Troy's behind-the-scenes production

The film was adapted from Homer's epic Iliad, which was completed in the 8th century BC, 300 to 400 years after the fall of Troy. However, it is still a mystery whether Homer compiled the oral history that existed at that time, or whether Homer is the only original author of this work. But after all, his works survived a long history and eventually became the most convincing literary works to record this history.

The screenwriter of this film is david benioff, who wrote the script for Spike Lee's 25 Hours. The producer Diana Rasburn commented that its description of the characters is very profound. Sometimes, these classic literary works will make the audience feel an insurmountable sense of distance because of the age, but the reports connect people thousands of years ago with people today with the same feelings. Director Peterson found graphic designer Nigel Phelps to help him build this fantastic ancient world. Nigel knew that era very well, and his first sketch was wonderful. He led the creative team to immerse themselves in various books and research materials.

Most of the research work of the production team was completed in the British Museum, because there are some collections excavated in Turkey, and many people believe that the ruins of Troy are there. However, there is still a lot of room for imagination about what Troy was like in that era described in the Iliad. Accurately speaking, Troy in the film is larger than the real scale, and most of the stories in the film take place in and around the city, including the beach when Greek soldiers landed, the battlefield outside the city wall, Troy and the palaces in the city; Other areas include the Thessalonica Valley, Sparta and Mycenae in the Greek mainland.

Troy city

After much discussion, Peterson chose to establish locations in London, Malta and Mexico. Most of the interior of the film was shot in Sherburton Studio, 40 miles from London. Of course, the whole city of Troy could not be built in a studio, so Malta came in handy. The producer said Malta is a lovely island with wonderful cliffs, which is very suitable for building Troy. However, the beach in Malta is not big enough for cg animation experts of the crew to put down thousands of warships, nor can it open up a battlefield that can accommodate 75,000 people. The producer's last stop was Mexico, and all the needs were solved.

The film started shooting in Sherburton on April 22nd, 2003. The main scenery built in the local area includes the Trojan Palace, with an exposed roof inside, because the main sources of light and heat at that time were the sun and fire. There is also a 50-foot statue of Zeus, because the religious theme is an important element of the film. Subsequently, the crew rushed to Malta and built the location of Troy covering an area of 10 acre. The original location of the location was a17th century military fortress named Casorri. Although Malta is rich in archaeological resources, the film crew found that there are no buildings like BC 1200, and the whole city of Troy has no available resources and must be rebuilt. The crew employed more than 500 Maltese workers, and nearly 200 craftsmen were airlifted from England. Together, they carried out a huge project on the island. Strong wind, high temperature and humidity have always affected the shooting progress. Peterson can only specify the shooting plan for the day after hearing the weather forecast every morning. Troy's palace and complex streets were finally completed. Under the decoration of two-time Oscar-winning set designer Peter Young, two important scenes finally showed a shocking grandeur.

In the film, the Apollo Guard consists of 65,438+0,200 extras. They escorted Hecktor and Paris through the city in ancient battle robes, and then introduced Helen to the Trojans for the first time. Like Helen, the audience will see the panoramic view of Troy for the first time. Peter Yang designed many reasonable background pictures: busy figures in the blacksmith's shop, women carrying baskets, people pushing flatbeds and so on. Those subtle details add to the authenticity of the film. In addition, in the squares and streets of Troy, Yang tried to show two completely different living conditions. Except for the main road leading to the palace, other branches are designed to show more common fragments of life, where there are the most ordinary people's daily life. The square is the place where ceremonies are held, so the design needs to be more formal and simple. It is also the last stop of the Trojan horse race. Yang and his design team knew that there would be a 40-foot-tall horse in the square, so everything around it could not be more noticeable than the horse itself.

Trojan horse

Trojan horse is the most difficult design challenge in the film. Trojan horses were built by the Greeks with the wood of burned warships, and they had to be completed in 12 days. Designing such an important symbol means that the design of artistic designer Phelps must arouse other people's awareness of it, and of course, maintain the realistic style advocated by the film. Phelps said that he didn't want to wheel the Trojan horse because it was a clumsy and meaningless exercise. After a lot of exclusion and selection, three conceptual artists cooperated to create the final blueprint of Trojan horse, and a sculptor immediately carved a three-dimensional design model of 12 inch. Finally, 12 plastic sculptors completed the full-size Trojan horse together.

The Trojan horse was built in the studio of Hiberton, and the process had to be split in two, because there was not enough room for this behemoth. First make the lower half and chassis with horse legs, and then make the upper half of the horse body, including the head and shoulders. But it was not until two or three months later that the Trojans assembled in Malta for the first time. The main materials of Trojan horse are steel and fiberglass, but it looks like wood. Trojan horse is about 38 feet high and weighs 1 ton. It took the staff several weeks to fully assemble it.

Burn troy

When all the scenes of Troy were filmed, the crew devoted themselves to the last scene of Malta-burning the city of Troy that they had painstakingly built. This scene needs a lot of careful planning and coordination. The special effects team of joss williams, the special effects director, laid thousands of feet of gas pipelines and connected five liquid propane tanks, which were hidden behind buildings on both sides of the streets of Troy and controlled by a valve system with 350 independent operations. Each gas storage tank has a capacity of 5000 liters and can store gas and liquid.

In order to ensure the safety of the actors, before the official shooting, the crew conducted several weeks of drills, arranged medical teams and ambulances near the shooting site, and prepared several evacuation plans to deal with emergencies at any time. Due to full preparation, all the cast members were unscathed during the actual shooting.

Mexican battlefield

After finishing the Maltese shooting plan, the crew turned to los cabos, Mexico, and started shooting the most dangerous part of the film on July 1 1. Producers have recruited hundreds of staff in Mexico to get ready before the core cast of 350 people arrives. The new site covers an area of 2800 acres. Before the arrival of the crew, a lot of preparatory work has been completed, and 230 workers have been hired, and a lot of building materials have been brought from Mexico City to build Greek warships, the temple of Apollo and the spectacular walls of Troy.

One of the most complicated tasks is to clear the site for building the city wall. Thousands of acres around Mexican beaches are covered with bushes and cacti, which extend all the way to the sea. The crew must clear out 1 square mile as a battlefield, and at the same time, they must keep certain kinds of cacti as needed. Similarly, the Mexican coast is also the habitat of endangered turtles, and producers must implement strict turtle protection plans. After the beach environment was protected and cleaned, 80 craftsmen immediately began to build the outer walls and gates of Troy, which took four months and used 200 tons of gypsum. The completed wall is 500 feet long, with an average height of 40 feet, and the central area on both sides of the gate even reaches 60 feet. In post-production, digital technology will extend the city wall to both ends for miles.

Unfortunately, when the first film crew finished shooting and the second film crew finished shooting in Mexico within two weeks, a hurricane hit the local area, which caused serious loss of the film location, two-thirds of the walls of Troy collapsed and the reconstruction work took another month.

Military training

Simon Crane, the director of the stunt team, led a stunt team composed of 50 stunt performers from all over the world, who had been trained for six weeks before the film started. In addition, 1000 extras will be temporarily divided into several groups according to their respective specialties, and the best of them will appear at the battle site.

It is an arduous and unusual task to train 65,438+0,000 people at the same time and make these inexperienced "novices" move in a coordinated way. This work was entrusted to Richard Smedley, a military technical adviser and former British official. Before filming, Smedley had to teach the extras to perform in the same way. Most of the 1000 extras have not received military training, and it is not until their actions are recognized that the fighting skills needed by the film begin to get down to business.

In Malta, Smedley first conducted military training for 200 extras for about four weeks, and taught them the skills of marching at the same time and the correct method of holding weapons, so as to be ready to participate in some small-scale battle scenes filmed on the island at any time. However, once the filming was moved to Mexico, the war scene was enlarged. Smedley not only needs military training for the remaining 800 extras, but also needs a better elite team. They must be absolutely convincing, so that the battle scenes are more realistic and have the appearance of Mediterranean people. Finally, Smedley collected ideal candidates from the Institute of Physical Education in the Bulgarian capital. 1 A few months before the film started, they went to Mexico with an impromptu performance and arranged a three-week training.

Virtual technology

Although the crew used a large number of people to shoot the war scenes in the film, they still failed to achieve the spectacular effect of tens of thousands of people, so they applied a revolutionary visual special effects technology. It can be said that Troy is the first work of "virtual stuntman" technology. This new technology is provided by the dominant MPC and Framestore CFC companies. Based on a software developed by the Biology Department of Oxford University, this program can create virtual characters. When external force acts on virtual characters, it will produce exactly the same reaction as human beings, which is completely different from most virtual characters generated by computers and relying on fixed databases. Virtual actors can walk independently and have the same perception and reaction to the surrounding environment as humans.