lights,camera… castle?
This summer we had the pleasure of working with Focus Entertainment to produce a trailer for the release of their highly anticipated new game, Altas Fallen. We always know that when the phone call comes in from the team there that it's going to be something fun.
Focus Entertainment is based in France, so it really is a compliment that they came all the way to the UK to work with us. We have done some lovely work together with them in the past. From Sean Bean giving a spine tingling reading of William Blake's Little Boy Lost, to behind the scenes at War Hammer with Clive Standen. But this one was really out of the box!
They wanted to stand out from the crowd with a nod back to the video game ads of the 90s, a mixture of live action and gameplay. Those ads were always pretty ‘out there’ and quite daring. They pushed the boundaries of what you’d expect from a typical ad and really struck a chord with audiences as a result. The phrase ‘if you know, you know’ is applicable here - the ad may not mean much to the average onlooker, but to the fans, it’s so exciting. So the idea of surfing wizards in a ruined castle was quite frankly genius! But with only a month to do this, we knew we would be really up against it.
Unreal Engine or Real Life?
We toyed with the idea of making the trailer in Unreal Engine but ultimately we decided it just had to be in real life - it really needed to look realistic and immersive, so there could be no trace of anything digital that would shatter the illusion.
Of course, Unreal Engine is renowned for its capacity to craft immersive digital worlds, but there were too many uncertainties. Would we be able to achieve the subtle, gloomy lighting conditions we wanted? Would the mist look realistic enough? Would we have enough time and budget to get all of these intricacies right?
Live action presented challenges of its own but we are well-versed in problem-solving with these scenarios - it may have been our first time making a castle but it certainly wasn’t our first time shooting!
Bringing together the A-team
In the words of our Snr. Producer Jeremy: “This is only going to work if we deliver wonderfulness”
So, he worked his own magic and pulled together the most amazing crew of legendary professionals - they really were the best in the industry. Working with set designer Nandie Narishkin - who had previously worked on Game of Thrones and His Dark Materials (yeah some of us were extremely jealous)- the plans for the castle were drawn up. We had countless conversations about the sizing, the height of the set, how broken down it was, and even what colour the stone should be, to really nail that ancient, ruined vibe.
Did we physically build the set ourselves? No, don’t be silly - our DIY skills aren’t that great. We worked with the team at 4WOOD Tv and Film Construction in Cardiff who blew our minds. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day but our castle was built incredibly fast, and it really did look like the real deal.
There was only one place we wanted to film this- SandStorm Studios. The team there always go the extra mile and are one of the most talented and welcoming studio crews around. They also have a fab bit of kit called a Techno Dolly which was essential on a shoot like this.
The foundation stone for the crew was DoP Louis Blystad-Collins. We have worked with Louis for many years and his ability to create an atmosphere with lighting always astounds us when we look into the monitor. Combined with the great creative vision of Focus Entertainment's Creative Director Dessil Basmadjian and Head of Video, Jean-Philippe Bouix, the results were bound to be truly amazing.