- One of the first things you learn about Warsaw, pre-war, was that it was seen as on a par with Vienna and Paris as one of the beautiful European capitals.
It's capturing that.
We think of Warsaw because of the kind of post-war Soviet reconstruction, but it needed to have a beauty, and that helps the story.
- Warsaw, in the '30s was an incredibly vibrant, incredibly culturally exciting place, and it just got battered.
We ended up choosing Prague, because it could give us Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and we even shot some London.
And then we had this set of rules for each of the different worlds.
For example, there's a certain color palette for Warsaw before the bombs, which would show the real Warsaw, and then that color gets taken away when Warsaw gets bombed, so at just the height in the story.
- [Peter] We wanted to build a classic Warsaw square.
So we had to find a way of making that change quickly.
And we were lucky enough to find what was the remnants of an old sugar beet factory, in a place called Lomacice in the Czech Republic.
- We had a very specific vision for The Black Cat.
We wanted it to be a bit like the classic art nouveau cafe from the late 19th century, the sort of place you would find in Belgium or Paris, or Warsaw, you know, Warsaw was a very stylish city.
- [Adam] This was the first time I've worked with Suzie Lavelle of VOP.
When we met, the interview, we just clicked.
- Suzie, can you bring your eyeline closer to the camera?
(laughter) - We shared a common aesthetic, I guess.
The vision was to try and show the epic and the intimate.
We're not looking at this from afar, we're actually in it with our characters.
You know, following from behind so you just got a sense of being with a character.
That's what I'm really interested in, is how do you emotionally connect with these characters, and how does it become relevant to our lives, and how do we immerse the audience in this world?
