00:03I'm Andrew Laws, I'm the Production Designer and Creature Concept Designer on The Witcher.
00:08And you are in the Art Department's War Room,
00:10where we introduce everybody to the worlds that we're beginning to develop and create,
00:14and begin to discuss how we might grow those things.
00:17We sort of started in this room with Kaer Moran,
00:21which is a big character for us this season,
00:23and we knew that that was going to be a recurring environment throughout the entirety of Season 2,
00:28and that that was going to be a very key part of our visual envelope.
00:32The seed of these environments all comes from Sapkowski's books,
00:35so the construct, the idea, the location, the feeling of what Kaer Moran is.
00:42By the same token, we've established in our version of The Witcher
00:46the idea of more globalizing the continent,
00:49and so in particular with Kaer Moran from India and Indian citadels
00:53to Northern European, Eastern European, Scandinavian,
00:57and Japanese architecture.
00:59So it's just a way of making the world feel richer and wider and more open.
01:04The die-hard fans are also potentially invested in the game.
01:08There's a world that they've been in for a long time.
01:11We don't necessarily want to repeat that world for them.
01:14We want it to be something new and fresh.
01:16So Aretuza in particular, we established a certain identity to it last year,
01:20but we only revealed certain parts of it.
01:22This year, we get to get into the details.
01:24For example, in these drawings, you'll start to see what the interior courtyards of the Aretuza are.
01:31The first episode of this season, in a way, is a standalone,
01:35and that was Nivellen's mansion.
01:37And that really set a tone for the show
01:39and allowed us to create something that was really magical
01:43for the audience coming into season two.
01:45It had to be something that drew us in right away.
01:50A big part of what we're doing this season is growing the world of our monsters,
01:55because we're beginning to understand, you know, where these monsters come from.
01:59We start with Nivellen, who is a very physical character,
02:05and with VFX augmentation to create this kind of boar-bear character head.
02:11Meet our leshy.
02:13So these are tree creatures.
02:15This year, the creatures, I feel, have a lot of depth to them.
02:17Very layered.
02:18We're developing their movement, you know, in much more detailed ways.
02:24So this is the entrance to Caer Morhen.
02:25So this is what we call the Caer Morhen Bailey.
02:27So what you can see right away is that it's quite battered.
02:32There was a fantastic battle that happened long before our story starts in season two
02:38that caused a great deal of destruction and quite a lot of death.
02:41So a lot of witchers died in that battle,
02:43and we see the evidence of it still remaining in the world that we come to
02:48with our characters in season two.
02:50The gates are no longer there.
02:52Parts of the towers are missing, but the walls still remain.
02:56The remnants of the southern ramparts of the Bailey having been destroyed in this great battle,
03:02there's still the remnant griffin skeleton lying in the snow, half-buried.
03:07You'll still see the bones of the fallen.
03:11So this was the interior courtyard of Nivellen's mansion.
03:14What was in here before was a statue garden covered in snow.
03:18You're basically, again, 360 degrees in here,
03:21and then we've worked with VFX to design the rest of the castle
03:24which extends above the walls that we have here.
03:26The stage here at Arbor Field is akin to what we call a super stage.
03:30It's an absolutely massive environment,
03:33and allowed us to be able to create really expansive in-camera environments
03:37on one big stage that allowed the actors to be able to move through things without cutting.
03:42Where we are right now, we'd be on the exterior of Cameroun,
03:45and the upper reaches of our world,
03:47and this takes us into the Cameroun Great Hall.
03:50When we see these witchers in this environment, we want it to feel strong, bold.
03:54We also wanted to make sure that we had a very physical environment to move around,
03:58and again, creating layers that keep it interesting for the audience.
04:02The Great Hall is on our right, continuing down into the next section,
04:07which is currently dressed as our armory.
04:10And then you continue, and that takes us into the basement lab.
04:14And this is where all the witchers do all the examinations of the monsters.
04:19It's not just a matter of having a few pretty things on a table.
04:21We want to make it look like there's a purpose to where these are autopsy tools.
04:25This is what happens in here. You know, how do they cut things? How brutal is it?
04:29This is our version of a medieval world. You will see layers of destruction.
04:33It's tired, it's falling apart, but it is the witcher's home.
Commenti