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son credits Scott's storyboards with helping to define how that piv- otal portion of the film would look. "How do you write a battle script? It's very oen three lines," she shares. "There's no real visualization of how a battle is. You know the outcome, but Ridley has such a vivid imagination and such. All kinds of things happen within the battle visually. What may be three lines in a script suddenly becomes 20 minutes!" "We're very much working from storyboards," she continues. "Rid- ley has done some very detailed storyboards, but even beyond that is, it developed as we went along. We kept asking for and got addi- tional material. And [ILM special effects supervisor] Neil Corbould was fantastically versatile in adapting bits and scenery and so on, and visual effects for what we needed. It was something that actu- ally grew. We added some additional lines of dialogue. So, it's a con- stant evolution." Some of the battle scenes were shot in the desert, which was then made to look like the ocean. Other combat sequences took place inside the coliseum, where, in addition to baboons, the slaves face a massive rhino, and, when the venue was filled with water, sharks! "These battle scenes are really stunning," adds Restivo. "The Nu- midian sequence is a blast to get to do. And the naval battle in the arena, with the sharks and stuff, was amazing and very challenging too. The rhino! All these things." Restivo points to a latter scene in the film as a personal highlight, where Lucius (Mescal) gets knocked off the fortress wall as ships approach the coast. His love, Arishat (Yuval Gonen), was killed during the battle and is now floating in the surf. The scene combines footage from different shoot days and locations. "I'm a big fan of that sequence," he reveals. "And then also what follows, when he wakes up in the water and wades out to find her body and cradles her. [It] was a really emotional moment, even from the dailies. Paul's performance was really, really moving, and I feel like the combination of the shots that they got out in the water—that was in two completely different locations—one was in Morocco, and one was in Malta—and it cuts together seamlessly! I'm really, really proud of that sequence." Simpson points to the Numidian battle in the opening sequence as one of her editorial highlights. "That was, in fact, shot in the desert in Morocco," she says of the ocean sequence. "We had like three scantily clad boats parked in sand that the actors were looking out on, so it was a tour de force for the visual effects department to actually add all that water and sea, several boats, and the oars and all of that. And I think they did a fantastic job! I think that added to the kind of dreamy quality of it in a way." Simpson also credits Scott's vision and the VFX team with creat- ing the dramatic skies that enhance so many of the scenes. "Ridley is very anxious about skyscapes," she notes. "He really in- volves himself in the kind of mood of how the sky should look." The Numidian battle, for example, was shot in bright sunlight in Morocco, but the finished film presents a very moody atmosphere, with stormy lighting and huge, dark clouds. "It is hats off to the visual effects department for that scene," she states. "It was very painterly in the way that Ridley had, in fact, imag- ined." The editing team worked closely with Ridley Scott during production. j a n u a r y • f e b r u a r y • m a r c h 2 0 2 5 c g w 1 7