ADG Perspective

January-February 2018

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92 P E R S P E C T I V E instead of shooting it on location. Creatively, who wouldn't want to build a beautiful eighteenth century French village? Practically, it was like starting up another film! But as happens when you are full speed on something, you rally to it. Supervising Art Director Niall Moroney and construction manager Malcolm Roberts rose to the occasion, setting up a whole new team and workshops over on the backlot for the fictional little town of Villeneuve. Mark Swain was the Art Director in charge of this enormous job. It was the largest set built for the production, measuring 29,000 square feet. Inspiration was drawn from the village of Conques and others in and around the Aveyron region of France that Adam Richards, the location manager, and I scouted. One advantage of building rather than shooting a location was all the best features could be cherry-picked and combined into one hybrid version. Included in the town, which was named after Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the author of the original Beauty and the Beast story, were Belle's cottage, a schoolhouse, a dress shop, a village tavern, a bakery, a church, the village square, and a Laverie, a communal washing area. A. Final illustration of Belle's house. Illustrator Joanna Bush. B. Belle's house in Villenueve. Backlot set build overseen by Mark Swain. C. Illustration showing the geographic relationship from the castle to Villeneuve. Illustrator Eva Kuntz. D. Cinema 4D model of castle notated by Senior Art Director James Foster for turret stunt sequence using storyboards by David Alcock. A B C

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