Post by pop on May 9, 2004 21:52:56 GMT -5
Four locations from A Series of Unfortunate Events
The young actors were unfortunately sick the day press was invited to visit the set of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, so there wasn’t much the crew could shoot. Picking up whatever shots they could around the sound stages, press were taken on a tour of four major soundstage locations from the film. The film is being shot entirely indoors with no outdoor location sets at all.
Set 1 was a desert area with train tracks and power lines. There was a field of burnt corn on one side and empty, plowed dirt on the other. Train tracks ran through the middle with a beat up old Imperial parked over the tracks. This car belonged to the villain, Count Olaf, and it was full of mirrors on the inside so he could always look at himself. He’s an actor. The Imperial’s license plate was NR4-7531, for the nit picky fans.
This was a forced perspective set creating the illusion of more space than even the grand soundstage could accommodate. A set of power lines were normal in the middle, but grew smaller and closer together to give the illusion they were disappearing into the horizon. A barn in the background was actually only a couple feet taller than a person, because it wasn’t that far back at all. This location also contained The Superette Store, a quickie mart with a ‘50s era or earlier gas station.
Set 2 was Briney Beach, the beginning of movie where the kids get the bad news about their parents’s death. One side was the beach, but that was at most ¼ of this space. Half the space was water, and the other ¼ on the other end was a peer with a one or two story lighthouse.
On the beach side, several wooden boats were washed up on shore. A painted cloth background showed mountains and sky. Again, the space was mostly water and they were actively shooting on set. The water was shallow enough for people to walk in waist to chest deep, about four feet. During one shot, they created splashing in the water, a circle of what looked like bullet shots but it’s not. When it stopped, the hoses swirl slowly, like the Bellagio fountain, until they stop and go back under water.
Set 3 was Lachrymose cave. There’s not much you can say about this. It’s a big styrofoam cave with black rocky stalagtites with orange tips.
Finally, Set 4 was a shanty town. It turned out to be the other end of the beach set, from the peer back. This was actually a completely different set, so when they used the town, they put up a background curtain so we can’t see the beach.
The road was made of rocks and in addition to houses, there was a market before the peer. Damoclese Market had vegetable and fruit stands, canned food on the shelves and what looked like glass refrigerators, but as the portion of the set was dark, that could not be confirmed.
Director Brad Silberling explained his decision to remain on soundstages for the shoot. “To me, it’s funny, when you look at the bare premise of the story of these books, it could just be a story of just gross child abuse,” Silberling said. “I mean, if you placed it into a completely contemporary setting, went on practical locations and had basically Robert Mitchum out trying to like knock off a bunch of kids, it’s horrifying. So in a way, what [author Daniel] Handler did and I believe it was part of the intelligence of creating a world that you couldn’t quite define, was he made the situation survivable and palatable for the readership by creating his own world that had touchstones of what you know but is its own things. So we initially didn’t set out to design the entire world but what happened was [production designer] Rich Heinrichs and I went out, did some scouting back east a year ago and each time we came even down to the beach, we kept saying, ‘Mm, no, we want to bend this our way. We want to control this.’ I wanted a sort of holistic feel to the movie where you get you’re stepping into, again, a bit of illustrated storytelling and hopefully it’ll remind you of reading a good book when you’re a kid.”
Paramount Pictures will release Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events at the end of 2004. See the links at right for more on the film.
actionadventure.about.com/cs...a/aa050604a.htm
]
The young actors were unfortunately sick the day press was invited to visit the set of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, so there wasn’t much the crew could shoot. Picking up whatever shots they could around the sound stages, press were taken on a tour of four major soundstage locations from the film. The film is being shot entirely indoors with no outdoor location sets at all.
Set 1 was a desert area with train tracks and power lines. There was a field of burnt corn on one side and empty, plowed dirt on the other. Train tracks ran through the middle with a beat up old Imperial parked over the tracks. This car belonged to the villain, Count Olaf, and it was full of mirrors on the inside so he could always look at himself. He’s an actor. The Imperial’s license plate was NR4-7531, for the nit picky fans.
This was a forced perspective set creating the illusion of more space than even the grand soundstage could accommodate. A set of power lines were normal in the middle, but grew smaller and closer together to give the illusion they were disappearing into the horizon. A barn in the background was actually only a couple feet taller than a person, because it wasn’t that far back at all. This location also contained The Superette Store, a quickie mart with a ‘50s era or earlier gas station.
Set 2 was Briney Beach, the beginning of movie where the kids get the bad news about their parents’s death. One side was the beach, but that was at most ¼ of this space. Half the space was water, and the other ¼ on the other end was a peer with a one or two story lighthouse.
On the beach side, several wooden boats were washed up on shore. A painted cloth background showed mountains and sky. Again, the space was mostly water and they were actively shooting on set. The water was shallow enough for people to walk in waist to chest deep, about four feet. During one shot, they created splashing in the water, a circle of what looked like bullet shots but it’s not. When it stopped, the hoses swirl slowly, like the Bellagio fountain, until they stop and go back under water.
Set 3 was Lachrymose cave. There’s not much you can say about this. It’s a big styrofoam cave with black rocky stalagtites with orange tips.
Finally, Set 4 was a shanty town. It turned out to be the other end of the beach set, from the peer back. This was actually a completely different set, so when they used the town, they put up a background curtain so we can’t see the beach.
The road was made of rocks and in addition to houses, there was a market before the peer. Damoclese Market had vegetable and fruit stands, canned food on the shelves and what looked like glass refrigerators, but as the portion of the set was dark, that could not be confirmed.
Director Brad Silberling explained his decision to remain on soundstages for the shoot. “To me, it’s funny, when you look at the bare premise of the story of these books, it could just be a story of just gross child abuse,” Silberling said. “I mean, if you placed it into a completely contemporary setting, went on practical locations and had basically Robert Mitchum out trying to like knock off a bunch of kids, it’s horrifying. So in a way, what [author Daniel] Handler did and I believe it was part of the intelligence of creating a world that you couldn’t quite define, was he made the situation survivable and palatable for the readership by creating his own world that had touchstones of what you know but is its own things. So we initially didn’t set out to design the entire world but what happened was [production designer] Rich Heinrichs and I went out, did some scouting back east a year ago and each time we came even down to the beach, we kept saying, ‘Mm, no, we want to bend this our way. We want to control this.’ I wanted a sort of holistic feel to the movie where you get you’re stepping into, again, a bit of illustrated storytelling and hopefully it’ll remind you of reading a good book when you’re a kid.”
Paramount Pictures will release Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events at the end of 2004. See the links at right for more on the film.
actionadventure.about.com/cs...a/aa050604a.htm
]