The Tree Of Power.

The Evolution Of The Tree Of Power.

From the beginning I knew the “Tree” for “Within The Shadow Of The Tree” was going to be big, it's real size is five miles high and there is a city at the top with a lift going up and down all the day long, at the base of the tree there was to be a main entrance which would lead into the tree where internal lifts, stairways and turning cogs would all add more life to “The Tree of Power”.

Internal stairways and turning cogs.

Where do you start.... The beginning of the movie starts with the tree and from the offset you find out how big it is by the title sequence in relation to descending down to the ground.

So where do you start ??? looking simply at the EXT day shots..... LS of the tree and a CU of the top of the tree showing the city, two shots in the story boards and in the script, that sound easy when you say them or look at the story boards, in reality it was an ongoing nightmare that would not end until only a few months before the end of production.

The story boards showed me what would be needed, a couple of concepts to give me and everyone else involved a simple idea, sometimes the concept of the story board would change but it was always the skeletal basis of the shot. I had also done some rough designs but there was one little sketch I had produced on the AMIGA that had stuck with me, it resembled a tree but it also looked like The Wise One with his hat on, and that's what I knew I needed, some kind of familiarity with the character that was supposedly living on through this giant tree.

The sketch set out the tree shape and other designs for the huts that would be at the top of the tree. The huts were a separate entity and would have to be constructed in about 6 different scales, depending what model we were on at the time, the hut for the main tree model would be two centimetres to 4 centimetres, and foreground huts would be five inches, but we needed to build the tree first before building over one hundred tiny huts, all individually made out of Feemo, (a nightmare) because at that point in production I had no budget but knew I needed to put the main concept of the movie over to Northern Arts or any other funding body and the tree model and shot would demonstrate that I meant business.

Wood, chicken wire, electric cable, cling film and lots and lots of plaster were going to be needed, this was to be my Close Encounter Of The Third Kind moment when I started to build the tree.

Because when I was building the tree, I was like the Richard Drafuss character trying to build Devils Mountain, I knew what I was building but the whole concept was from a dream and I was creating something from that dream into a reality.

Power for the tree...... before I could start and construct the tree I needed to consider some important factors, the tree needed to have lots of small lights for the night time shots and there was to be motors placed inside the top section to raise up the lifts, sounds easy but once the tree was wired up and covered by the plaster I would not be able to get to the innards to repair things that could go wrong , so everything had to be right.

I used small LED’s (Light Emitting Diodes) rather than bulbs for the city lights. On the large tree City model section, I would use small bulbs but with the scale being different I was going to use LED’s as they are small and versatile, I needed lot’s and lot’s of them. Using a train set resistor you could vary the brightness, you must watch out though, as giving them to much power they can blow, if this happened I could get to them as they were on the top of the tree and not inside the frame work under the plaster, I varied the colours of the LED’s slightly from orange, red to white, I used no other colours as I didn’t want it looking like a christmas tree, they didn’t as they were so subtle, later in post production I would be adding particle fire which added life, must admit if I had known about particle emulation, I would have put the light in later and not bothered with the lights... but that's technology and how quickly it changes

The main factor in the movie was that I ended up using all the night model footage I shot but replaced the day time footage with computer animation.

The reason I replaced the day time model footage was for two reasons, yes the model looked nice but the camera was fixed in two positions for the opening flash back day time shot, and that was no good for what I wanted and needed.
At the time before I started to learn about computer animation I was willing to compromise but once I started to learn, even a few things, I knew what I really wanted to do for the day time shots of the tree and they were looking more like a possibility, don't get me wrong, I’m like David Lynch when it comes to fixing down cameras. I like to compose the image like a painting and only move the camera when necessary, and this was one of those necessaries when a fixed camera was not the best choice, as the scene was not just going to show us “The Tree” in the day time, for the first time, it was also the flash back introduction of Lord Akrafa.

The spear of fire enters shot and it shoots up to the top of the tree.

I did not just want to watch it fly up to the top of the tree from the bottom looking up, I wanted the camera to follow it and watch it twist and turn as it made it’s way up this gigantic tree.

I had done this and watched the spear fly up from a fixed position and I had used the two cut method of seeing the spear of fire enter, then travel up and then cut to a CU of tree when the Spear enters shot and it would have worked (but) it would have not been as dramatic.

The second reason for CG was the tree was supposed to be so big that the restraints of model's size did allow us to frame the model in shot but I wanted to be a great distance away from the tree and still not get it all in shot due to it’s enormous size and that is what I was able to do by making it in the computer....


The reason I kept the Night time shots...

There were different elements involved, the tree is surrounded by a powerful magical storm, rain, mist rain and wind are blowing the Small One puppet in front of the Tree model, even with particle emulation, (I should rephrase that), with my knowledge of particle emulation, having something real surrounding the Small one and getting him wet and blowing his hood, the reality worked for me, yes I did add elements after, fire and mist and lots of other things but the building blocks where there for me if there were some real elements playing out in the scene.

The night scene was a pain to light, as it was split into two half's.
Light sources could not spill over into the other, so all the light set up’s had to be split, one for the background model shot and one for the Small One puppet and foreground scenery.
The night sky was another problem to get over as a sky day back drop was replaced with a stormy cloudy night one, that had to be lit from behind to illuminate it, over 30 light’s were used, most of the important lights highlighting a certain element in the shot, were made for that shot, what I mean is, I took a (bear spot housing) and made individual snoots (cones) that would direct the light where needed, mostly all the lights were heavily gelled , with blue gel's.

Also, if all that was not enough to contend with, some of the special effects were to be done in camera using projection methods, at the time remember, I had no budget and when these shot’s were completed they were to be used to get some funding (a catch 22 scenario). I knew I needed to make the shots look good but still show everyone what was happening, even if it was not exactly what I wanted at the time. I read in Cinefex what James Cameron's SFX team had done in Aliens, how a lot of the special Effects had been done as in camera effects, they had used a 45 degree piece of glass and projected the effects over the live action as they filmed it, I did some tests and it worked, it was not exactly what I wanted but it would give me a start and put over what the shot wanted to say and later on in post, if the technology was there I could add all the elements I wanted and that's what I did do. At the time the effects were good enough to sell my idea, but later and because of special effect advances and computer prices changing and becoming cheaper, I had to add more to the shots.

Back Lit Sky To Add Mood To Shot..

I will be adding more photographs over the next few days, throughout the whole piece.