One of the most iconic scenes directed by Christopher Nolan where cooper sends the coordinates to his daughter using morse code. The scene focuses on a special watch, a watch specifically designed for the movie. Hamilton was contracted to make a special watch for that particular scene. Hamilton came up with 10 watches that were returned back after the conclusion of the shooting and alas none of them were meant for commercial sale.
Hamilton though currently owned by the Swatch group has special history and heritage. Founded in 1892 in Lancaster Pennsylvania, they came up with their first watch in 1893. They came up with the railroad watch with the intention of providing a reliable timing devices which later was used by American Expeditionary Forces worldwide.
Hamilton was worn by the American troops in the WWI, it also went on expeditions to North and South Poles. In 1940 it stopped commercial production and focused on the military watches creating a million of them in WWII.
1957 saw the birth of Ventura a model by Hamilton which established its supremacy. The watch was also worn by Elvis Presley in the movie Blue Hawai. In 1972 another iconic watch pulsar was launched which was featured in the James Bond movie where you can see the late Roger Moore sporting the watch.
In present-day the Jazzmaster, Khakhi, and iterations of old military watches are the prime face of the company. Hamilton has featured in over 450 movies with the latest one (which grabbed eyes) was the Independence Resurgence.
Coming to the Interstellar watch, Cooper wore a traditional khaki aviation watch.
Whereas the one worn by Murph was special. It was a 42mm, with brushed bezel and featuring an aged lume. The watch didn’t have a date window and had tower hands. The heart was tried and tested ETA 2824-2. The question is how did they shoot the “morse code” scene. Hamilton informed that the prop master was actually able to partially deconstruct the movement and insert a small servo motor to move the second’s hand as it did in the movie. There were no computer graphics involved in that. They were then able to put the movement back together again.
Hamilton is one of those iconic brands which has contributed a lot towards the development and rich history of watches. It forms part of the elite league like Seiko where a watch company that had no connection with Europe went on to create a niche of their own!!
The Enigmatic Pen 