Oh, What Could Have Been…
You would never know it from watching our Myst Audition Video, but there was something very special to us that we had to leave out…the island castle of K’veer. Planning and building took up many precious hours, but in the end we just had to leave it out.
Imagine a dramatic fly-by of the D’ni lake, out over the orange water, and past the massive monolith of K’veer. Sounds good, right? It did to us too. The lake was going to be created by pumping water directly into the cave. We even bought a florescent dye that made the water glow orange when lit with a UV light source.
To create a miniature like K’veer, you need modeling foam: the kind Weta used in LOTR’s to create the Minas Tirith, Minas Morgul and Orthanc. The problem, however, is cost: $2,000 per 8’x4’x3’ block, and each block weighs 400-600 lbs! It took 6 guys to move just one block…and we’re all really really ripped. ;)
After a little research we found a company named General Plastics (near Seattle) that manafactured this stuff. Thinking myself industrious, I called them and explained that I was a young filmmaker in need of some help with a project. After a week or so a guy called back and said he had two blocks of foam that I could pick up (evidently they set some aside every year and donate them to schools etc.). I hitched on my trailer, jumped in my truck, and headed north (10 hrs round trip). When I got there I was shocked to see that the two blocks were full size 500 lb. monsters! They had just gifted me $4000 worth of foam (I still don’t know why but they ROCK!).
We found the drawing of K’veer in the Book of Atrus, and Nate took that concept and created a scaled blueprint, which was used to start carving the island out of foam. Our thought was to use your average wood axe, take a good squint, and chip away at the foam block. Surprisingly, this worked fairly well. Once we had created a rough shape, a sander created the details. After hours of scribbled math equations and clogged nostrils, we had our base model. Andy Carillo (a man of many talents) came over and started the delicate work of carving out the doors and windows. Then things started going wrong…
(1) The dye we used to create the glowing water turned out to work only in small doses. We tried making several hundred gallons glow, without success; it wasn’t bright enough. Then (imagine our surprise) the Forest Service decided they weren’t happy with us pumping a thousand gallons of dyed water into the cave.
(2) The water truck we were going to use to pump the water in cost $400 to rent for the day, and because it was winter here in Oregon it had to be a heated water truck (to keep the water from freezing).
(3) Our airbrush guy, who was going to take K’veer from a foam island/castle into a perfect rock fortress (with all the detail fit for a D’ni Lord), kept pushing his date further and further back.
It came to a head when we had the rest of the Audition video complete; all that stood in our way was the K’veer sequence. After assessing the monetary cost and delays to production we realized (much to our pain and anguish) that we were going to have to let our dreams of a D’ni lake and K’veer castle fly-by be laid to rest. However, we wanted to share the pictures and story with you because it deserves to be seen and heard. (Maybe it’s just our way of saying good-bye to the project.)
