Class Project - Gladiator

The class covered a lot of disciplines with this project.  To realize Maximus fighting Tiger in the Colosseum, multiple scales of the arena were built, in addition to armor, costumes, sets and makeup effects.  This was a large class, about 60 students, which both required and enabled a scene this large in scope.  I drew storyboards from the movie to pick out the basic compositions that were being intercut.  From these we could select a handful to reproduce, and later explore how editing could help make the most of that footage.

For shots revealing nearly half of the Colosseum, a 5-ft. long version was created.  It had little dimensional detail, since most wouldn't be seen in an extreme wide shot.  With atmospheric elements and action added, it mostly had to assume the proper bulk shape.   Still, it had a working valerium and enough dressing on the Emperor's booth to make it recognizable. 

To fill the stands, a classic crowd-making trick was borrowed from Ben Hur and Star Wars.  An assortment of painted Q-tips was suspended through metal screen in a box, and made to fluctuate by waving paintbrushes underneath.  Shrunken to fit within the stands and replicated throughout, the impression of a full and active audience was created.

The main entrance and Emperor's booth were built of wood and insulation foam at about a 1/12 scale.  Greater emphasis was placed on detail for the Emperor, with golden buttons, ribbon, foliage, and nicer fabrics adorning the booth.  The rows of seating were window blinds, whose lack of depth wouldn't matter because all shots of this set were straight-on.

Q-tips wouldn't work for such a close view of the crowd, so instead a similar approach was applied to live-action.  Part of the class dressed in togas (sheets), and was arranged in three rows in front of the bluescreen: a kneeling front row, a standing middle, and a back row kneeling on a table.  They were shuffled around for multiple takes of random cheering, and composited in place of their paper stand-ins.

Costumes were fashioned from inexpensive fabrics, and armor was custom-made with fiberglass for rigidity.

For shots of Maximus on the ground, rather than bring a lot of dirt into the soundstage, we shot in the dirt parking lot.  A 1/4-scale wall was kept out of focus in the background to appear further away. 

An insert shot of his axe piercing Tiger's foot was shot indoors on a small set, against bluescreen so the Colosseum could be visible in the distance.  A syringe filled with corn syrup forced a stream of "blood" out on cue.

The bulk of the fight took place in the small bluescreen stage.  It was so small, in fact, that we moved the screen and opened the outside doors to use the sun for ambient light.  Through trial-and-error with the editing instructor, a method for shooting hand-held was devised.  With tracking markers around the edges of the screen, we could identify anchor points for linking video layers in After Effects.  This was a very poor-man's approach, but effective.  A high-resolution digital still photo would be taken of each large miniature, and the live-action crowd composited into it.  Collectively, that background would move with the anchor points when linked, allowing a more dynamic range of camera moves for the fight.