Revealed: Karl Urban's Pathfinder
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
On set of the Viking action epic with director Marcus Nipsel.
Director Marcus Nipesl, the fella who brought us 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is taking a big chance with Pathfinder. Making any film these days is a big risk, but when your flick is set 1,000 years before the purchase of New York and has almost no dialogue, then, yeah... it's not an average movie. And that's exactly what Nipsel says he wants to deliver. "What I'm interested in is taking a proven genre and deconstructing it," he tells IGN FilmForce on the Vancouver set. "I always wanted to make a gladiator movie, then Gladiator happened. Then I wanted to make a pirate movie, and Pirates of the Caribbean happened. That was that. But none of them really deconstructed the genre, and did something really grungy, dirty and subversive." So Nipsel considered the subjects that, for the most part, haven't been touched, and concluded: "Vikings was it."
"The story itself is set in a pocket of history where the Vikings came to North America and had a conflict with the American Indians," says visual effects supervisor Randy Goux, whose prior work includes Serenity and TV's Firefly. The film has three major effects-driven elements: the Viking ship, the battle aboard the ship, and an action sequence on a frozen lake. "Where I'm really helping Marcus is there's a pretty heavy action scene in the boat. That's where the thing is going to be bigger and broader and more epic."
This is day 49 of the 51-day shoot, and the cast and crew occupy platforms suspended over an expansive indoor wave pool. It's the ice pond scene, and four cameras will film it; two from the main platform; one on a giant crane; and one underwater. "It's a money shot," says the sound recordist. "We'll have a couple of chances to get it right. If we can get it on the first take, when everyone's dry, that's best." A dozen or so ironcald Vikings are positioned on white foam boards over the pool. Behind them, more Vikings on horseback. At the center of this, over the pool, is Karl Urban. Behind him, chained to her Viking captor on horseback, is Moon Bloodgood.
"What's happening in this scene is Karl Urban, along with Moon Bloodgood, the two of them are survivors who've been taken as prisoners from the Indian village, which has been raided and pillaged and destroyed by these Vikings," says Goux. "The Vikings now want the rest of them, who are in a neighboring village somewhere away, and they've asked Karl to lead them to the other village, otherwise they're going to kill the girl, and kill all of them." What the Vikings don't know is Urban's character has set traps along the way. Here, his intent is to lead them, with their hulking armor, to where he knows the ice is weak. "These plates of ice are on gimbals, and those guy over there with the air tanks… once they hit the trigger, the whole thing comes up and you'll everybody go to the bottom."
At intervals, the air tanks shoot the ice plates upward. The Vikings flail and collapse into the water. Some grab the edge of the shoals. Some go under completely. A horse and its rider try to retreat backward. Urban goes under. Moon Bloodgood is at the edge of a shoal - chained to her drowning captor.
"Karl! Keep on going!" says Nipsel. "Right and left! Swish around! Loose Moon! Karl! Fish around! And... cut!"
"Cut! Cut! Breathe, everyone breathe!" says the first assistant director.
"Make sure they're safe," says Nipsel. He turns to one of his camera operators, "What I like is the liveliness. You go over it. Swipe over it."
Urban wades through the artificial ice to a ladder, climbs up, and goes to the bank of monitors. "Playback for Karl's underwater camera please!" says Nipsel. The scene appears, showing Urban under the ice, breaking to the surface, and fending off a Viking attempting to clutch the same shoal. "You can kick him, but hopefully it will force his nose up, okay? And let it fly. Hit him, the one you're standing on. He's going to approach you and add weight and hopeful it will bring you up."
Nipsel turns to his crane camera operator, "Zoom over Karl and zoom in on Moon only," then shouts across the pool, "Moon, the camera comes at you! Stay where you are! Go back to your shoals. When it comes in, give me a push-me-pull-me with your chains." Then to Urban, "Tell me when you're good to go again."
"We can play that rougher. Let me give you one guy that pushed you down," say Nipsel
Urban climbs back into the pool, and we ask Nipsel about the genesis of Pathfinder. "It's something that happened on its own accord. Originally, it was a coming of age story based on a short film I made. Then I heard that Karl loved the script." What evolved is a story about "an unnamed Viking who was stranded here as a child, raised by the Indians, and becomes their hope for defeating a second invading Viking force." The script and ensuring storyboard process "took on a life of it's own," he says. "Unless it sucks, I don't stop it. I always like getting surprised by that. I draw every frame, and it looks like something very specific in mind, but I abandon it immediately if I think something else comes along that makes it different and keeps it interesting."
posted by Evil @ 6:35 AM,
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