IndigoErth
04-12-2016, 04:00 PM
Hasn't been mentioned (I think?) so figured I'd post it up. Fun read (mental face palming was very minimal for me) and nice details given about the new lair. Makes me a little envious of this person and hope we really actually get to a good look at this one this time.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-out-of-the-shadows/39359/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-out-of-the-shadows-set-report
We went down to see how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows was being made. This is what happened...
The night before I visited the set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows I found myself sat in a hotel room in New York City. This was it.
I’ve written for Den of Geek since 2007. I was a new writer and had my first article published just a couple of months after the site was launched. A couple of years in, after writing a particularly mean spirited article about an unnamed robotic blockbuster, I wasn’t sure I was on the right track. I was having to try so hard and was being overly cynical. I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to contribute. Since then, I’ve felt like me when I’m writing.
My new approach didn’t mean I’d only write nice things about films. It meant that I’d try things, that I’d try to find something to like, and if I couldn’t, I’d try to make reading about it fun. It meant that I’d be excited. Another thing I’d decided to do was to take more time to celebrate the things that I love. When I thought about what that would mean, I decided it meant that I was going to have to immerse myself in my geek passion; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Embracing the positivity is a brilliant, energising thing to do, and for me, it’s lead to some of the best experiences of my life. Sat in this hotel room, I reflected on that decision, and on all of the things I’d been able to do because of it. In the morning I was going to the set of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. What a ridiculous, improbable and magnificent situation I found myself in. It was surreal and wonderful and I made a mental note to appreciate every single second of it. It was like receiving an amazing overly-generous birthday gift, not least because it was, by odd coincidence, actually my birthday.
Of course, there was only so much time for sitting in a quiet room patting myself on the back like some kind of awestruck egomaniac. I’d only received the schedule for the visit when I’d checked into the hotel. With a list of probable interview subjects, I had prep to do. It was an early start, too, and I was already feeling the effects of a long day of travel.
The following morning I staggered out into the streets of New York in search of coffee. Successful, I made it back to the hotel where they herded all of us writers onto a bus. The drive to the set took the best part of an hour. I tried to take in the view of the city while I jigged restlessly in my seat.
They were shooting in an armoury in Brooklyn; imagine two warehouses joined together. The first, where we entered, was a functioning workshop. People with proper jobs, all working on the film, sawed, sanded and welded, as us flappy writers waddled past on our way to the set section of the building.
(This image is from the Innovation Workshop Instagram feed)
We were led over towards the Turtles' truck, but it was impossible not to be distracted by the three-floors-high wooden walls of some kind of structure in the middle of the hall. I caught a peek through a walkway and gasped – it was the lair!
In the previous film, 2014s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder and the Foot Clan demolished the Turtles’ lair, requiring a new home to be built for this follow on. It’s a stunningly elaborate set and would prove to be the focus of our visit. We’ll come to it in a bit, though, as this early in the day I was only able to glimpse little sections of it. Some scrolls, cushions and bonsai trees in what turned out to be Splinter’s alcove, all seen on tiptoes over lights and flight cases.
But first, vehicles. In the first movie, we got a brief look inside the Turtles' van. In this one, we’ll get to spend some time in the Turtles' truck.
There are actually two trucks; one used for external shots and one for filming inside. We were gathered around the latter. It had no windscreen and the surface of the wing mirrors was covered in a blue material.
It was here that I spotted a detail, the kind of detail I kept finding all day. There was a piece of wood leaning against the outside of the van, likely a prop yet to be applied somewhere, with ‘Foot Stinks!’ painted on it. The Turtles' Party Wagon toy van from the 1980s, based on the van from the 1987 cartoon, had a ‘Foot Stinks’ sticker on it. What a lovely a touch, one that will be missed or foreign to much of the audience, but will elicit a warm response from some fans, like it did me that day on set.
“They’re very stealth-like, but while they’re ninja-ing around the rooftops they also had to have a vehicle that would disguise them on the ground, so we had to go through vehicles they could possibly use, and the one that stuck out the most was a trash truck,” Martin Laing, the production designer, told us about the vehicle. “The interior was really fun. It’s almost like Doctor Who’s TARDIS. You look at the outside of it and it’s something nondescript you see throughout London, and then you go to the inside and it’s got that ‘wow’ factor. That’s what we tried to achieve inside the Turtle van.”
Inside the van is a cramped, colourful, overloaded space, all neon excitement and youthful hyperactivity. There’s a rack on the wall for Leonardo’s swords, Michelangelo has a special seat where can control van-arms with nunchuks, and there’s a surf board on the ceiling with a speed bag hanging from it. There’s a drink vending machine (the Turtles are into Crush soft drinks in this movie universe, which is, er, totally a character point and not product placement) and an arcade game. Brilliantly, the top scores page on the arcade machine is full, with Michelangelo in 15th place and Donatello in 1st to 14th. I could see that being the case.
There’s a big screen TV on one wall and a sofa opposite where they can play a variety of games consoles. There are manuals for Sega CD games, a Guitar Hero instrument controller and even a light gun for the NES. Can the Turtles get their fingers into the loopy bit to use the trigger? Are they any good at Duck Hunt? What on Earth was I doing here with all these professional journalists? Anyway, for bragging rights I sat on the sofa in the Turtle truck. No big deal, but when you watch the film, if you see the sofa in the Turtle truck, I totally sat on it for a second.
Unrelated to my rebellious act of sitting down, we were ushered out of the van and brought onto the sewer lair set, the greatest place I have ever been.
The sewer lair is an imposing structure, two-and-a-half-months in the making and equal parts a convincing subterranean environment and cartoonish fever dream. The cold looking grey walls and grimy pipes are the subdued backdrop against which the multi-coloured lives of the Turtles are laid out. The Turtles’ sleeping area, unsurprisingly, features a good deal of colour coding. The water that flows through the lairs grey concrete moat is an eye-catchingly bright blue.
That water leads us around the lair. It flows in from one end, landing at Splinter’s alcove and past Donatello’s work station, under the stairs that lead to the kitchen and sleeping area, and away past the record collection (Den of Geek can confirm that the Turtles have a Hall and Oates album). The water’s warm (I dipped my fingers in as I had basically lost all control). It plummets into the lair via what is affectionately referred to as a waterslide, a giant round opening in the wall that looks like, well, a waterslide. It’s not turned on during dialogue shots as it rumbles at an incredible volume when water crashes out of it. It’s powerful enough to take a person off their feet, we’re told and not shown. Everyone wants to go down the water slide.
“We’ve got plans when this is all said and done to get in there” Pete Ploszek, who plays Leonardo, would tell us later in the day. I do hope they were able to.
As is the way of some set visits, much of the day is spent waiting for interviews. Here, thanks to shooting going on elsewhere (we actually didn’t get to see any filming), we spent our waiting time in the Turtles' lair, and were invited to investigate. The set was big and so thoughtfully populated with decoration that it took a good portion of the day to dig through it all anyway. In the interviews, everyone spoke of the sewer lair set with an awed enthusiasm.
“It’s a perfect analogy for this film.” Alan Ritchson, who plays Raphael, explained in an interview session that included all four Turtles actors, leaving me as star struck as I have ever been (I burned red when I exchanged hellos with Ritchson in the lair as he strolled around in his motion capture suit, complete with turtle shell). “The lair in the first film, it was great. It could fit in one half of the lair that we have now. The scope has grown so much, you can see it in the lair, the size and detail; it’s all just so much bigger. The entire film is doing that.”
“I mean, if I was April I would live in the Turtle lair” said Megan Fox, returning to play April O’Neil. “I don’t know why she would want to live anywhere else.” Megan Fox or not, I quite fancied staying there, too.
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-out-of-the-shadows/39359/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-out-of-the-shadows-set-report
We went down to see how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows was being made. This is what happened...
The night before I visited the set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows I found myself sat in a hotel room in New York City. This was it.
I’ve written for Den of Geek since 2007. I was a new writer and had my first article published just a couple of months after the site was launched. A couple of years in, after writing a particularly mean spirited article about an unnamed robotic blockbuster, I wasn’t sure I was on the right track. I was having to try so hard and was being overly cynical. I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to contribute. Since then, I’ve felt like me when I’m writing.
My new approach didn’t mean I’d only write nice things about films. It meant that I’d try things, that I’d try to find something to like, and if I couldn’t, I’d try to make reading about it fun. It meant that I’d be excited. Another thing I’d decided to do was to take more time to celebrate the things that I love. When I thought about what that would mean, I decided it meant that I was going to have to immerse myself in my geek passion; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Embracing the positivity is a brilliant, energising thing to do, and for me, it’s lead to some of the best experiences of my life. Sat in this hotel room, I reflected on that decision, and on all of the things I’d been able to do because of it. In the morning I was going to the set of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. What a ridiculous, improbable and magnificent situation I found myself in. It was surreal and wonderful and I made a mental note to appreciate every single second of it. It was like receiving an amazing overly-generous birthday gift, not least because it was, by odd coincidence, actually my birthday.
Of course, there was only so much time for sitting in a quiet room patting myself on the back like some kind of awestruck egomaniac. I’d only received the schedule for the visit when I’d checked into the hotel. With a list of probable interview subjects, I had prep to do. It was an early start, too, and I was already feeling the effects of a long day of travel.
The following morning I staggered out into the streets of New York in search of coffee. Successful, I made it back to the hotel where they herded all of us writers onto a bus. The drive to the set took the best part of an hour. I tried to take in the view of the city while I jigged restlessly in my seat.
They were shooting in an armoury in Brooklyn; imagine two warehouses joined together. The first, where we entered, was a functioning workshop. People with proper jobs, all working on the film, sawed, sanded and welded, as us flappy writers waddled past on our way to the set section of the building.
(This image is from the Innovation Workshop Instagram feed)
We were led over towards the Turtles' truck, but it was impossible not to be distracted by the three-floors-high wooden walls of some kind of structure in the middle of the hall. I caught a peek through a walkway and gasped – it was the lair!
In the previous film, 2014s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shredder and the Foot Clan demolished the Turtles’ lair, requiring a new home to be built for this follow on. It’s a stunningly elaborate set and would prove to be the focus of our visit. We’ll come to it in a bit, though, as this early in the day I was only able to glimpse little sections of it. Some scrolls, cushions and bonsai trees in what turned out to be Splinter’s alcove, all seen on tiptoes over lights and flight cases.
But first, vehicles. In the first movie, we got a brief look inside the Turtles' van. In this one, we’ll get to spend some time in the Turtles' truck.
There are actually two trucks; one used for external shots and one for filming inside. We were gathered around the latter. It had no windscreen and the surface of the wing mirrors was covered in a blue material.
It was here that I spotted a detail, the kind of detail I kept finding all day. There was a piece of wood leaning against the outside of the van, likely a prop yet to be applied somewhere, with ‘Foot Stinks!’ painted on it. The Turtles' Party Wagon toy van from the 1980s, based on the van from the 1987 cartoon, had a ‘Foot Stinks’ sticker on it. What a lovely a touch, one that will be missed or foreign to much of the audience, but will elicit a warm response from some fans, like it did me that day on set.
“They’re very stealth-like, but while they’re ninja-ing around the rooftops they also had to have a vehicle that would disguise them on the ground, so we had to go through vehicles they could possibly use, and the one that stuck out the most was a trash truck,” Martin Laing, the production designer, told us about the vehicle. “The interior was really fun. It’s almost like Doctor Who’s TARDIS. You look at the outside of it and it’s something nondescript you see throughout London, and then you go to the inside and it’s got that ‘wow’ factor. That’s what we tried to achieve inside the Turtle van.”
Inside the van is a cramped, colourful, overloaded space, all neon excitement and youthful hyperactivity. There’s a rack on the wall for Leonardo’s swords, Michelangelo has a special seat where can control van-arms with nunchuks, and there’s a surf board on the ceiling with a speed bag hanging from it. There’s a drink vending machine (the Turtles are into Crush soft drinks in this movie universe, which is, er, totally a character point and not product placement) and an arcade game. Brilliantly, the top scores page on the arcade machine is full, with Michelangelo in 15th place and Donatello in 1st to 14th. I could see that being the case.
There’s a big screen TV on one wall and a sofa opposite where they can play a variety of games consoles. There are manuals for Sega CD games, a Guitar Hero instrument controller and even a light gun for the NES. Can the Turtles get their fingers into the loopy bit to use the trigger? Are they any good at Duck Hunt? What on Earth was I doing here with all these professional journalists? Anyway, for bragging rights I sat on the sofa in the Turtle truck. No big deal, but when you watch the film, if you see the sofa in the Turtle truck, I totally sat on it for a second.
Unrelated to my rebellious act of sitting down, we were ushered out of the van and brought onto the sewer lair set, the greatest place I have ever been.
The sewer lair is an imposing structure, two-and-a-half-months in the making and equal parts a convincing subterranean environment and cartoonish fever dream. The cold looking grey walls and grimy pipes are the subdued backdrop against which the multi-coloured lives of the Turtles are laid out. The Turtles’ sleeping area, unsurprisingly, features a good deal of colour coding. The water that flows through the lairs grey concrete moat is an eye-catchingly bright blue.
That water leads us around the lair. It flows in from one end, landing at Splinter’s alcove and past Donatello’s work station, under the stairs that lead to the kitchen and sleeping area, and away past the record collection (Den of Geek can confirm that the Turtles have a Hall and Oates album). The water’s warm (I dipped my fingers in as I had basically lost all control). It plummets into the lair via what is affectionately referred to as a waterslide, a giant round opening in the wall that looks like, well, a waterslide. It’s not turned on during dialogue shots as it rumbles at an incredible volume when water crashes out of it. It’s powerful enough to take a person off their feet, we’re told and not shown. Everyone wants to go down the water slide.
“We’ve got plans when this is all said and done to get in there” Pete Ploszek, who plays Leonardo, would tell us later in the day. I do hope they were able to.
As is the way of some set visits, much of the day is spent waiting for interviews. Here, thanks to shooting going on elsewhere (we actually didn’t get to see any filming), we spent our waiting time in the Turtles' lair, and were invited to investigate. The set was big and so thoughtfully populated with decoration that it took a good portion of the day to dig through it all anyway. In the interviews, everyone spoke of the sewer lair set with an awed enthusiasm.
“It’s a perfect analogy for this film.” Alan Ritchson, who plays Raphael, explained in an interview session that included all four Turtles actors, leaving me as star struck as I have ever been (I burned red when I exchanged hellos with Ritchson in the lair as he strolled around in his motion capture suit, complete with turtle shell). “The lair in the first film, it was great. It could fit in one half of the lair that we have now. The scope has grown so much, you can see it in the lair, the size and detail; it’s all just so much bigger. The entire film is doing that.”
“I mean, if I was April I would live in the Turtle lair” said Megan Fox, returning to play April O’Neil. “I don’t know why she would want to live anywhere else.” Megan Fox or not, I quite fancied staying there, too.