In Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt and his team embark on a journey across the globe, travelling different cities using various modes of transportation. The team's excitement at witnessing the world's beauty is palpable as they visit locations such as Abu Dhabi, Venice, Rome, and the Austrian Alps. In an interview, production designer Gary Freeman elaborates on the challenges and opportunities of shooting in these different locations.
Freeman reveals that the team selected the Midfield Terminal at Abu Dhabi International Airport to shoot a chase sequence in the film. Although the location was not yet operational or using the advanced technology to make a perfect shot during filming.
The vast expanse of the terminal provided a unique opportunity to shoot in never-before-seen locations. Freeman explains that the team had to install everything from high-end shopping to make it look like the airport was up and running. They were able to shoot in various areas of the terminal, including the baggage handling area, the tarmac, and the roof.
The team also filmed in Rome, where they had exclusive access to areas surrounding the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps. The city was partially closed down to shoot chase scenes, and the team adapted to the locations by having Ethan reverse down to a lowered street guarded by a gate in an attempt to escape. The team also filmed in Venice, where a new boat with orange seats, was brought to their attention by a friend of Tom Cruise's who was used to shoot scenes in a region called the Arsenale, a large marina for boats.
Image source Marca.com on Google
The candles that line the exterior of Doge's Palace are LED and remote-controlled. Doge's palace, the Palazzo Ducale, which is an incredibly popular tourist spot. But they do rent it out for private parties at might you see in the movies. It was a race against time each evening because once they shut the doors on the tourists we would have just a couple hours to prep the locations.
A particular challenge was all the candles that we placed around the perimeter of the building—Venice as a whole is effectively an ancient monument and it’s been built mostly out of wood so we weren’t allowed to use double-wick candles as we wanted. Those are LED candles that we could control with a remote.
The candles were also part of our mission to make Venice have a more sinister quality than Rome; we wanted it to feel almost like a horror movie. That extends to the fight sequence on Ponte Minich, a pedestrian bridge, between [Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust and Esai Morales’s Gabriel].
It’s a lovely bridge during the day it’s very romantic, but you fill it with fog in the dark and it becomes a place of death. We had to be very quiet because we were shooting through the night and we didn't want to disturb anybody. But strangely, the quietness of the crew and the unit just added to the atmosphere. It evoked a sort of quality that would have been difficult to obtain anywhere else.
And we were shooting during a very strict COVID protocol era. We had a very unique situation where we were wandering around the streets of Venice which are normally filled with thousands and thousands of paying tourists, and we had the streets to ourselves. It was like we were being taken back 200 years
Comments