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Far Cry

This film is based on the video game of the same name. The story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, mainly in Seattle and on a private island off the Washington coast. Our budget was approximately 30m, which allowed me to build a few large sets and create a strong overall look for the film. Directed by Uwe Boll and Cinematography by Mathias Neumann.

Deep in the bowels of a very large and old lumber mill on the island is a high-tech genetics lab. My concept was that each element was pre-fabricated as modular units so they could be installed virtually anywhere. This is a view from the long catwalk that is suspended above the long axis of the 100' x 150' room. To the left is the office of the Mad Scientist in charge of the operation. The intense white light below his office is coming from a source inside the observation room, which leads directly into the modular hallway system and the operating theatre, visible in the left foreground.	A side view looking up at the Mad Scientist's office. The louvered walls to the right of his office contains the surveillance/ communications room. I kept the ceilings of these two spaces open while their perimeter walls supported layers of sharply angled louvers. This gave an interesting finish and contrast to the traditional dressing inside and allowed for complete flexibility of lighting rigs and camera angles.
The Mad Scientist's luxurious office within the lab complex. I created this to be a contrast to the high-tech surroundings, giving the character an old-world depth and charm. The glass floor in the foreground looks down onto an observation room where his current genetically-modified soldier experiment is imprisoned. The bronze panel on the far right wall splits open to reveal a busy surveillance/communications room.	Captives in the hall just outside of the observation room. Another wing of the hallway, leading to the holding pens is visible through the windows on the left.
A view through the thick holding pen door to a genetically modified soldier beyond. When in captivity, they are rendered near comatose, their skin has a pale pallor, their veins are enlarged and blue and their pupils are extremely large and black.	Automatic double-doors leading into the holding pen area
Make-up/wardrobe and prop concept for our genetically-mutated soldiers. Illustration by Adrien Van Viersen	Sketch-Up model of the Laboratory set. The scientist's office and surveillance/ communications room are visible on the right and the operating theater just beyond. Illustration by Catherine Ircha, Art Director.
Outside of the lab area, on the grounds of the old lumber mill, our hero, Jack Carver stands still for a quick moment before all hell breaks loose. The structures above and all around provided many opportunities for exciting stunt work as did the areas of dangerous machinery inside. Immediately to the left of this photo is a large river which we matched to an inlet on the coast to give the impression that this all takes place on an isolated Pacific Northwest island.	The hot SUV driven by the Villainess - in this case, a 12 cylinder Volkswagen Touareg (not available in America). It's stolen by the good guys and participates in a harrowing chase across an island. I added the bars and lights plus painted everything flat-black. All sorts of things happen during the chase, the vehicle catches fire, crashes through barriers and ends up underwater. To accommodate the required action, duplicates were made for the various stunts and locations.
The Villainess moments prior to the start of the car chase across the island. Directly behind her is the hero SUV that the good guys steal to make their getaway.	The underwater version of the SUV in the water tank. We dropped it into the pool from a crane with stunt performers who had to make their way out as quickly as possible. Darkness, bubbles and a moving camera gave it a very tense, exciting look.
Another chase we staged involved high-speed jet boats through some stunning and very narrow river inlets. Here's a screen-cap from one camera angle as the boat with our heros jumps an old rotted portion of a bridge. As the boat hits it, the impact knocks over some of the supporting posts which block the way for the chase boats coming up behind. This was a great stunt to watch as the boat sailed about 70' through the air, crashing through the overhanging branches and landing perfectly before a sharp corner and disappearing around it.	Another angle of the boat with the old rotted bridge in the background as it's about to land
Early in the story, the good guys row to the shore of the island from the small fishing boat they arrived in. Everything on the boat from the Keel upwards was rebuilt to accommodate an explosion. The entire cabin was made of soft materials, the masts were cabled so they wouldn't sink and a great amount of debris was rigged to fly in the air with the explosion. Moments after this scene was shot, a rocket was launched from shore and blew it up.

Bloodrayne 2

Based on the video game, our hero "Rayne", a Vampire/Human hybrid finds herself hunting the evil ones in the wild west of America, circa 1881. Following a murderous trail, she arrives in "Deliverance", a hellish frontier town in the middle of nowhere.

The bullet-ridden sign welcoming the unfortunate to "Deliverance"	This photo illustrates a typical night on set in our town set of "Deliverance". The weather conditions during the shoot ran the gamut from beautiful to hellish - gorgeous sunshine and night, torrential rains, hailstorms, windstorms, a freak blizzard - and then a large fire. In the midst of all that, we managed to shoot everything we needed to.
We kept the mood of the film dark and wet, aiming to have buildings and background fade mysteriously into the background. Here's a view looking out into the main town square. Just beyond the fence is the main street with the jailhouse on the left and saloon on the right.	What was once the Mayor's stately home on the edge of town has turned sinister since becoming occupied by our evil villain.
A large gunfight is about to wage in and around this barn. The lighting and fog set the atmosphere.	Interior of the saloon. I made it quite dark in order to accentuate the few lights that exist and give plenty of opportunity for dark shadowy areas.
Inside the Mayor's house, our Villain is about to hatch his dastardly plan.	In general, "Deliverance" is a struggling frontier town. The church (in one of our few daytime scenes) shows evidence of this with its most basic of furnishings and decor.

 

Postal

“Postal” satirizes the worst of America and its gun culture. It takes place in the depressed and arid Arizona-ish town of “Paradise”. We shot in the Vancouver area which is known for rain, so to create a look of perennially sunny environment, all the colors I brought in were from a 60’s and 70’s bright palette and then faded in varying degrees.

This is a view of the trailer park our hero; “Dude” lives in. To represent the worst of middle America, we found a neighborhood in a small town that was slated for demolition. In and around the few existing buildings, we placed trailers that we purchased and then gave them their “trailer park” patina. Many of the trailers and buildings had breakaway walls and windows for the large number of stunts that would be happening around them.

Interior trailer set. We took elements from Dude’s actual trailer and added them into this slightly larger version that had enough practical room for us to shoot in. The trailer was set on airbags, which allowed for it to rock heavily.

The sign at the entrance to the trailer park Dude lives in. As we were scouting locations, we came across a number of places with windmills, so we decided to make it a subtle motif.

Seed

This film takes place during the late ‘70’s and revolves around a serial killer and the prison where he’s interned. It stands on a remote island off the dark and rocky Pacific Northwest coast – isolated, formidable and menacing. The location we used for the prison is a partially-decommissioned mental asylum with a lot of existing production values.

The building itself (in our story) was built in the late 1800’s and I created an architectural motif of it receiving its one and only overhaul in the late 1930’s – thus many of the decorative elements are industrial Art-Deco. I liked this as it allowed us to introduce massive shapes into the set, complimenting them with a very dark, rich and shiny palette, which I likened to the interior of an old boiler room, a visual metaphor that adds to the tension and need for the Killer to escape. In post, all the colors were brought down to add a sense of the era and enhance the cold light prevalent in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a detail of Death Row. In what was formerly an empty room on location, I designed this space to contain 8 cells and a large guard station/office. There was to be some heavy fighting in the space, so specified walls were reinforced to withstand impact and bars and doors were made easily removable. The walls were painted to give evidence to many years of use with layers of thick coats of paint and abuse by various prisoners. Wall colors were three tones of blue, which contrasted nicely behind the worn grey bars.	This is the long hall that the “Killer” is escorted down on his way to the electric chair. This was shot on location. I introduced the strong graphic of the dark upper walls and floor against the lower walls to visually lengthen the space. The walls are a very rich and dark blue with a bit of a sheen that lengthens any reflections of light that hit it.
The Execution Room. This was another formerly empty room in our location. I added the old walls behind the chair and played up the existing decay. Colors were a dark grey-green and a bit of deep red. We built the chair, which was beautifully executed (pardon the pun) and it now resides in the Director’s office as his guest chair.	There’s an old cemetery on the grounds of the prison where a clandestine burial is taking place. We built a small cemetery on the hill you see in this pic, but in order not to alarm the existing residents, we had to have crew standing by to lower the crosses between every take.
This a view of one area of the Warden’s apartment. Again, I kept the colors very dark and rich, allowing for the camera and lights to find textures in the wall surfaces and furniture shapes.	The hall outside the Warden’s apartment. Very dark and mysterious, this is where the Warden investigates suspicious noises he hears late at night.

Beneath

The old family manor house - We found an old hunting lodge in the mountains and changed it from the existing bright white with manicured grounds to the dark, weathered and overgrown property pictured here. The gate our Hero stands in front of was built and installed on location, as was most of the foundation wall around the house as well as some chimneys and lightning rods on the roof	An upstairs hall - built on a soundstage - was designed to do double duty as two distinct areas of the house by incorporating quick and clever detail changes
Mysterious goings on in one of the rooms...	The manor house is riddled with secret crawlspaces, here is where the wall bas been broken through to reveal a portion of one of them
Deep in the crawlspaces - these were also built on the soundstage and designed in modular units enabling quick redresses that gave an almost infinite variety of corners, nooks and crannies in which to stage our action	Something's about to happen...
Old worn stair detail - this was modular as well, changing into many different positions and representing a few different heights	The one bright room down under the house - but somethin' dark is about to happen...
The old boathouse. Situated not too far through the woods from the old manor on a secluded inlet of a lake. What you see here is actually a two-walled set, nothing exists of the building except what is visible here. Design-wise, it ties into the look of the manor, but with the added effect of spending the last number of years being neglected
Another view of the boathouse
Boathouse interior - This is a shot looking into a corner near the entry door. This was a full four-walled set built on a pool which was adjacent to the manor house	Boathouse again - Our Hero being pulled into the water - notice the beautiful curve to the boat slip
Escape from the underground tunnels into the boathouse	The old family mausoleum - built as a two-walled set in a very charming countryside cemetery
Interior of the mausoleum, built on the soundstage with breakaway marble panels for each tomb

Alone in the Dark

Carnby’s Loft – Elements built in an old bank which halted it’s renovation to allow us to shoot there	Bureau 713 Control Room – Built in a new theater under construction
Atrium of Bureau 713 Headquarters	Bureau 713 Forensics Lab – built in a derelict, closed-down mental hospital
Bureau 713 Team arrive at the museum to save the day – er, night	Bureau 713 Defense line outside of abandoned gold mine – shot at an decommissioned copper mine on the coast north of Vancouver
Deep inside the mine, a Bureau team member has a mishap at the bottom of a very, very deep shaft	Carnby in the Sand Chamber
Detail of a wall constructed from skulls of the not-so-fortunate	The long abandoned “secret” underground bureau 713 lab
Tink on the China Town set	For the film, an ancient civilization was created, including their written language and architectural details. This sandstone tablet is one examples where the written language was visible

House of the Dead

Front of the “House”	Wide shot of the house with multi still-camera set up. This set was built on a parking lot in the forest. Gravestones, trees, shrubs, dirt, leaves and debris were dressed atop the existing gravel surface
Tink at the entry to the house. Story-wise, the house was constructed by marooned Spanish sailors on a remote Pacific Northwest island in the 1760’s	Make-up detail for our villain. He is immortal, but his body detoriates, so he must constantly replenish his skin and body parts with those of his latest victims
Coffee break in Zombie Land	Tink lounging on the terrace
Tink on set	Dining room of the house - built on a soundstage
Old laboratory in the house	Another view of the laboratory - built on a soundstage

> Watch Tink's production design video reel