Greece: Secrets of the Past
Production Notes
On Location: Amid Fierce Volcanoes, Priceless Ruins and Unforgettable Sunsets
Through the eyes of the film’s detective scientists Greece: Secrets of the Past explores two equally fascinating periods in Greek history: first, the Bronze Age when early Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations made rapid progress in trade, politics, culture and art, and began a seafaring lifestyle that demanded the tolerance of new ideas and a bold individualism that would pave the way for democracy; and then, the Classical Period from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC – the so-called “Golden Age” – when a tremendous flowering of the Greek culture began in Athens and when many of the great works of literature, sculpture, philosophy and drama that we associate with the Greeks today emerged.
To capture these ancient stories, the film’s crew traveled across the Greek Isles, from cosmopolitan Athens to the Bronze Age ruins of Mycenae to the famed oracle at Delphi; then on to the island of Santorini where the fallen remains of Akrotiri are yielding answers to centuries-old mysteries; to Melos, where statues such as the towering image of the oceanic god Poseidon have been retrieved; to sacred Delos, one of Greece’s most magical locales, lined with ruins including the Lion Terrace and 2nd Century BC Amphitheatre; and then to nearby Mykonos, where Greek myth has it that Hercules slayed the Giants.
“We experienced some truly remarkable locations,” says director of photography Brad Ohlund. “From the volcanic caldera in Santorini to the archeological finds of Akrotiri to the time-lapse photography we did at ancient Athenian ruins, we were amazed by how incredibly and powerfully visual this ancient story of Greece could be thousands of years later.”
The hands-down favorite shooting location for the crew quickly became Santorini, the idyllic volcanic island once part of a larger island named Thera that was shattered into chaotic pieces after an unimaginably massive 1646 BC explosion. Today, Santorini is a major tourist destination, famed for its iridescent sunsets, its miles of pristine black-sand beaches, its shimmering bleached white houses built into craggy cliffs and its sunken volcanic calderas that provide a beautiful and haunting reminder of its past.
To gain unprecedented views of the island, the relied upon a revolutionary, helicopter-mounted camera system known as SpaceCam – which uses laser focusing and a special gyro-stabilization system as a way to obtain thrilling aerial cinematography with a wider range of angles and at far greater, adrenaline-pumping speeds than ever possible before. In Greece: Secrets of the Past, use of the SpaceCam paid off with unforgettable, you-are-there photography of Santorini’s rugged outcroppings of rock and pumice anchored in a stunning aqua sea.
At the ancient, buried city of Akrotiri, the camera crews were allowed inside the massive archaeological dig that is uncovering the ruins to give audiences a sense of what it is like to move among the haunting ruins of a people who lived thousands of years ago. “It was really my favorite place we visited in our journey through Greece,” Ohlund says. “To be surrounded by this ancient world that has been perfectly preserved like it was packed away for future safe-keeping is just an incredibly moving experience, and one that I think lots of people who might never get to go to Greece will be able to share in this film.”
Bringing Ancient Greece to Life with State-of-the-Art Computer Animation
To truly transport today’s audiences back in time to the life of ancient Greece the filmmakers of Greece: Secrets of the Past recreated an intimate, “virtual” experience of two key hallmarks of Greek history now lost to time: the brilliant sculptural beauty and democratic symbolism of the Parthenon before it was reduced to ruins; and the devastating volcanic explosion that blew an island to smithereens and buried a thriving culture under ash and rock on Santorini.
The Parthenon
One of the most famous and historically important buildings in all the world, the Parthenon remains today a powerful symbol of all that the Greeks held dear: the ideals of artistry, organic beauty and democratic participation. But sadly, over the centuries, the once lavishly decorated and brightly painted Parthenon has been ravaged by wars, invaders and time itself and reduced to partial, faded ruins. The towering 42-foot tall statue of the Goddess of Wisdom, Athena – once the focal point of the Parthenon’s interior – was long ago looted by soldiers of the Roman Empire and likely destroyed during the Crusades. Other sculptures that once adorned the Parthenon’s original structure have been damaged, destroyed or are scattered across the globe at different museums. So how could the Parthenon’s magnificence be restored on film?
First, the producers consulted Paul Debevec, a world-renowned computer engineer and 3D modeling pioneer at the University of Southern California. He had been engaged in a groundbreaking project using cutting-edge computer-based techniques to reunite the Parthenon with its long-lost sculptures and its brightly painted frieze. Based on studies from the extensive collection of plaster casts of Parthenon sculptures at the renowned Swiss museum, the Basel Skulpterhall, Debevec’s team USC had been able to create an entire gallery’s worth of highly detailed “virtual sculptures.” These sculptures were then melded with three-dimensional maps of the Parthenon’s reconstructed architecture to create a kind of “virtual tour” of the Parthenon as it would have appeared to an Athenian citizen in 430 BC.
Next, the producers took Debevec’s work to the San Francisco-based visual effects company, Matte World which transformed it into the high-resolution, 3D imagery needed for a large-format film. To make sure the images were as accurate as possible, Matte World flew its crew to Greece to view the Parthenon’s ruins and converse with archeologists about the latest ideas on the building’s design and appearance. They also studied the art history of the period, learning more about the Greek’s colorful aesthetic sensibilities.
The research paid big dividends. Greece: Secrets of the Past presents a realistic and refined re-creation of the Parthenon’s sculptural decorations, including its pediment sculptures, set on the triangular gable just below the roof of the Parthenon, which featured larger-than-life figures from Greek myths; its metopes, the carved panels just under the pediment which feature detailed sculptural reliefs of mythological scenes; and its frieze which runs around the upper edge of the temple wall revealing a dynamic tapestry of horsemen, musicians, animals and various rituals of the age, which in many cases tell a story. Of tremendous artistic importance, the Parthenon was adorned with the first frieze in Greek history to depict ordinary everyday citizens, rather than simply gods and goddesses, reflecting the growing and passionate belief in democratic principles.
Then there was Athena herself, the statue long gone from the world, but essential to the recreation of the Parthenon, which was dedicated to the inspirational Goddess of Wisdom. Though the original statue is gone, art historians have a good sense of what it looked like based on other statues and replicas of Athena that still exist. Sculpted by master Athenian sculptor and one of the Parthenon’s key designers, Phidias (490-430 BC), the colossal statue is known to have been carved in the idealistic classical Greek style known as “chryselephantine,” in which sheets of gold drapery and ivory flesh were laid over a hollow wooden armature. It is believed to have been the largest statue ever created with this technique. The monumental and life-like sculpture depicted the goddess in a lavishly decorated helmet-like crown and flowing tunic. In her left hand she supported a shield and a spear while her outstretched right hand held Nike (goddess of victory), as if Athena was extending it to the citizens of Athens. On her breastplate she bore a Medusa’s head to ward off evil.
Re-creating the Santorini Volcanic Explosion
Meanwhile, Santa Monica-based motion graphics company Sassoon Film Design was focusing on another dramatic digital re-creation for Greece: Secrets of the Past– giving audiences an up-close look at a still very real and still very dangerous volcanic phenomenon that shattered the island of Santorini and beyond in 1646 BC: pyroclastic flows. One of the most destructive of all volcanic processes, pyroclastic flows are terrifying avalanches of gas, rock and lava that can attain temperatures above 1,000 degrees and move at over 100 miles per hour, following the topography of the land. The flows essentially knock down, carry away, shatter or burn down any object they encounter, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.
This is exactly what happened in the Greek Isles at the height of the Bronze Age, toppling a sophisticated Minoan civilization that scholars are still trying to better understand today. While archeologists investigate the mystery of what happened to the people of Santorini – who appear to have disappeared before the volcano destroyed their island – geologists continue to try to understand the volcanic phenomena and the lessons it might hold for avoiding large losses of life in future catastrophes.
The eruption at Santorini is considered to be one of the largest in history, and certainly the most massive volcanic explosion in the last 10,000 years. The event likely began with destructive earthquakes that gave the populace warning of what was to come, causing them to evacuate with many of their most valuable possessions while leaving behind the incidentals of life and objects too large to transport. Then came a pair of smaller eruptions, which showered the island with a thin layer of pumice and ash. Finally came the massive explosion itself, which no living creature could have survived.
The boom was heard as far away as Sweden. Tsunamis rocked the ocean afterwards and the surrounding areas were dark for months. With some 7 cubic miles of magma expelled, the volcano collapsed, leaving behind a massive crater, an unimaginably huge plume of ash and the resultant pyroclastic flows. A rush of hot, sticky mud and cataclysmic “rock bombs” were ejected out of the crater. Within about a week’s time, some 70 meters of volcanic deposits had buried Akrotiri, perfectly preserving the town’s frescoes, pots, pans and structures exactly as they were left behind.
These cataclysmic events seem to defy imagination. So Sassoon Film Design’s team looked for a way to give Greece: Secrets of the Past audiences the feeling of being caught in the middle of a pyroclastic flow such as the one that followed the killer eruption at Santorini – but without any of the devastating danger. This involved scouring film libraries to find rare footage of modern pyroclastic flows and enhancing these images digitally to suit the 3D environment of the film while keeping the images as scientifically accurate as possible.
To do all this, the artists at Sassoon Film Design had to take a mini-course in volcanology. They studied new, state-of-the-art 3-D models and simulations of pyroclastic flows – which are so intricate they are usually rendered by supercomputers – so they could get a sense of the geophysics involved. Then the team scoured geological film archives across the globe for the most compelling footage they could find of recent volcanic explosions. They came up with some eye-popping video, including recent shots of the spectacular eruption of Montserrat in the Caribbean in 2003, which also resulted in deadly pyroclastic flows. Finally, Sassoon Film Design melded these time-shifted images of the flows seamlessly into the film’s high-resolution, large format photography, and their mission was accomplished.
“Using a mixed CGI-and-stock-footage solution, we were able to create a brand new scene that illustrates the destruction of Santorini and fits right into the style of the film,” explains Jonathan Banta, the Lead Animator at Sassoon. “It’s a way of traveling in time to an incredible event no one living today could possible have ever seen, yet is a key part of the history of ancient Greece.”
