Soviet cinema of that time. Remember the lightning, rainbows, stars and contour lines that accompanied Kolya's journey through time? All this was done by hand. The optical effects were created in a laser laboratory, shot on film, and then the frames were combined in a complex way. To create one such frame it took best case scenario month.

The famous dilapidated building, in the basement of which in our days there was a time machine, was found quite by accident on a street where almost all the houses were being demolished. The basement is entirely a set built in the pavilion. The walls were painted with African motifs to add a touch of mystery. The columns were made of polystyrene foam and cardboard, so that in the event of an explosion last episode the film does not hurt children. The foam rings were covered with cardboard and sawed in advance certain places, placed squibs there and detonated them at the right moment.

Perhaps one of the most impressive episodes of Guests from the Future were the shots in which flips appear. There were even legends among Minsk schoolchildren that there really was such an attraction with flying cabins in Moscow! In reality, the booths were common but extremely expensive props. Five of them were made in Lithuania, each flip cost about 5 thousand rubles - a substantial sum at that time, which could easily have been spent on real Zhigulis.

In addition, several miniature copies of the flips were made with models of people in them. They were used to photograph long-range shots of high-flying aircraft. Such toys were hung on a wire from a crane with a boom about 20 meters, after which a suitable background was selected, for example the Cosmos Hotel. To prevent the wire from shining, it was painted over to match the background color.

Full-size heavy flips with real actors were installed in the back of trucks on special structures in the form of bars sticking out on the sides of the cars. If there are two flips in the frame at the same time, then two trucks are needed, which had to drive side by side smoothly and with pinpoint precision. Sometimes in such episodes, excessively sharp swaying is noticeable - this is how the illusion of flight was disrupted by potholes on the road. Once, during filming, they even tore off a Zhiguli driving towards us - I had to pay a fine of 200 rubles.

According to the filmmakers’ recollections, everyone gave their all during the filming – both adult actors and children. Vyacheslav Nevinny, who played Veselchak U, despite his size, was ready to perform all the stunts himself, which, however, he was not allowed to do. And Mikhail Kononov often improvised in such a way that it turned out much better than the script version.

Evgeny Gerasimov masterfully embodied the robot Werther on the screen - a hero invented from A to Z especially for the film. Why invent complex mechanisms or resort to expensive animation if one person, with the help of a gait and a specially choreographed speech, managed to show the ideal robot of the future? Plus, of course, a costume, wig and makeup.

Probably, each generation should have its own idols and islands of memory, to which it is pleasant to return decades later. For some, such islands will be “Harry Potter” or the songs of the group “Hands Up”, but then, 20-30 years ago, all the boys and girls suffered from “alisomania”. This year, the film “Guest from the Future” - the legendary television series was released exactly 30 years ago. We will tell you in this report what difficulties the film crew had to face and what tricks they resorted to in order to film the most spectacular scenes.
For many, the culmination of the summer holidays were those five happy days when, on one of the two or three available channels, the little girl Alice looked with huge eyes on the other side of the TV screen, promising “beautiful things are far away.” And few doubted that, even if not soon, but someday, in the new century, we ourselves will see the Institute of Time, Cosmozoo, humanoid robots, vending machines with free dispensing of various goodies and, of course, we will be able to fly on flips or wave to rest to the moon. Of course, the future we live in is no less futuristic with its gadgets, social networks and many things that are not shown in the film, but we digress, let's return to the story of the making of the film.

Although Alisa in Bulychev’s books was lively and bright, and Natasha, on the contrary, was uptight and shy (even during filming, the guys often “overwhelmed” her in the crowd, Arsenov had to remind who the main character was). But Natasha’s unearthly gaze and her mysterious smile looked like greetings from other worlds. When Natasha Guseva was first introduced to Pavel Arsenov, when asked “What is your year of birth?” the girl was so excited that she mistakenly said “1872.” Arsenov laughed and said: “Well, you are our guest from the past.”

The rest of the actors were chosen among schoolchildren.

Some of them already had acting experience - for example, Alyosha Fomkin, who played the time-traveling Kolya Gerasimov, starred in Jumble

The film was difficult to make; almost no one believed in its success; studio and television bosses believed that Soviet schoolchildren did not need such stories. There was a catastrophic lack of money to “create” Moscow in the 21st century and a zoo of alien animals. And yet, the film was a success thanks to the acting, the kind and witty script of Kir Bulychev, the charm of the leading actors Natasha Guseva and Lesha Fomkin, and, of course, thanks to the enthusiasm of Pavel Arsenov.

“Beautiful Far Away” greeted the audience and Kolya Gerasimov with the sterile cleanliness of the Institute of Time. The interior of the building was filmed in a pavilion at the film studio named after. M. Gorky. The room with the time machine was covered with white wallpaper and lit as brightly as possible. The set, simulating the endless corridors of the institute, was in fact relatively small, and the effect of confusion was created only thanks to the acting and special shooting from different angles.

The entrance to the Institute of Time, surrounded by greenery, was filmed in the Botanical Garden of Moscow. But the building of the institution itself is nothing more than a model about 50 cm high. It was suspended on cables and prospectively combined with the clearing on which the institute supposedly stood.

According to the film’s production designer Olga Kravchenya, what is easily done on a computer today, back then had to be created long and painstakingly by hand. Take the same spaceport. For wide shots, the filmmakers drew its upper part, which then had to be combined with the lower part of the set on film. “The movie was shot on film, on which it was necessary to work with “masks,” that is, they shot one part of the image, and then “imprinted” another. It was also necessary to combine the light and color in both images so that the connection line was invisible. The work of many professions, including production designer, planners, costume designer, make-up artist, was combined into one single whole under the leadership of the film’s chief operator,” - recalls Olga Kravchenya.

Cosmozoo was partially filmed in the Botanical Garden of the capital of the USSR, and an area near the VDNH metro station was chosen as the entrance. Initially, they wanted to film the space zoo in Gagra - the nature was too suitable, exotic. However, due to prolonged inclement weather, the film crew had to leave with nothing, turning their attention to the Moscow landscapes. Of the material filmed in Gagra, only the footage of the waves that can be seen behind the doors of the “bus” with instant teleportation was useful.

It was more difficult with the image of the myelophone. The device that caused the whole “mess” was not really described in the original source; we had to come up with it ourselves. Designers had many options for the appearance of the mind reading device. But after the director saw the crystals used in the production of cameras, he settled on the idea of a “crystalline myelophone.”

The famous dilapidated building, in the basement of which in our days there was a time machine, was found quite by accident on a street where almost all the houses were being demolished. The basement is entirely a set built in the pavilion. The walls were painted with African motifs to add a touch of mystery. The columns were made of polystyrene foam and cardboard so that the explosion in the last episode of the film would not injure children. The foam rings were covered with cardboard, sawed in predetermined places, squibs were placed there, and they were detonated at the right moment.

Full-size heavy flips with real actors were installed in the back of trucks on special structures in the form of bars sticking out on the sides of the cars. If there are two flips in the frame at the same time, then two trucks are needed, which had to drive side by side smoothly and with pinpoint precision. Sometimes in such episodes excessively sharp swaying is noticeable - this is how the illusion of flight was disrupted by potholes on the road. Once, during filming, they even tore off a Zhiguli driving towards us - I had to pay a fine of 200 rubles.

According to the recollections of the filmmakers, everyone gave their all during the filming - both adult actors and children. Vyacheslav Nevinny, who played Veselchak U, despite his size, was ready to perform all the stunts himself, which, however, he was not allowed to do. And Mikhail Kononov often improvised in such a way that it turned out much better than the script version.

In the scene of Werther's murder, a pair of metal plates with squibs attached to them were inserted into the actor's costume. Evgeny Gerasimov himself pressed the button that activated the fuse, and thus “set fire” to himself for about a minute and a half while the pirates were shooting at him. By the way, laser beams are an ordinary hand-drawn animation, which was superimposed by exposure on ready-made frames with plastic “blasters” in the hands of Rat and Veselchak U.

Literally, Alexey Fomkin, the inimitable Kolya Gerasimov, had to bear a heavy burden. Remember the fourth episode, in which Alice, perched on the shoulders of her friend Yulia Gribkova and wearing a long cloak, portrays a tall lady in huge dark glasses? The performer of the role of Yulia was physically unable to carry Natasha Guseva. Alexey Fomkin came to the rescue. They put on knee socks, sandals, school uniform, they put Alice on his shoulders and sent her to parade down the street.

Natasha Guseva herself was taught how to run up correctly in order to film a spectacular six-meter long jump in a physical education lesson. The girl had to jump through the camera with the cameraman, who were dusted with sand. The performer of the role of Alisa Selezneva later said that she was terribly afraid of falling on the operator and breaking his neck or back. Fortunately, everything worked out fine.

But in the episode where Alice is hit by a trolleybus, a stunt girl was filmed. She ran at the same speed, and right before the trolleybus “hit” she accelerated, running further. At the same time, the viewer does not see the moment of the “collision”, since the frame is blocked by a trolleybus. However, if you look carefully, you will see light running, a moment of acceleration, and legs flashing behind the trolleybus.

There are many such “film blunders” in the film. For example, the film crew didn’t like how the episode in Cosmozoo turned out, when Alice tries to read the crocodile’s mind. The predator was made from foam plastic, and, in principle, it was very similar to a real alligator. But the divers who controlled the model did not lower it deep enough into the water. It was clear that this was not a real crocodile, and that it was too light, floating on the very surface. Particularly attentive spectators can even see the divers.

In general, there are many funny moments associated with Cosmozoo. Actor Igor Yasulovich had to lure the goat Electron with cigarettes. The goat ran after the pack as if on a string and chewed tobacco products with pleasure.

There is an episode in the script when Alice wins a game of chess against a grandmaster conducting a simultaneous game at school. It was filmed, the grandmaster was played by Radner Muratov, widely known as Vasily Alibabaevich from cult film"Gentlemen of Fortune". For some unknown reason, this episode was not included in the final version of the film.

When, during one of the interviews, the now adult performer of the role of Bori Messerer was asked whether he would like to live in the future shown in the film, the actor replied: “The question is posed incorrectly. It’s impossible to live in this world because it’s so unreal…” “It was clear even in 1984 that everything that was depicted there was not futurology. No. This is some kind of absolutely sterile world, which was needed only for the embodiment of certain ideas. It's fuzzy and unreal. It’s as if there is a focus in the center, and everything is blurry at the edges... This world, unfortunately, in my opinion, bears some imprint of the utopias of the sixties, from the same series as the Strugatskys. There's science all around scientific and technical progress rushed, small children are doing science. And now we see that science, both here and abroad, has absolutely no tendency to occupy the place that Bulychev and others dreamed of. The reality is that 85% are not interested in serious things, but in all sorts of rubbish. And the rest are so overwhelmed life problems that there is no time left for anything else,” he added

1. First chase.
The pirates are waiting for Alice and Yulia and at the same time stocking up on antiques on Kalinin Avenue.

Then on what is now Novy Arbat there was something like a square and there were benches. In the background we can see the Moskvichka store (women's clothing)

The girls come into view, but notice the pirates and immediately try to hide in the Arbat alleys. And they show us Novy Arbat quite fully

By the way, when Veselchak was carrying his samovar from the store, you can see a curious public behind the second floor window

But in the next moment, schoolgirls (and then pirates) jump out at Kropotkinskaya metro station

True pirate, persecuted huge dog, instantly flew out of the entrance, ran to house No. 38 and began to climb up the wall

on the right frame you can see the same entrance, although over the past years it has acquired a canopy and columns.

So, schoolchildren in the future will not only be excellent long and high jumpers (which we will see later), but will also become extremely resilient. It's no joke: schoolgirls run more than three kilometers (and that's if you count in a straight line) at a very high pace. However, schoolgirl Yulia from the 1980s is not far behind :)

Here are the points on the map for clarity

2. Kolya and Fima are also walking around Moscow.
Here they go inside Gogolevsky Boulevard

A house with columns “lit up” in the frame - Gogolevsky Boulevard, 10 building 1 - city estate MM. Naryshkina (Tsurikov House), now one of the addresses of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.

The boys go down to the boulevard and here they meet Veselchak

3. Second chase.
Again along the same route
The chase begins from Kalinin Avenue and curious observers

Diving into alleys

They run out onto Kropotkinskaya

The pirates can no longer keep up with the stayer girls. You have to cross Gogolevsky Boulevard on the roofs of a taxi (in the area of no. 3)

Along the beaten path to the Spiridonovka area

corner with Vspolny lane

Spiridonovka 25/20

here is Alice jumping over the fence

So, the map of the second chase

And run at least 4 km :)

Working time of filming

4. Mainly disguise! Not only are the girls clearly disrupting their place of residence. They supposedly ran home, to the entrance on Spiridonovka. From Yulina's apartment there is a wonderful view of Plotnikov Lane. 4/5, and in this frame the disguised “Yulia” and Alice come out of the entrance to 28 in Gagarinsky Lane and in this form march to Gogolevsky Boulevard.

Enough known fact, but it's worth mentioning. The legs of this strange figure are not Yulina’s at all. Of course, she wouldn’t have carried Alice so much on herself. The director, without thinking twice, fished poor sleeping Alyosha Fomkin, who played Kolya Gerasimov, out of the bus from the bus: “Let’s put on your uniform, slippers, and go!” These are the “combined” shootings.

5. Meeting of pirates with students 6 "B"
The pirates met Mila Rudkevich on Gogolevsky Boulevard. In the frame you can see a building with a glass facade, which is no longer on Gogolevsky. IN Soviet time These houses housed public services and hairdressing salons. Now in place of the “glass building” there is an “empire mansion” with green double-glazed windows (house No. 2/19), which Sberbank built for itself

But they were waiting for Kolya Sadovsky on another boulevard - Nikitsky.

6. Anyway, pirates break into the school.
This is indeed the former English special school No. 20, and today – No. 1239. Vspolny lane d.6 p.1

Rat turns into a teacher. And it is here at this moment that the third chase begins.
And here is another working moment of filming.

7. So, chase number three!
We start from the school in Vspolny Lane. Kolya is actually running along it, followed by the pirates, followed by Alice...

Having run into the arch of house No. 5 in Vspolny Lane, the whole company runs out in the lanes between Arbat and Prechistenka and drives there along B. and M. Afonasyevsky lanes.

Moscow expert T-atyana Vorontsova took us through the capital's hunting grounds for a fantastic device for reading thoughts - the myelophone.

“Alice, myelophone!”

— In the spring of 1985, after the release of the film “Guest from the Future,” thousands of Moscow teenagers rushed to look for a barn with a time machine. This building stood in the vicinity of Samotechnaya Street at 2nd Volkonsky Lane, 8a (1) . The house was demolished soon after filming, today in its place is the administrative and business center of the Central Administrative District next to the recently built Dostoevskaya metro station.

In the film, student of the 6th "B" Kolya Gerasimov ( Alyosha Fomkin) using a time machine, absolutely by chance ends up in the Moscow Institute of Time in 2084, where he meets the biorobot Werther ( Evgeniy Gerasimov). Filming is taking place in the vicinity of the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Tsitsin - the largest botanical garden in Europe (Botanicheskaya st., no. 4) (2) . Glass cinema structures with huge antennas on the roofs stand right at its main entrance - which can be identified by the lush vegetation.

We see the same garden in the second episode in the zoo of the future - CosmoZoo - here is Alisa Selezneva ( Natalia Guseva) tries to read the crocodile’s thoughts, and employee Elektron Ivanovich ( Igor Yasulovich). These scenes, like the theft of the myelophone, were filmed in the Botanical Garden. There is a moment in the film: Kolya, picking up the mielophone, runs away from the space pirates of Veselchak U ( -Vyacheslav Nevinny) and Rat ( Mikhail Kononov). Information signs telling about the trees in the Main Botanical Garden appear several times in the frame: sequoia such and such, spruce such and such...

Alisa Selezneva and Electron Ivanovich. Still from the film

Kolya goes to the cosmodrome - there will be a meeting of the First Stellar Expedition. Scenes filmed near VDNH metro station (3) . The monument to space explorers and the Alley of Cosmonauts appear in the frame, near which there is a decoration of a red “instant bus” that works like a teleport: through its doors you can get to any point in Moscow.

The scenery of a red “instant bus” that works like a teleport: through its doors you can get to anywhere in Moscow. Still from the film

In 2084, people move around the capital on flips - round ones aircraft. Buttons - destinations that can be reached by air are: Zaryadye, Tsaritsyno, Biryulyovo, Khimki, Luna Park and CosmoZoo.

It is curious that in 2084, according to the filmmakers, the Rossiya Hotel remained in its place. In reality, it was demolished in 2006. Still from the film

Kolya flies over the Moscow of the future, and we see the Ostankino district - the large building of the Cosmos Hotel made of glass and stone. Then the hero flies to the Bolshoi Theater.

Then beautiful panoramas of Zaryadye and the Kremlin appear. It is curious that in 2084, according to the filmmakers, the Rossiya Hotel remained in its place. In reality, it was demolished in 2006. A red flag flies over the Kremlin, which disappeared from there in 1991. Kolya stops at the Spaceport - in the role of an object where they land spaceships, the lobby of the Botanical Garden metro station, quite recognizable in its architecture, spoke (4) . The editing artists added two domes to it. The shooting takes place from afar, so neither the letter “M” (metro) nor the benches standing around are visible.

The lobby of the Botanical Garden metro station, quite recognizable in its architecture, served as the object where the spaceships landed. The editing artists added two domes to it. Still from the film

Old Arbat - passable

After the film moves back to April 1984, we are shown in some detail objects near Kropotkinskaya. (5) . The square in front of the metro and the monument to Engels are visible. Kolya runs into the “Moloko” store on Osto-Zhenka, now there is also a grocery store there.

Kolya runs into the “Moloko” store on Osto-Zhenka, now there is also a grocery store there. Still from the film

When a girl from the future, Alisa Seleznyova, finds herself in Moscow in the 1980s, Prechistenka and Prechistenka appear in the frame. beautiful manor Khrushchev-Seleznyov, which housed the State Museum of A. S. Pushkin (Prechistenka St., 12/2) (6) . Not far from this mansion, Alice is hit by a trolleybus and ends up in the hospital as a result of an accident.

Prechistenka. Still from the film

When Kolya’s classmate nickname Fima Korolev ( Ilya Naumov) met Alisa Selezneva and Yulia Gribkova who escaped from the hospital ( Marianna Ionesyan), he urgently calls his friend Gerasimov from a payphone at the intersection of Old Arbat and Serebryany Lane (7) . Payphones, which were used to call by throwing two-dollar coins, stood then on every corner of Moscow - this is a striking sign of that time. In the frame we see the “Products” store on Arbat, where there is now a cafe. In the film, Arbat is a street along which cars drive and there are pedestrian crossings. And today it is difficult to imagine that trolleybuses ran along Old Arbat. If you dig even deeper, in the 1920s and 1930s there were trams running in both directions. Almost immediately after the filming of “Guest from the Future,” reconstruction began, which in 1987 turned Old Arbat into a pedestrian one.

Payphones, which were used to call by throwing two-dollar coins, stood then on every corner of Moscow - this is a striking sign of that time. Still from the film

Running around the city from space pirates, the girls, at the behest of the K-foreigners, make incredibly long runs - 3-5 km, judging by the points of Moscow. They show us Kalinin Avenue (now New Arbat) (8) . In the frame on this highway there is a lot of greenery, the Mosk-Vichka store and the Valdai cafe can be seen.

When “Guest from the Future” Alisa Selezneva (Natalya Guseva) runs away in Moscow from space pirates Veselchak U (Vyacheslav Nevinny) and Rat (Mikhail Kononov), Kalinin Avenue (now Novy Arbat) with shops and cafes appears in all its glory.

Photo: Still from the film; AiF / Eduard Kudryavitsky

When the pirates Veselchak U and Krys are talking to Kolya’s classmate, excellent student M-ila Rutkevich ( Ekaterina Averbakh), the action takes place on Gogolevsky Boulevard (10) . They are located on the pedestrian zone of the boulevard.

The action takes place on Gogolevsky Boulevard. Still from the film

And on the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek we see an interesting building - a two-story cube made of glass and metal. There were many such “cubes” in Moscow; consumer service enterprises were located in them. The film features one of the most famous hairdressing salons near Arbat. Today there is a Sberbank building there. Many people think this is a 19th century mansion. It was actually built in the 2000s.

The school where the heroes - children from 6th "B" - study, still exists in Vspolny lane, no. 6 (11) . At that time it was English special school No. 20.

The school where the heroes - children from 6th "B" - study still exists in Vspolny lane, 6. Still from the film

The film “Guest from the Future” was so loved by the audience that a monument to the heroes of the film was erected at the River Station several years ago, and in Friendship Park near the Rechnoy Station metro station there is even an Alisa Selezneva alley.

” and other “Predators”, in the approaching collapse of the USSR, two film events thundered that, without a shadow of irony, have the right to be called cult. The adults of the still vast country wholeheartedly empathized with the Brazilian “Cinderella” Isaura, and every summer children waited for the return to the screens of the futuristic good magic called “Guest from the Future.”

For many, the culmination of the summer holidays were those five happy days when, on one of the two or three available channels, the little girl Alice looked with huge eyes on the other side of the TV screen, promising “beautiful things are far away.” And few doubted that, even if not soon, but someday, in the new century, we ourselves will see the Institute of Time, Cosmozoo, humanoid robots, vending machines with free dispensing of various goodies and, of course, we will be able to fly on flips or wave to rest to the moon.

1. In the 80-90s of the last century, it was difficult to find a boy who was not interested in science fiction. For these, of course, the most interesting were the first two episodes of “Guests,” in which director Pavel Arsenov, with the help of Kira Bulychev, tried to lift the curtain on the future that, if we were lucky, was waiting for all of us.

2. “Beautiful Far Away” greeted the audience and Kolya Gerasimov with the sterile cleanliness of the Institute of Time. The interior of the building was filmed in a pavilion at the film studio named after. M. Gorky. The room with the time machine was covered with white wallpaper and lit as brightly as possible. The set, simulating the endless corridors of the institute, was in fact relatively small, and the effect of confusion was created only thanks to the acting and special shooting from different angles.

3. To illuminate the corridors of the “future” we used standard incandescent light bulbs at that time. They were inserted into special boxes made of frosted glass, and voila - the result was lighting that was quite futuristic for those times.

4. The entrance to the Institute of Time, surrounded by greenery, was filmed in the Botanical Garden of Moscow. But the building of the institution itself is nothing more than a model about 50 cm high. It was suspended on cables and prospectively combined with the clearing on which the institute supposedly stood.

According to the film’s production designer Olga Kravchenya, what is easily done on a computer today, back then had to be created long and painstakingly by hand. Take the same spaceport. For wide shots, the filmmakers drew its upper part, which then had to be combined with the lower part of the set on film. “The movie was shot on film, on which it was necessary to work with “masks,” that is, they shot one part of the image, and then “imprinted” another. It was also necessary to combine the light and color in both images so that the connection line was invisible. The work of many professions, including production designer, planners, costume designer, and make-up artist, was combined into one single whole under the leadership of the film’s chief operator,” recalls Olga Kravchenya.

5. To create a “space” atmosphere inside the spaceport, it was decided to use glass tubes used in chemical plants. At the same time, the film crew was worried whether the fragile material would survive until the required episode.

6. Cosmozoo was partially filmed in the Botanical Garden of the capital of the USSR, and an area near the VDNKh metro station was suitable as an entrance. Initially, they wanted to film the space zoo in Gagra - the nature was too suitable, exotic. However, due to prolonged inclement weather, the film crew had to leave with nothing, turning their attention to the Moscow landscapes. Of the material filmed in Gagra, only the footage of the waves that can be seen behind the doors of the “bus” with instant teleportation was useful.

7. By the way, the appearance of the flat plywood bus, unusual for science fiction, was invented by the director of the film. Pavel Arsenov did not want to invent remote controls and a clutter of buttons that were already an eyesore in every film of a similar theme. Why not make the process of instant travel as simple as possible in the future - open the door, and you are already on the other side of the Earth?

8. It was more difficult with the image of the myelophone. The device that caused the whole “mess” was not really described in the original source; we had to come up with it ourselves. Designers had many options for the appearance of the mind reading device. But after the director saw the crystals used in the production of cameras, he settled on the idea of a “crystalline myelophone.”

9. It was much more difficult to make a time machine using the efforts of a film studio. The prop shop employees were used to creating a historical setting using imitation stucco and unusual “fairy-tale” textures, but shiny plastic was beyond their capabilities. Some things had to be made to order, but a Rubik’s cube worked to decorate the remote control. Why him? Yes, simply because in the 1980s the Hungarian puzzle was extremely popular.

10. The most advanced video effect for Soviet cinema of that time is associated with the time machine. Remember the lightning, rainbows, stars and contour lines that accompanied Kolya's journey through time? All this was done by hand. The optical effects were created in a laser laboratory, shot on film, and then the frames were combined in a complex way. It took a month at best to create one such frame.

11. The famous dilapidated building, in the basement of which in our days there was a time machine, was found quite by accident on a street where almost all the houses were being demolished. The basement is entirely a set built in the pavilion. The walls were painted with African motifs to add a touch of mystery. The columns were made of polystyrene foam and cardboard so that the explosion in the last episode of the film would not injure children. The foam rings were covered with cardboard, sawed in predetermined places, squibs were placed there, and they were detonated at the right moment.

12. Perhaps one of the most impressive episodes of Guests from the Future were the shots in which flips appear. There were even legends among Minsk schoolchildren that there really was such an attraction with flying cabins in Moscow! In reality, the booths were common but extremely expensive props. Five of them were made in Lithuania, each flip cost about 5 thousand rubles - a substantial sum at that time, which could easily have been spent on real Zhigulis.

13. In addition, several miniature copies of flips were made with models of people in them. They were used to photograph long-range shots of high-flying aircraft. Such toys were hung on a wire from a crane with a boom about 20 meters, after which a suitable background was selected, for example the Cosmos Hotel. To prevent the wire from shining, it was painted over to match the background color.

14. Full-size heavy flips with real actors were installed in the back of trucks on special structures in the form of bars sticking out on the sides of the cars. If there are two flips in the frame at the same time, then two trucks are needed, which had to drive side by side smoothly and with pinpoint precision. Sometimes in such episodes excessively sharp swaying is noticeable - this is how the illusion of flight was disrupted by potholes on the road. Once, during filming, they even tore off a Zhiguli driving towards us - I had to pay a fine of 200 rubles.

15. According to the recollections of the filmmakers, everyone gave their all during the filming - both adult actors and children. Vyacheslav Nevinny, who played Veselchak U, despite his size, was ready to perform all the stunts himself, which, however, he was not allowed to do. And Mikhail Kononov often improvised in such a way that it turned out much better than the script version.

17. Evgeny Gerasimov masterfully embodied the robot Werther on the screen - a hero invented from A to Z especially for the film. Why invent complex mechanisms or resort to expensive animation if one person, with the help of a gait and a specially choreographed speech, managed to show the ideal robot of the future? Plus, of course, a costume, wig and makeup.

18. In the scene of Werther’s murder, a pair of metal plates with squibs attached to them were inserted into the actor’s costume. Evgeny Gerasimov himself pressed the button that activated the fuse, and thus “set fire” to himself for about a minute and a half while the pirates were shooting at him. By the way, laser beams are an ordinary hand-drawn animation, which was superimposed by exposure on ready-made frames with plastic “blasters” in the hands of Rat and Veselchak U.

19. Literally, Alexey Fomkin, the inimitable Kolya Gerasimov, had to bear a heavy burden. Remember the fourth episode, in which Alice, perched on the shoulders of her friend Yulia Gribkova and wearing a long cloak, portrays a tall lady in huge dark glasses? The performer of the role of Yulia was physically unable to carry Natasha Guseva. Alexey Fomkin came to the rescue. They put him in knee socks, sandals, and a school uniform, put Alice on his shoulders and sent him to parade down the street.

20. Natasha Guseva herself was taught how to run up correctly in order to film a spectacular six-meter long jump in a physical education lesson. The girl had to jump through the camera with the cameraman, who were dusted with sand. The performer of the role of Alisa Selezneva later said that she was terribly afraid of falling on the operator and breaking his neck or back. Fortunately, everything worked out fine.

21. But in the episode where Alice is hit by a trolleybus, a stunt girl was filmed. She ran at the same speed, and right before the trolleybus “hit” she accelerated, running further. At the same time, the viewer does not see the moment of the “collision”, since the frame is blocked by a trolleybus. However, if you look carefully, you will see light running, a moment of acceleration, and legs flashing behind the trolleybus (this happened at the end of the second episode).

22. There are many such “film blunders” in the film. For example, the film crew didn’t like how the episode in Cosmozoo turned out, when Alice tries to read the crocodile’s mind. The predator was made from foam plastic, and, in principle, it was very similar to a real alligator. But the divers who controlled the model did not lower it deep enough into the water. It was clear that this was not a real crocodile, and that it was too light, floating on the very surface. Particularly attentive spectators can even see the divers.

It took two people to film Guests from the Future many years. During this time, many of the children involved in filming managed to grow up. This is especially noticeable when you consider that the location scenes in the “present” were filmed first, and the “future” was left for the last stage.

The authors of the series from our childhood developed different destinies. Unfortunately, for some of them the future was not as bright as Alice promised. But many of those who remember the film, even today, never stop dreaming of flying to the spaceport, walking along Cosmozoo, or opening the door of a bus in Minsk and getting off somewhere in the Maldives. Will this ever be possible to realize?

When, during one of the interviews, the now adult performer of the role of Bori Messerer was asked whether he would like to live in the future shown in the film, the actor replied: “The question was posed incorrectly. It’s impossible to live in this world because it’s so unreal…” “It was clear even in 1984 that everything that was depicted there was not futurology. No. This is some kind of absolutely sterile world, which was needed only for the embodiment of certain ideas. It's fuzzy and unreal. It’s as if there is a focus in the center, and everything is blurry at the edges... This world, unfortunately, in my opinion, bears some imprint of the utopias of the sixties, from the same series as the Strugatskys. There is science all around, scientific and technological progress has exploded, small children are doing science. And now we see that science, both here and abroad, has absolutely no tendency to occupy the place that Bulychev and others dreamed of. The reality is that 85% are not interested in serious things, but in all sorts of rubbish. And the rest are so overwhelmed with life’s problems that there is no time left for anything else,” he added.