LOST IN SPACE Time’s up for

Space Family
Robinson!

347

THE
BOOK OF

The StyarhuWntarers
bounthis own
gets ries
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EXCLUSIVE! SWORD AND SORCERY IN SEASON TWO!

A GHOST STORY
FOR CHRISTMAS
Mark Gatiss is visited by
three festive spirits
THE EXPANSE
Is this the end for the crew
of the Rocinante?
THE ART OF DUNE
AND FOUNDATION
Behind the scenes on the most
ambitious sci-fi epics of 2021

PLUS!ELVIRA | KANG | LAMB | BATMAN | RESIDENT EVIL | ENCOUNTER | MUPPETS!

 DESIGNING FOUNDATION

T HE BIGGEST CHALLENGE
on Foundation was the
number of sets that had to
be designed in a very short time.
I think I had about 170 sets to
design in roughly three months.
Because this show is not like any other
TV show I’ve ever done. Basically the entire
show had to be designed before we went to
camera. Everything has to be figured out
beforehand, from how the directors are going
to block their actors through the sets to how
they’re going to be lit; every little detail would
have to be figured out. It was a new adventure
for me, for sure. It was daunting. It was a
bit frightening.
When I first pitched for the show, I only had
a week. I dove online and started searching art
history and architecture. The other thing I
thought about was, what would people look like

Designing
10,000 or 15,000 years from now? I think that
was maybe something that set me apart from
the other pitches, because I was looking at
people’s faces: are we still different colours?
Or are we a sort of blended civilisation?

Foundation
PRODUCTION DESIGNER RORY CHEYNE REVEALS HOW HE BUILT
THE VARIOUS WORLDS AND SPACESHIPS OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE
FOR THE FIRST SEASON OF FOUNDATION WORDS: DAVE GOLDER
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2
1 ALL SPACESHIPS
BIG AND SMALL
I drew every ship. I would start
sketching the designs, and then
I would work with my designers
on site in Ireland and also some
illustrators all over the world. We’d
go back and forth, and then finally,
we’d get to a point where we would
release it to the entire crew to say,
“This is what the ship’s gonna look
like.” The way I was working this
year, we would create finished 3D
digital models that would go
straight to VFX, who could tweak
them a little bit, but they had
something right away that they
could run with. Odyssey [Studios]
worked with us as well, because
some of the ships were a
combination of a large practical
model and a model in virtual space.
So the 3D models I was producing
could either be 3D-printed or go to
a VFX house to use digitally.
DESIGNING FOUNDATION
2 CREATING MODEL
SPACESHIPS…
FOR REAL!
You might be surprised to learn
that not all the spaceship shots
were digital. As Ciarán Cooke,
studio manager at Odyssey Studios
explains, the team there built
practical models of various ships
under the supervision of
Interstellar’s Ian Hunter: “Although
a relatively new name, Odyssey
Studios is one of the largest
permanent model-making and SFX
houses in Europe. Initially enlisted
to consult on some of the practical
effects proposed for Foundation,
our position developed into that of
the VFX miniature models: building
models of the FTL ships, the
Rubicon, the Aegis and the
Beggar’s Lament spaceships.
“We also produced props such
as Hari Seldon’s bracelet, the face
shields worn by the Anacreon
troops, multiple carved wall reliefs
and the large statue of Hari Seldon.
“The model ships were built to
add a layer of authenticity to the
VFX centrepieces. For all the
technology we have, nothing quite
compares to in-camera footage.
. S O I D U T S Y E SSYD O , E L P PA F O Y S E T R U O C S E G A M I
The ability to shoot a model,
manipulate it in space and capture
the natural way the light moves and
reflects over the surface is still the
best way to trick a human eye into
believing that it is seeing
something real.
“The ships were 3D-modelled
from the original concept art and
once approved, 3D-printed using
SLA printers. Each ship has its own
lighting system of fully DMX-
controlled RGBW LEDs.”
HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2021 | SFX MAGAZINE | 57
 DESIGNING FOUNDATION

3 TRANTOR: had another 75% to build, which

A CAPITAL
WITH HISTORY
Early on, they wanted me to
was all built in our shops in Ireland
and shipped to Fuerteventura.
There were CG extensions to it
4
set-build the streets. I’ve seen other but in terms of height, mainly – such
productions build streets on a stage as the tower. I think we built about
and it never reads right. You can 22 feet up, so that we could shoot
never build large enough to give it in-camera as much as possible.
scope. So I started looking at cities I think the city was like 70,000
we could use in the real world, that square feet. But the location that
had a real mix of architecture, we chose in Fuerteventura was
because Trantor was supposed to used for many different things; we
be ancient with architectural style had Salvor’s post up on a hill about
built over architectural style. We a kilometre away, we had the
landed on Berlin. I think it worked carcass of the old ship, on a quarry,
really well – it had a sort of a just up the hill. So we had quite a
juxtaposition of different buildings big backlog: from end to end it was
through different centuries, probably two kilometres by two
classical architecture next to what kilometres.
was built from the ’30s to the ’60s.
Then I just kept on using that idea
throughout the rest of our sets, and 5 THE MURAL
brought that sort of architecture The Cleons’ mural – a timeline of
into the smaller studio sets. For the history of Trantor, of the Empire
example, for the space elevator I – was based on the Futurist
looked at Eastern Europeean movement in Italy in the early 20th
architecture from the ’50 and ’60s, century. [Showrunner] David Goyer
especially Brutalism. gave me a list of what had to be on
the mural, and this good friend of
mine back home, Henry Fong,
4 RELOCATING illustrated the whole thing. Then we
TERMINUS had to figure out how to print it so
We started off shooting Terminus it could be wallpapered onto the set
City in Iceland. We built everything wall, and we had to give it a texture
in Ireland, then we shipped it in that VFX could grab onto and make
containers to Iceland. It was like a move. There’s so much in it I don’t
Lego set. And that’s where we shot think we really saw all of it. Because
the scenes for episode one. Iceland it’s 22 feet tall, and, blimey,
was beautiful, you know; it shot probably at least 100 feet long
lovely, but we were dealing with an or more. And every piece of it is
extreme environment. We realised
we couldn’t shoot the amount of
days that we needed to there. So
unique – we didn’t cut and paste
any sections. 5
we started to think, “Where else in
the world looks like Iceland but 6 HARI’S STATUE
maybe is kinder to film in?” We I was trying to figure out how
came up with the Canaries; being would you build a new structure on
volcanic, they had a lot of the same this planet where you didn’t really
colours and the same sort of have much. The first idea – that
topography in the landscape. And David had in the scripts – was that
Fuerteventura is still a windy island, the Deliverance ship would be
but not as windy as Iceland and cannibalised and become the city.
definitely warmer. So we shipped Then I wanted to take it a little bit
what we had in Iceland to further, because after they’ve been
Fuerteventura, but that was just a there for a few years, what other
small section of Terminus City – we techniques would they come up

58 | SFX MAGAZINE | HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2021

 DESIGNING FOUNDATION

with? I’m thinking they would sort

of gather the soil and use that as a
building material, having gone
through some sort of 3D printing
process. So that’s where I came up
with the look of Salvor’s outpost:
a stratified 3D-printed structure.
From there, I figured that they
would build the statue from the
same sort of technology.

7 THE SPACESUITS
Foundation costume designer
Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh enjoyed
the new challenge (for her – she’s
mainly worked on period dramas
like Little Women previously) of
creating the show’s spacesuits: “We
had a whole team over from the UK
especially just to build the
spacesuits. We had this amazing
group of mainly women who had
worked a lot on various Marvel
films. There’s just so much
development work in those, they
6
T T E S L H AD NA I T S / H G I A N H M O D L O A H M Í N R E M I E , S O I D U T S Y E S S Y D O , E L P P A F O Y S E T R U O C S E G A M I
take a long time to make. Because
you’ve got the mixture of the soft
elements of the suit itself, which
can be sewn on a sewing machine,
but there are also the hard elements
– the helmets, the backpack. You
also have to design the boots, the
gloves. There’s a lot of different
elements, and a lot of different
techniques and a lot of different
people who have to come on board
before you get anywhere near the
finished product. And you have to
consider, when people put them on:
can they breathe? Can they talk?
Can they see? Can the camera see
them inside? Are there reflections
on the lens? Can we take the lens
out? Do we need light in the
helmet? Does the light need to be
downlight or uplight? We just kept
doing fittings and fittings and
eventually got there.”
Foundation is streaming on Apple
TV+ now.

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