Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720
Staying true to the comics, the Kamar-Taj is where Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) journeys to find a cure for his damaged hands, shunning Western medicine and seeking forms of ancient healing. I hadn't traveled to Nepal before and felt so lucky to be able to do that. I scouted the city on several trips, along with location manager Jamie Lengyel, and immediately became almost overwhelmed by the staggering, intoxicating beauty of Kathmandu. Straight away we knew that it really was the only place to make this film. The Nepalese film crew were wonderful, even after the trauma they had all been through, and led us into a full immersion of the city as soon as we stepped off the plane. What a great contrast this place would be to the rest of the film. It achieved everything that was needed—a deeply exotic and mystical culture, rambling medieval labyrinthine streets, dusty brick reds and a beating sun—so much inspiration for the sets that would have to be built at home. That was one of the greatest challenges to these Nepalese sets—following the Doctor down a choking street in Patan Durbar square, Kathmandu, around a corner and directly onto a soundstage street set in London, then through a small door into a large temple courtyard, without feeling the loss of realism. All of the Nepalese sets were built almost entirely from plaster casts. The sculptors first made many intricate ancient columns, a myriad of ornate wooden architectural screens and details in clay as the basis for the moulds. The moulds would be used in many different ways to achieve the level of detail that we knew would be established in Nepal by the location unit. The plasterers made all the interwoven brick, tile floors and walls out of real materials as models before making the moulds. That allowed the casts to be reused in many ways. By its very nature, this was an expensive kind of scenery, so we needed to finds ways to transform one set into another. Several sets were built: a long winding street that led directly into a large, colonnaded brick courtyard, where Strange, under the guidance of The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) would learn to master the mystic arts. The set measured about 200 feet by 100 feet by 26 feet high. This structure played in two parts, one as a lower courtyard, then it was repurposed to work as an upper terrace overlooking the rest of the temple and the rooftops of the city beyond. A large green screen Opposite page, top to bottom: A concept sketch by Roberto Castro of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. Two photographs of the two-story set on stage at Shepperton Pinewood Studios in the UK. This page, top to bottom: Olivier Pron drew this concept illustration of the New York City Mirror realm. Paul Chandler created fanciful Gothic architecture for another view of an Escheresque New York. Pete Thompson drew this rainy, neon encrusted Hong Kong street. The finished set on the backlot of Longcross Studios outside of London was about five hundred feet long, built to about twenty feet high, finished on all sides and included several intersections.