I was excited to work on Tarsem Singh‘s epic period piece previously called (the working title) “War of Gods”.  The film was eventually was renamed for it’s release, as “Immortals”.

Tarsem creates movies with stunning visuals and fabulous visual textures and vocabularies.

This was my first film with Production Designer,  Tom Foden.

Tom and Tarsem have frequently worked together.

 

 

 


The first set I was to work on for “Immortals” was the Quarry set.  (As illustrated below by Vlad Spasojevic)

It was descided that we would only need to build the lower section of the Quarry on a stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above are images of the Quarry 3D study model.  This massed out the general shape and layout of the set that was to be needed.  It was created from a mixture of imitating Vlad’s illustration, and combining that with reference material for the set’s final look.


Next was work on the Village Gate.  Again, I was using another great illustration by Vlad to base my 3D Model on.  (Illustration below by Vlad Spasojevic)

The Village Gate was supposed to be able to operate with only one guard to protect the Village.

The theory was that the path to the gate was so narrow, so only one man at a time could engage the sentry on duty.  And the whole gate could be operated (opened/closed) by the one guard, thus one guard could protect the whole village.

Things got very visually interesting here when you look close at the last Village Gate image (below).  There were a lot of details added that were to make the film semi “un-datable”.

There was to be brick, modern cast iron hardware, a piano bench, gears and levers, and other pieces that were from different time periods in the film.

This was actually supposed to occur through out the film.

How it was originally explained to me, was that if there were a shot of an actor walking in the desert, Tarsem would want a bicycle half buried in the sand in the shot, or an oil derrick in the background.


Another set i briefly worked on was called the Circle of Silence.

And this set came with another illustration by Vlad Spasojevic (Right).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The size of the set was scaled back from the illustration.  This set was the first time I used some new tools for digital sculpting, in the attempt of making rock like surfaces in a digital medium.

For it’s time, it was somewhat of a success, but lead to even better techniques that I use today.

 

 

 

 


I enjoyed working for Tarsem Singh And Tom Foden on this project.  Here are a few more Movie Posters for the film.  I liked their style.


I hope you enjoyed the movie, and seeing here a little bit of what my part in the film process was.

Cheers,
–J.Andre.

 


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