François Audouy
The interview with François Audouy (pronounced oo-DEE) was extensive and insightful… and full of nothing but spoilers. In showing off his incredible designs, he couldn’t help be reveal settings where key plot points would take place, key characters would meet certain fates, and key revelations near the end of the film. What’s more, the interview is predicated entirely on a visual tour of paintings and portraits, and that won’t read well here.
Needless to say, Audouy’s designs were impeccable. His remote offices were pasted with inspiring paintings and artworks from various fantasy artists, as well as portraits of unidentified ancient buildings photographed in Eastern Europe.
Audouy worked his designs in story order, and he took us through his designs one by one. He started with Vlad’s castle and the world of ancient Wallachia. It went through several iterations, but he ultimately wanted to create a world that could move from bright and optimistic into something dynamic and hefty. So he found a place that could be composed well from high angles, and then odd from low angles. He wanted to stay far away from Western clichéd architecture, skewing more Eastern and detailed. He designed the great hall, a central set in Vlad’s castle, using 3-D computer modeling, and built the rest of the interior of the castle from there.
Like all the others working on this film, Audouy is focused intently on the scenes of Vlad with his family. As such, he had to create a blissful place where the audience can see Vlad at peace before the action of the film. The first scene in the film takes place in an Edenic garden of sorts, and it glitters in the sunlight. It’s a sunny place where the future Dracula will recall with fondness.
Something that surpised me was the complete lack of classical Dracula imagery. We tend to think of Dracula either living in an Eastern European castle, or in Carfax Abbey. That is to say, a shadowy and palatial place that speaks less of royalty and more of dominant old world money. This Dracula is not about opulence, it’s not about shadows, it’s not about the usual spooky mythic visuals, or even the seductive allure of a rich older man. Since the film is a fantasy wartime epic, all horror elements have been drained from the look. We were assured that it would be plenty atmospheric, and the visuals I was shown seemed to indicate that, but cobwebs and haunted houses were very far from the filmmakers’ minds.
I can’t tell you much about how impressive one particular location is, as it constitutes a spoiler. I can reveal, however, that Dracula Untold features a setting deep within a cave, hidden in the crannies of the Carpathian Mountains. This cave is made to look like a combination of where a blind cave creature might live and a Roman palace from the height of the Roman empire, complete with columns and a blood-filled impluvium.
The general, overall look of Dracula Untold seems to be classicism mixed with high fantasy. All the visuals, according to Audouy, are directly inspired by real castles, but very pointedly eschewing them for something original and atmospherically magical. For a story that starts in the real world, and eventually grows into a sinister tale of the world’s most notorious monster, this is appropriate.
Witney Seibold is a commentator at Nerdist, a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
