Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/765720
114 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2 0 1 7 movements and stunts, and the set ended up with a much steeper pitch on the trusses to allow more room for a 100-foot crane to reach through the set. A separate set piece was built for stunt men to fall through a section of the ceiling. Some of the spaces within the actual Palazzo Vecchio weren't very cinematic so the Ethnographical Museum in Budapest was chosen to be transformed into the space where Dante's death mask is stolen. With free rein to imagine a more visually interesting space, the museum corridors with the correct scale were used as transitional pieces into different areas. What wasn't right was the museum's neoclassical architecture, so to make the space work the marble columns were given a costume of sorts by foaming, and covering them with latex which was then painted over. The Badia Tower in the opening sequence was built on stage for practical reasons. It required specific actions, with a trapdoor and an opening wide enough for Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) to plummet to his death, so it was built slightly over scale. It was also redressed for a chase up a wooden staircase prior to reaching the top. Dr. Sienna Brooks' (Felicity Jones) apartment in Florence eventually became a stage set, although there was a desire to place this on location at one point. I was mindful of the very specific action requirements that needed to combine the exterior and interior. Also, there was a hand prop that projected a modified version of Botticelli's Map of Hell, so the distances for the projection throw and the actors' choreography had to work in a very specific way. The amount of screen time in this set made sense for it to be on stage, along with the obvious weather cover advantages. In fact, the set ended up being redressed into an Istanbul apartment after some unforeseen scheduling issues arose. I traveled to Istanbul several times to plan the film's climax, but eventually, almost all of it was re-created back in Budapest, other than some establishing shots and a small unit to establish the arrival of the police and the World Health Organization outside the Hagia Sophia. All of the principal vehicles were shot there, and then later, the actors were filmed getting out of their same respective vehicles on a set build back at the studio in Budapest. The finale took place at the Basilica Cistern, which in reality is about five hundred feet southwest of the Hagia Sofia on a historical peninsula and is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul. The exterior had an unassuming entrance that was nestled next to a park and faced onto a high street with shops and restaurants. After a long search in Budapest for a suitable location that could be augmented, it was eventually decided to build the environment from scratch in the car park opposite the production offices, giving the production much better flexibility and control over several nights of shooting. The interior of the cistern was by far the most complicated constructed set. The real space is like an underground cathedral, approximately 138 meters by 64 meters (or Right: The interior of the cistern set with 24-piece orchestra platformed over three to four feet of water. Peter Wenham, Production Designer Phil Sims, Supervising Art Director Bence Erdelyi, Zsuzsa Kismarty-Lechner, Marton Voros, Art Directors Cagil Bay, Art Director (Turkey) Tamara Marini, Art Director (Italy) Alina Papp, Standby Art Director Petra Balogh, Bence Kalmár, Gergely Rieger, Krisztina Szilágyi, László Szirmai, Assistant Art Directors Alexandra Miklos, Lead Graphic Designer Bilun Bilman, Graphic Designer Enci Bognár, Gabor Csernus, Assistant Graphic Designers Berecz Andras, Assistant Graphic Artist István Gergely, 24-Frame Graphic Designer Peter Eszenyi, Sam Hart, David Hicks, Daniel Højlund, George Simons, Screen Graphics Kamen Anev, Gergely Piroska, Concept Artists Hedvig Kiraly, Orsolya Maza, Gergely Álmos, Draftspersons Gabor Szabo, Digital Modeler/Set Designer Miklos Selmeczy, Junior Draftsman Soren Bendt Pedersen, Storyboard Artist Jille Azis, Set Decorator