Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1531774
the line but more of that later. The scale of the entire set had to be slightly increased in height to incorporate the level of the digital water which was in turn determined by the height of the hydraulic gimbal platforms used by SFX to move the boats around during the "Naumachia," which is the staging of an historic naval battle but as a mass entertainment. It is thought that this was something that had been done in the Colosseum in ancient times, filling it through an elaborate system of aqueducts to bring enough water to the site and filling it with an elaborate pipe network under the arena. We solved this problem by shooting dry in the main Colosseum set for the wide angles, adding the water digitally as we had done in Morocco, and then replicating a smaller section of the big set just a few minutes down the road at the Malta Film Studio tank for wet work. The main entry arch height also had to be increased to allow for clearance of the ship's mast. These increases in size had major ramifications with some of the structural engineering required for the set as the current safety codes had become very much stricter after twenty years, particularly with our velarium, which was a request from John Mathieson, who very much wanted to control the sunlight at different times of day, particularly midday when it was at its highest point and quite unflattering. The only evidence that I have seen that there was such a method of moveable sunshades hovering over the arena to control the light is derived from a small carved relief on an ancient Roman coin. The speculation was that the Romans would have probably used the same sail technology as they did on their ships but rigged horizontally, which we translated using modern lightweight materials that are currently in use for sport stadium roof structures. We were fortunate to have had the experience and skill of several of the original engineers from the first movie coming from Buro Happold, the engineering firm that did the structural design for both films, also Martin E. VIA SACRA. TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION. PRODUCTION STILL. F. COLOSSEUM FLOODED FOR THE NAUMACHIA SEQUENCE. PRODUCTION STILL. E F