Angels & Demons - BEHIND THE SCENES

"Angels & Demons"
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Tim Nasson
April 28, 2009

Watch "Angels & Demons" Trailer

AN ANGELS & DEMONS WHO’S WHO

Angels & Demons begins with the death of a Pope and the ancient ritual of Conclave, the process by which the College of Cardinals elects a new Holy Father. Among the Cardinals are the preferiti, the Cardinals deemed most likely to be elected Pope. The process is famous for being shrouded in secrecy, with the Cardinals secluded until their important work is completed. The only communication with the outside world comes in the form of smoke released from the Sistine Chapel. Dark smoke indicates that a two-thirds majority vote has not occurred, and white smoke (and, recently, bells) indicate that a two-thirds majority has been reached and a new Pope has been elected.

The Camerlengo has very specific duties within the Vatican. It is he who certifies the death of the Pope and destroys the Pope’s ring with his official seal, also known as the Ring of the Fisherman. Until the election of a new Pope, the Camerlengo becomes the acting head of state of Vatican City.

The Swiss Guard has protected the Pope and the College of Cardinals within the Vatican’s walls since January 22, 1506. They are famous for seeing their positions not as a job but as a calling. To be recruited into the Swiss Guard, one must be a single Catholic male, between the age of 19 and 30, at least 5-feet-8-inches tall, a high-school graduate and a graduate of basic training in the Swiss military, and a citizen of Switzerland.

The general police duties of Vatican City are performed by the Gendarmarie. They handle public order, traffic control… and kidnapping and murder investigations, among other duties.

In Angels & Demons, these groups and Vatican officials are all forced into action when the Illuminati kidnap the preferiti and threaten to kill one each hour, culminating in a bomb at the Vatican. The “official” story behind the real-life Illuminati is that the secret society was founded in Bavaria in 1776, with as many as 2,000 “freethinkers” reaching into the highest levels of art, science and government becoming members before the group officially disbanded at the end of the 1700s.

However, some believe that the secret society’s roots are even older – that the Illuminati have existed since the 1500s, born out of concern over the Church’s conflicts with prominent scientists at that time. In the story of Angels & Demons, these Illuminati or “Enlightened Ones” were driven underground and disappeared more than 100 years ago, during which time the group became fervently anti-Vatican, choosing instead to “worship” the four elements of nature – earth, air, fire, and water. That is what sets the stage for the exciting story that unfolds in the film.

There are some in real life who say that the Illuminati still exist – and many articles, videos and other stories about them abound on the Internet today. Among the theories posted on the web are stories that suggest the Illuminati control world events, hold high and powerful offices, and are creating a New World Order to replace individual governments with an autonomous world government by the “enlightened.”

ABOUT THE FILM

After becoming immersed in an adventure that pitted him against the Catholic Church and two thousand years of sacred religious history, Robert Langdon is back in Angels & Demons – and this time finds himself in the heart of the Vatican, attempting to save the Church from one of its oldest enemies: the Illuminati.

“Langdon enters into Angels & Demons with an icy relationship vis-à-vis the Vatican because of the events of The Da Vinci Code,” says Tom Hanks, who reprises his role as the formidable Professor Langdon. “He has a great knowledge of the church’s rituals and history but he is not necessarily a welcome person. Essentially, there is a grab for power at the Vatican in the guise of the hijacking of the papal election and, in spite of his history with the church, Langdon is called in to try to prevent it.”

“The Vatican is under attack at its most vulnerable moment,” say director Ron Howard, who returns to the world of Dan Brown after directing the worldwide phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, which in 2006 took in more than $750 million worldwide. “The Vatican is going through conclave, the time when Cardinals elect a new Pope. When they are under the threat of murder and a ticking time bomb, they call upon Robert Langdon, the only one who has the expertise and ability to cut through the mystery, understand the symbols, and try to avert this disaster. He is not the man the Vatican trusts – he is the man the Vatican needs.”

In Angels & Demons, Langdon attempts to thwart the Illuminati – a centuries-old underground organization – and their plans to wreak havoc on the Vatican. For Howard, that idea made for a perfect villain and a worthy antagonist for Robert Langdon. “When I read Angels & Demons, I was really engrossed by the idea of the Illuminati,” says Howard. “This secret society, said to include people like Galileo and Bernini. What happened to them? Were they really crushed? Did they really leave us? There are those who believe that the Illuminati have survived as an organization and are with us in secret today, influencing our everyday lives, government policy decisions, and corporate strategies.”

“In our story, the Illuminati return for an act of revenge reaching back four hundred years,” says producer Brian Grazer. “The Illuminati have kidnapped four Cardinals – the favorites to become the new Pope – and threaten to destroy the Vatican and Vatican City. Vatican authorities call upon Robert Langdon – an old foe, in their minds – to help them in this moment of crisis. Only Langdon can decipher the mysterious Illuminati codes, tied to the ancient symbols of earth, air, fire, and water.”

“What’s so great about a Robert Langdon adventure is that it stimulates so much curiosity and research,” Howard continues. “You read the book or see the movie, then you go to the library or on the internet – you want to understand Bernini, Galileo, their relationships with the Vatican, with the art world, with science, and the mystery of the Illuminati. Whether you believe it or not, it’s fascinating stuff, and in Dan Brown’s fertile imagination, it leads to a spellbinding set of clues and a great mystery.”

Producer John Calley adds, “I was fortunate to have discovered Dan's books just before the rest of America got their hands on The Da Vinci Code and it became a phenomenon. I think what he's created in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons is a franchise for our times. Both books are fast-paced thrillers with a dynamic, ingenious hero at the center. It's no wonder that Dan has achieved such astounding success and we look forward to his next Robert Langdon thriller with great anticipation.”

For Howard, those are the very reasons that made returning to direct Angels & Demons such an easy choice. “There’s something unique about what Dan has created in this Robert Langdon character,” he says. “It’s incredibly original, thought-provoking, and, on a cinematic level, irresistible.”

Angels & Demons marks the first time Howard has ever returned to a character a second time around. “I never wanted to do that, because I’m always interested in trying to create new territory,” says Howard. “And Angels & Demons does that – even though Robert Langdon is again at the center, the film is so different from The Da Vinci Code and allows me to exercise a whole new set of cinematic muscles. Angels & Demons requires a different rhythm, another tempo, a different kind of drive. It is, literally, a ticking-time-bomb thriller, couched in a completely original mystery. Those two demands lead me as a director to stage this movie is a completely different way from The Da Vinci Code.”

Of course, Howard had another reason for wanting to return to Angels & Demons – the chance to team with Tom Hanks for the fourth time. “I love working with Tom, and really like what he’s doing with Robert Langdon,” says Howard. “The fit between the actor and the role gets deeper and stronger as it goes. Tom’s intellect, curiosity, and sense of humor blend so beautifully with Robert Langdon’s that he creates a deeper, richer, more interesting character to watch.”

Hanks says that Langdon’s impressive and arcane intellect are satisfying and stimulating to play and a big part of the project’s appeal. “It’s challenging to play someone who is an expert in this very obscure field. He makes connections that nobody else can see; one symbol can represent different points of view that make sense to only him. When we worked in Rome near places of great antiquity, I was fascinated to learn how the history of the site, what the original thought was in the building, what was going on in Rome at the time? Who paid for it? When and why have things been added to it? Robert Langdon sees history in layers. He takes in data, collects conflicting opinions, then matches them with differing interpretations, trying to understand why humans came up with these symbols in the first place.”

Hanks elaborates, saying that Robert Langdon taps into the primal fantasy of solving great mysteries. “If you’re smart enough to see the trail, smart enough to follow it, and wise enough to put together all the hidden clues, you just might bust open the conspiracy. And you only have so much time. Who doesn’t love that?”

Hanks was also gratified to re-team with director Ron Howard. Angels & Demons marks their fourth collaboration, the most recent being The Da Vinci Code. “Nothing fazes Ron,” says Hanks. “Certainly not shooting in front of the Pantheon in Rome with hundreds of tourists. He found small back alleys for scenes in the afternoons when it was hot and the crowds were intense but was so focused that he hardly knew they were there. Whenever he faces a challenging shot, he just figures out a way to do it and exudes confidence. Ron has created an impressive body of work and continues to make increasingly complicated, dense films – and he makes it all look easy. He’s more fearless now as a filmmaker, taking greater risks than he did when there was much less at stake. His will, his desire to open the way he makes movies makes demands of us all.”

Surrounding Hanks are some of the world’s best actors and brightest stars. According to Brian Grazer, attracting an international cast was one of the filmmakers’ highest priorities. “The international cast enhances the scope of the film,” says Grazer. “It becomes accessible in every country of the world. In addition, with the rich material and the chance to work with Tom, it’s an appealing film for an actor. We approached the best actors that made sense artistically for the film, and in each case, got our first choice.”

“The cast brought kinetic energy,” says Hanks. “It’s the sincerity Ewan McGregor brings to the Camerlengo, Stellan Skarsgård as the scary bull at the head of the Swiss Guard, and Armin Mueller-Stahl embodying the morals of the benevolent and knowing Cardinal. Ayelet Zurer wouldn’t deliver a line of dialog until she knew the science behind it. Everyone worked at the same high expectations, with the same dedication, which made it an intense film making experience.”

Throughout this adventure, Langdon is joined in his quest by the CERN-based Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra, played by Ayelet Zurer.

CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire or European Council for Nuclear Research) is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Situated in Switzerland, CERN initiated the operation of its Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, during production. The experiments resulting from the LHC are set to change our view of the Universe we live in; they will investigate the reason for nature’s preference for matter over antimatter, and they will probe matter as it existed at the very beginning of time. In Angels & Demons, Vetra’s work at CERN surrounds a small canister of antimatter that is stolen, and becomes the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, threatening the Vatican and, indeed, the very foundations of the Catholic Church.

Zurer prepared for her role not only by reading up on the kinds of experiments conducted at particle accelerators like that at CERN (and watching YouTube videos on the Large Hadron Collider), but also by reading Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything at Tom Hanks’ recommendation. In fact, many crew members were also hooked on the book, comparing notes on such chapters as “Einstein’s Universe,” “The Mighty Atom,” and “Darwin’s Singular Notion.”

Of her character, Zurer says, “Vittoria interested me because she represents that generation of women who are highly educated and in professions that are still male-dominated. At the same time, she has a life and she hasn’t given up her sensitivity for her career. She is a deliberate thinker, not easily rattled.”

“Everyone on Ron’s team have known each other for many years and worked on many projects. They operate like bees in a hive,” says Zurer. “They have codes and a shorthand of communication – like their own language – that I didn’t really understand until later. They were fast and funny and intense, but also laid-back. It was overwhelming for me. Ron would say, ‘Relax, slow down, use your lower voice’ – he kept me on that track. He really wanted Vittoria to be very strong, very smart and straightforward and still emotional about things that happened to her. I think she feels highly responsible for everything that happens.”

Zurer had free range to decide how Vittoria Vetra’s Italian accent would sound. “I made a decision to make her sound international, rather than just American with Italian accent,” she says. “I was sometimes surprised at the way the Italian sort of sat down in my body. It was very comfortable. I don’t know why it seemed so natural – maybe because I’m Mediterranean – but it’s just something I loved.”

With no Pope, the power of the Vatican resides in his right-hand man, the Camerlengo, until a new Pope is elected. In Angels & Demons, this key figure is played by Ewan McGregor.

“The Camerlengo is a secretary, but when the Pope dies, he is the acting head of state of Vatican City and has quite a bit of power,” notes McGregor. “He’s such a great character to play because there’s so much going on with him.”

“The Camerlengo very much loves the Church and the sense of permanence that it brings. It brings with it the force of history,” McGregor continues. “And now he sees the thing he loves under attack, at its moment of greatest peril. He sees himself as a man who will do whatever it takes to save the Church from the Illuminati and everything they represent.”

The actor was enticed not only by the rich character, but by the chance to work with Ron Howard.

“I was a big fan of Ron Howard – I’d met him a couple of times socially in London when he was filming The Da Vinci Code,” says McGregor. “We'd run into each other at a restaurant that we both liked to go to for Sunday lunch. It's awfully nice to work with a director who is not only good at the technicalities of filmmaking but also can help you in terms of the performance, the emotion of a scene. I think the fact that he's been an actor himself is what makes him such a very, very good director.”

The Camerlengo’s foil within the church is the quiet, dignified Cardinal Strauss, played by veteran actor Armin Mueller-Stahl. Cardinal Strauss, an expert at navigating Vatican politics, knows and sees more than he lets on. In fact, Cardinal Strauss’ impassive, understated approach dovetails with Mueller-Stahl’s attitude towards acting.

“Strauss is always observing and watching what he has to do, to figure out the next step. He doesn’t give away too much of what he thinks, who he suspects and to me that’s also the secret of acting,” says Mueller-Stahl. “You have a face. Underneath is the second face and this second face is always important to bring to life without showing it. The idea is not to show everything, but on the other hand by not showing, you have to reveal it. It must be understandable for the audience but not obvious.”

To research the role, Mueller-Stahl read about the current Pope, and, perhaps, even modeled some of his character upon the real-life pontiff. “I read a bit about Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope, when he was a Cardinal,” he notes.

Mueller-Stahl also called upon memories. “I had met John Paul II when he was a Cardinal, in Krakow,” notes the actor. “But that was long, long ago.”

Working in tandem with Cardinal Strauss – and, indeed, protecting him and the College of Cardinals – is Commander Richter, Commandante Principale of the Swiss Guard, played by Stellan Skarsgård. The Swiss Guard have been defending the Vatican since January 22, 1506 and Richter, the venerable leader of this imposing and dignified force, personifies everything they represent – the utmost dedication, respect and fidelity to the Holy See. As the investigation continues, however, he too may be a suspect.

“As head of the Vatican’s security organization, with four kidnapped Cardinals and a bomb in the Vatican, Richter’s in trouble, but he is a cool character,” says Skarsgård. “He is a very controlled person and we don’t know at various points if we can trust him.”

“Richter despises Langdon, of course,” Skarsgård continues. “He’s a Vatican guy, very religious. With the history between Langdon and the Vatican, Richter does not accept Langdon’s help graciously. They are both trying to solve the crime, but they are pitted against each other in a mutual feeling of skepticism and distrust.”

Naturally, Richter works closely with the Camerlengo in the ongoing investigation. In filming one particularly intense scene between the two characters, Ron Howard positioned cameras such that he could capture both actors’ close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots at the same time. While lighting and blocking the scene was tricky, the arrangement allowed Skarsgård and McGregor to engage each other in a much more organic way.

“Ron understands what makes actors tick,” Skarsgård says. “He knows when and how to take the pressure off of you, and also knows what he can ask of you, what he wants out of the scene, and how he wants to get there. We never talked about the character – our conversations during rehearsals were to figure out the scenes and where we were heading with them.”

The Vatican, in addition to being the heart of the Catholic Church, is also a state within the country of Italy. While the Swiss Guard protects the Pope and the College of Cardinals, the Gendarmarie police everything else within the Vatican walls. When four Cardinals are kidnapped in Angels & Demons, it makes for a jurisdictional nightmare that pits Skarsgård’s Commander Richter against the Gendarmarie’s Inspector Ernesto Olivetti, played by Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino. “Olivetti brings in Langdon after the branding of the priest-physicist at CERN," says Favino. "He understands immediately that they're not able to deal with the situation and brings in Langdon, the only man who knows what the symbols mean. This puts him on shaky ground with Richter – because of Langdon's history with the Vatican, Langdon is a man that Richter does not trust even slightly. Olivetti knows that Richter is basically the one calling the shots because the Swiss Guard is responsible for protecting the Cardinals, and bringing in Langdon is Olivetti's only trump card in the investigation."

“I had a few clues to my character,” says Favino. “I knew that he’d have to be married, so Olivetti wears a wedding ring, even though it never comes up in the movie. The rules for the Gendarmarie aren’t as strict as the Swiss Guard, but Olivetti would be just as Catholic as they are. It was helpful for me to think of him as a man with a family at home.”

One final character rounds out the cast: the shadowy Mr. Gray, brought menacingly to life by Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kaas. Kaas was immediately drawn to the part by action inherent in the role. “He’s the weapon in the hand,” he says. “He drives all the action in the film – everything that happens in the movie happens because of the plot he executes. I love to do action – it’s great to be a boy again.”

When it came to the character’s accent, Kaas says, he took a cue from the director. “I’m always doing a Russian or Eastern European accent,” he says, “but Ron suggested that I use my own Danish accent. Also, one scene, when I speak to one of the dead Cardinals, I do it in Danish. That idea came from Ron and one of the writers, and I thought it was fantastic.”

ABOUT CERN

The plot of Angels & Demons is set into motion at CERN, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva. “What goes on at CERN is exploration of the most adventuresome kind,” says the director. “What I find incredible is that Dan Brown wrote his novel, setting it here at CERN, about ten years ago – and now, a decade later, CERN is in the news, everybody is talking about the experiments they conduct there. It just shows how ahead of the curve he is.”

CERN is one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things.

Two beams of subatomic particles called “hadrons” – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyze the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

FILMING IN ROME

Production began in Rome, where, for a month, Angels & Demons filmed in such famous sites as Piazza del Popolo, Piazza Navona, Castel St. Angelo, outside the beautiful, Baroque Santa Susanna church and the city streets of Rome themselves. Everywhere the production filmed, they were always encouraged by hundreds of enthusiastic, curious tourists and locals.

From the works of Raphael, Michelangelo and Bernini to the obelisks piercing the sky in the many piazzas to the statues pointing the way towards hidden secrets, clues from Dan Brown’s books were everywhere. They were impossible to ignore – as were the throngs of tourists, who, of course, had traveled to Rome to enjoy the city’s renowned art and sites but soon added the Angels & Demons film production to their vacation tour schedule. Just as The Da Vinci Code created a cottage industry of tours relating to the book’s setting in France, Angels & Demons has done the same for Rome, with flocks of tourists taking guided tours covering the Path of Illumination. A “simple” shot of Hanks and Zurer walking across the Piazza Della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon attracted hundreds of onlookers who often had their backs to the ancient Roman temple, standing shoulder to shoulder on its portico, just to watch and photograph the filming. The atmosphere was often festive and hurried, and at one point a wedding party appeared in the square as the crew was setting up for another shot. It turned out the bride and groom had an appointment to be wed near the Pantheon location where Angels & Demons was to film. Chivalrously, Tom Hanks helped the bride and her father navigate their way to the Pantheon, through the equipment, lights and cameras.

As it turned out, this rather frenetic, crowded ambiance suited cinematographer Salvatore Totino. “All the tourists in Rome provided a bit of fun pandemonium and in a way that worked well with our approach. Ron and I talked about giving the film a sense of urgency – there’s a bomb that is going to go off in the Vatican if they don’t stop it, so the goal was to convey that high-stakes deadline cinematically by capturing the consequences of the human and historical toll. We wanted to keep the camera moving so we used longer lenses, with emphasis on the Steadicam, the slider and dolly work,” Totino says.

One of Totino and gaffer Rafael E. Sanchez’s biggest challenges in Rome happened at Castel Sant’Angelo. Built by Emperor Hadrian in 128 AD as his own tomb, Castel Sant’Angelo has been a prison, fortress and papal residence. The bridge leading to the Castel boasts a phalanx of angel statues, as is typical in Rome, but the for the night work on Angels & Demons, each one received its own special lighting set up. Sanchez and crew treated the Castel to its own spectacular up-lighting.

Totino says that Sanchez’s suggestion to uplight the Castel greatly helped the production, which had a lot to get done in only two nights.

“Castel Sant’Angelo took a lot of effort and was kind of pieced together because of the extreme limitations in terms of what we were allowed to do and the limited rigging time that we had there. When we first scouted, Rafi suggested architectural lighting, which was a great approach for it and helped us. In other words, we made lighting a little bit more conscious there, as opposed to lighting it piece by piece. By doing that, it helped us remain more contained there. The nights were short and we had one night at the bridge and the entrance and one night in the interior. We had to get in and out, so that kind of lighting absolutely helped,” Totino says.

The exterior night work at the Castel Sant’Angelo included buzzing helicopters with searchlights and a cadre of police in an array of vehicles, their lights blazing, sirens blaring. While this may have been entertaining for the inevitable hordes of tourists, the Vatican, which is adjacent to the Castel and, indeed, connected by a passageway, may not have appreciated the ruckus.

FROM THE ETERNAL CITY… TO THE CITY OF ANGELS

Production resumed in Los Angeles, where Rome was resurrected on the studio lot and in nearby locations.

“Among the locations to build, we needed a large scale version of St. Peter’s Square and Piazza Navona,” says Todd Hallowell, executive producer. “I asked the location manager to use Google Earth to find a venue close to Sony. We just started drawing little circles from the studio and the first parcel of land we could see that was vacant land big enough to handle what we needed was the Hollywood Park racetrack. And so I said, ‘Well, drive over there and talk to those people. See if you can make some kind of deal. We’re going to need, I don’t know, twenty acres of flat parking lot.’ He did and they were happy to have us and treated us very well. It was eight miles from the studio and was an ideal location.”

Fittingly, the production’s replicas of St. Peter’s Square and Piazza Navona sat directly across from possibly the only other faux Roman building in Los Angeles – the L.A. Forum, which resembles, of course, its ancient Italian counterpart. In addition, the production had the pleasure of recreating the Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, and Castel Sant’Angelo, as well as the frescoes, fountains and statues of Michelangelo and Bernini.

The art department collected much of its research for sets and props the same way any tourist or student might – through books, the internet and a high-end digital camera. Most areas of the Vatican and Rome welcome tourists wielding cameras of all sorts, so troops from the various departments became part of the daily throng of backpack-wearing, guidebook toting visitors documenting the sites.

From that research, Allan Cameron’s art department designed and built the sets so that walls could be removed or lights and equipment could be accommodated. He worked closely with Angus Bickerton, visual effects supervisor, so that the sets would seamlessly blend with shots of the real places that could be digitally married in post-production. “When I design a set, obviously, I have to keep the camera moves in mind and just how the director might choreograph the action and blocking, so I tend to design a set around the script requirements rather than the reality of the place,” says Cameron. “For instance, the real Santa Maria Della Vittoria in Rome is quite small and the action that takes place there in the film is quite complex. So Sal, our director of photography, and Ron wanted to use camera cranes in there, so we had to enlarge the aisles and enlarge the nave and make it slightly bigger than the real one just to accommodate the action.”

The scenes there also required a raging fire and thick smoke, so the baroque church also featured swaths of blue screen, where the visual effects team would later augment the fire in post-production.

The breathtaking west coast incarnation of St. Peter’s Square, rising from behind shipping containers in the sprawling parking lot at Hollywood Park, in contrast, was smaller than the real thing, mostly made of plywood and Styrofoam and accented by green screen. This reduction was no surprise – St. Peter’s Square, designed by Bernini, can easily accommodate 300,000 people. The Square is partially ringed by two curved covered colonnades containing 284 Doric columns and the 140 statues of saints and martyrs stand regally on top.

“Our version was about 2/3 the size of the real one, but it will look full-size on film because of the combination of the physical set, camera angles, the real place and visual effects,” Cameron says. “I spent a lot of time with the visual effects department and Angus, building models, going over drawings, discussing logistics of what should be real and what should later be done in the computer. In the end, we came up with an efficient way of doing it.”

One method the filmmakers used throughout the movie was to combine “low” and ‘high” technology. Thus, Pope Sixtus V’s 350-ton Egyptian obelisk, which stands out even in a setting as grand and elegant as St. Peter’s Square (and which serves as a pivotal plot point in the film), was built to actual size while the colonnade was slightly smaller than in real life. This was because most of the action involving actors took place near the obelisk while the colonnade was mostly in the background; a careful use of perspective in the camera allowed the entire set to appear the appropriate size. Visual effects would recreate any wide shot that required the colonnade to appear in all its majesty. To do this, Bickerton strategically placed cameras around the set to make sure he captured all the details, and, specifically, Totino’s camerawork so Angus could match it in the computer. Several “witness cams” were placed throughout the re-created St. Peter’s Square and mini-HD cameras rode atop Totino’s Arriflexes, documenting every camera angle for the visual effects team to match in post-production.

To re-create Rome’s famous marble floors, Cameron’s team used computers and high-quality printers and design and print marble contact paper. It was sturdy enough to withstand most of the demands of filming but still needed some protection. So the production issued an edict: No street shoes allowed on the floor – everyone had to don protective blue booties, like those worn in hospitals, before entering and traipsing around the set.

The production ultimately took over eight stages on the Sony Pictures lot, which were repurposed after scenes finished; for instance, stage 30 began as the interior of Santa Maria del Popolo church and later became Santa Maria Della Vittoria. Similarly, after the production completed the scenes at St. Peter’s Square, Hollywood Park transformed into the Piazza Navona. While the production did film some at the actual Piazza Navona, it relocated to Los Angeles, in part, because of Rome’s endless restoration of Bernini’s Fountain of Four Rivers. With the real thing covered in scaffolding, the filmmakers asked Cameron’s team to make movie magic.

The Four Rivers re-creation was truly a marvel. The structure features Bernini’s dramatic personifications of the Danube, the Ganges, the Rio de la Plata and the Nile (symbolic of the four continents known at the time) and several beasts, including fantastic lions. Cameron’s replica spared no detail – the fountain and its circular tank looked exactly like the original, even in Styrene, and held up over a week of night shooting that involved the rescue of one of the kidnapped Cardinals.

In addition to the Four Rivers, Cameron’s crew reproduced other Bernini statues, such as Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy of Santa Maria, which serve as Langdon’s clues along the Path of Illumination. Sculptor Martin Smeaton and his team photographed the statues from every conceivable angle and made small clay maquettes, to ensure the proportions were correct before he committed to carving them into full-size Styrene reproductions.

Among the many wonderful, enormously intricate sets Cameron’s team built, one of the highlights was the Sistine Chapel, which was built to scale on stage 27 at the Sony lot in Culver City. Ironically, the only piece of the Sistine Chapel that Cameron did not replicate was the famous ceiling – that’s where the lighting rigs lived so the set itself remained free of any lighting gear. Although Cameron was otherwise fairly faithful to Michelangelo’s masterpiece, he did have to alter its palette slightly for cinematic purposes.

“All together, I think we reproduced about 20 of the paintings there, including Michelangelo’s Last Judgment,” Cameron recalls. “I deliberately kept the colors of the Sistine Chapel slightly more somber than they might be so Daniel’s costumes would really zing against them.”

Daniel would be Daniel Orlandi, the movie’s costume designer and much of the “zing” came from the crimson robes of the College of Cardinals, who gather in the Sistine Chapel after the death of the Pope for their conclave, in which they choose the next Vicar of Christ. Orlandi worked with Howard previously on The Da Vinci Code and, through that, had some knowledge of the Vatican but, he says, the research required for Angels & Demons was much more specific.

“We essentially made the Vatican wardrobe – we made all the Cardinals, 200 Cardinal outfits in all; we made robes and wardrobe for bishops, priests, nuns, all the Swiss Guard, the laypeople who work at the Vatican – they wear these double-breasted uniforms with a little burgundy collar and brass buttons. All those costumes were handmade, you can’t buy them,” Orlandi notes.

Orlandi became an expert in the minutia of the Vatican wardrobe and notes that although the Cardinals’ wardrobe may appear monolithic, each vestment has religious significance and, to some extent, personal variation. This applies also to and, perhaps, reaches its apex with the Pope.

“It was so interesting to talk to the ecclesiastical makers of the Pope’s clothes and about what the Cardinals wear when they come to conclave,” says Orlandi. “Some of them have never been to Rome. The people who make the clothes feel that they are doing God’s work. It’s quite inspirational.”

Their clothes are also complex. Every time Armin Mueller-Stahl donned his costume, he experienced a tiny bit of the church’s ancient rituals. “Daniel had done so much research and was very clear about what I would be wearing and when. He was specific about the kind of shoes, the different types of hats, what kind of white shirt, which vestment went on first…” he says.

Orlandi also had to create a look for the “new” Pope in the film. Orlandi decided to model him after Pope Benedict. “The Pope’s clothing is quite elaborate and beautifully done,” Orlandi says. “We had it made in Rome – it is quite stunning. We put a stole on him that looks exactly like the one Pope Benedict wore. It has an archaic and ritualistic look. There was a big debate about how the new Pope had gone to the Roman style of papal dress as opposed to the Gothic style, which is what Pope John Paul wore. He wore a velvet cap with ermine and it was striking because no one had worn that since medieval times. Every Pope sets his own style. In our movie, we designed a Roman-style miter based on patterns we found in Italy – it is hand embroidered with Swarovski crystals.”

In a sea of red Cardinal and magenta bishop robes, a black-clad figure stands out – Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, in his severe, elegant cassock. With its fitted waist and flaring side panels, 33 small buttons down the front to symbolize each year of Jesus’ life, his costume was always a stark and mesmerizing contrast. It also worked exceedingly well in terms of the moving frame Totino and Howard wanted to accent in the film.

“Ewan’s cassock was handmade, in Rome, with a most beautiful wool that had a shiny finish. And he wears it so well. Fitted perfectly, as they are. I had worked with Ewan before and I was so excited that he was going to be in this film. We had done a film called Down By Love and had the most fun. We took no license with his cassock, it is exactly what a very, very well dressed priest would wear at the Vatican. We discussed how great it would look if he were running with the cassock flying behind him and it worked beautifully,” Orlandi says.

Orlandi also had to recreate the flamboyant uniforms of the Swiss Guard, done in the red, yellow and blue colors of the Medici. A favorite of tourists, the movie Swiss Guard regiment was no different – in fact, at one point, Tom Hanks surprised the crew by coming to set dressed in the colorful uniform.

ABOUT THE MUSIC

For Angels & Demons, director Ron Howard again teamed up with composer Hans Zimmer. Although Angels & Demons features Robert Langdon, whose adventures were previously chronicled in 2006’s The Da Vinci Code, the score for Angels & Demons required an entirely different approach.

The nature of the story called for something new. The adventure of Angels & Demons is reflected in each aspect of the collaboration between Ron Howard, Producer Brian Grazer, the editors, sound team, and of course in Zimmer's score. Zimmer focused on finding ways to make the music as agile and kinetic as Robert Langdon’s firing synapses, using a chamber group instead of a traditional orchestra in order to create that sense of action.

At the same time, since Angels & Demons was equally about religion and science, Zimmer took the orchestral in combination with choir to represent religion, while using electronics to denote science. Because Zimmer’s intention in putting together the orchestral was to go for individual players really standing out, he went to the best, bringing in violinist Joshua Bell. The result was a collision Zimmer describes as, “the beauty of Joshua’s violin framed by the starkness of the electronics.”

Howard says, “There’s nothing formulaic about the way Hans thinks about the score,” adding that Zimmer’s music always “suits the sound that the film calls for.” In this case, it was the feeling of experimentation and fun to the adventure, which Zimmer captures by playing a musical game. As a nod to the symbologist character, Zimmer hid a five-note musical ambigram into the score. Whether or not anyone figures it out remains to be seen, but one thing is certain; as Howard says: Zimmer is “a fantastic storyteller.”