PRODUCTION DESIGNER JAMES NORTH DISCUSSES CREATING AN ARTHURIAN WORLD FOR ITVX’S ADAPTATION OF THE BERNARD CORNWELL NOVEL
rom first reading and initial chats with [lead director] Otto [Bathurst], we soon built a vision for the series. We’re not blessed with huge amounts of reference regarding post-Roman, Dark Age Britain, but we had Bernard Cornwell’s incredible novels – that’s enough inspiration for anyone to work with. It was clear that the books would need serious adaptions to align with our time and financial restraints, so we set out world-building from the ground up. The world we created was grounded, visceral and raw. The series is a mix of the epic and the intimate, and I tried to mirror this within the environments. It was tough – like, really tough – reimagining a world so far from our own, and that so little is really known about.
ENTER ING CAER CADARN
We attempted to blur the lines between location, set build and VFX. To do this we built an exterior courtyard on the backlot outside Patchway Studios in Bristol. We matched this closely to a quarry location in Merthyr Tydfil, where our gatehouse was built. Often, we film outside on location, then cut as we pass through the door into a studio set. But with Caer Cadarn we could lead straight through the roller shutter door of the studio into the underbelly of the Dumnonian seat of power. It blurs the line of where that cut is; we can move from outside through into internal tunnels.
POPPA DOM PIECES
Much of the construction was made with moulded foam panels that we lovingly call “poppadoms”. These are pulls from eight foot by four foot moulds that we made at the exterior quarry by painting massive amounts of silicone onto a big slab of rock. These were pieced together, then hand-carved to form a seamless rock face. We used various grades of expanding foam to achieve this, ranging from standard DIY-style cans to huge machines that spray an epoxy mix from industrial barrels. This method enabled us to limit our texture library, and ensure consistency throughout the build, despite different rooms being constructed by different teams of sculptors. If you were making films 15 years ago it was all done in plaster, but plaster’s horrible to work with: it’s heavy, and it’s always in the air. Whereas this insulation foam is a lot safer, because once it’s sprayed it becomes non-toxic.
