Oliver Zeller

CG Work: Prince of Persia Film

2010 | In 2008, I worked four months in the Moroccan art department of the Bruckheimer/Disney film, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. As Sr. Digital Set Designer, I primarily worked on the city of Alamut, later realized by visual effects firm MPC.

The film, stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Sir Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina and is based on Jordan Mechner's classic videogame.

The entrance to the Palace recalls Mughal architecture and the golden temple in Amritsar. Light sepia toned portions indicate built elements; the entrance and surrounding structures in Morocco and the balcony at Britain's Pinewood Studios. The white portion are digital set extensions.Based on concept artist Julian Caldow's intial work, I proceeded to redesign the front facade and other elements, accounting for revisions & integration of the built aspects whilst imbuing further elegance into the design. This design model was then delivered to vfx firm MPC.
   
Designed the building's side and rear facades along with the basic plan for a sprawling multi-terraced garden fit for a palace of this magnitude.Unfortunately, the landscape architecture and thoroughfare were dropped during VFX for a simpler, compact approach.
   
Built a library of basic urban elements, used by digital set designer Bogdan Strugar for creating building modules and serving as a starting point for visual effects firm MPC to populate the city plan as developed by VFX Art Director, Tino Schaedler.This page captures some of the elaborate balconies and pagodas. In addition I produced vfx studies of city blocks for both Alamut and Nasaf, particularly concentrating on elevation transitions. Also conceived a series of guidelines to aid VFX in realizing Alamut.
     
  
Produced an accurate CG model and previsualizaiton walkthroughs of Alamut that were built around an old portion of Tamsloht in Morocco. Almost entirely based on drawn plans by various art directors, primarily the renowned Leslie Tomkins.The only feature above not practically built is the temple dome and its immediate base. Which I reworked based on Julian Caldow's initial concept illustration and model, enhancing structural integration with Production Designer Wolf Kroeger's desire to make it "bigger, bigger".In the film, these linked parts represent different areas of Alamut including the palace, city walls and various streets.
   
A close-up example of the Tamsloht CG model, capturing a market and part of the temple. Below is a photograph taken on set during early construction of the same area.