Tailored from Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy tales, Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time kicked off its second season final week. With three episodes on the market on this planet, and extra coming every Friday via the eight-part season, io9 acquired an opportunity to speak to a number of the present’s administrators and producers.
Whereas season one, which aired again in 2021, needed to spend time familiarizing viewers with its world and characters, season two plunges proper in—and widens the scope significantly, for the reason that narrative’s many gamers are actually unfold throughout varied far-flung lands.
“Season two has a brand new starting in a means, as a result of all the characters are separated, they’re taken into their very own separate tales instantly,” director Thomas Napper stated. “I didn’t movie a single scene with the characters collectively as a gaggle as they had been via the entire of sequence one. In order that brings a really totally different vitality to the storytelling and permits the characters to come across different new characters. So all the characters are constructing these new relationships and discovering mentors, challenges, demons, and allies round in these new components of the story. There’s numerous new world constructing, numerous new places, after which a deeper dive on the White Tower as effectively.”
Added fellow director Sanaa Hamrie, who can be an government producer, “We had been capable of actually take the corporate all through the Czech Republic and totally different components of Italy after which lastly in Morocco, within the Sahara desert, which makes a very massive distinction when it comes to the visuals as a result of we’re really on these actual places. I really feel like we now have much more natural places the place we’re actually feeling the weather, whether or not it’s the sandstorms within the Sahara desert, which was had been actually occurring, in addition to being tremendous chilly within the Czech Republic, to the dryness of Italy. Actually including extra of those natural, pure supplies to this fantastical world—I feel that was actually essential for the imaginative and prescient for season two.”
Producer Holger Reibiger factors to the Morocco shoot specifically as presenting season two’s greatest problem, no less than when it comes to its places. “To shoot in Morocco, it’s an enormous problem; we shot in a single place [where] no one had shot earlier than. It’s a really, very distant space with no infrastructure. In order that was an enormous problem for us—however it was essential for us to shoot there and to point out the viewers this location and to include [it] into season two.” Added government producer Marigo Kehoe, “It’s thrilling to point out the viewers new locations—locations that they could not have seen earlier than. If we’re capable of obtain that, that’s superb.”
Like most sequence, The Wheel of Time is overseen by a staff of administrators who deal with totally different episodes—however as you would possibly count on, care is taken to make sure visible and thematic coherence.
“As an government producer, I at all times look to creating certain there’s a stability,” Hamri defined. “Season one was type of just like the leaping off level for season two. So inside that, I feel it’s actually essential that every one departments discuss to one another and that we’re all on the identical web page, as a result of we now have varied administrators similar to Thomas, who did a tremendous job for our season opener. And due to this fact we have to type of proceed that language. It’s actually about managing that and ensuring that we don’t veer off, however we wish to guarantee that the filmmaker seems like they’re doing their very own factor as effectively inside the context of the language. It’s about sticking to the language of the world, however add in your explicit aptitude. So to me, it’s about managing that and likewise managing the seems and the fashion. We’ve nice division heads, so there have been instances once I would watch all of the footage because it got here in, as I’m directing and prepping—after which additionally ensuring I’m obtainable for the administrators if they’ve any questions [so they could] use me as a lot as attainable [as a resource to help maintain] the general imaginative and prescient of season two.”
As Wheel of Time followers effectively know, an enormous a part of the story revolves round people who find themselves ready to make use of magic, or “channel.” Visually, it manifests on-screen with the assistance of swirling, glowing particular results, however there’s a sure performative aspect at play as effectively.
“[Series star] Rosamund Pike, [who plays Moiraine], works with a motion coordinator, Scarlett Mackmin, who’s a former dancer and a choreographer. One of many issues that they developed very early on within the present was the concept that the channeling was particular person to every individual that does the channeling,” Napper defined. “So there isn’t a kind of uniform means of doing it, there’s a personalised means of doing it. Channeling really needs to be an actual expertise, whether or not it’s going via your abdomen or your arms, your arms, or whichever a part of your physique. There’s a really tangible, visceral strategy to the magic, although clearly there aren’t any swirling lights and no sparkly something [on set]. The actors are then given a type of key into that, to type of floor it in realism, which—speaking to Rafe Judkins, the showrunner, proper from the start once I arrived at first of this, one of many phrases that stored arising time and again was the way to make the present grounded. This can be a excessive fantasy with an enormous scope and large ambition, however the performances and the concepts inside these performances have to stay grounded and related for a recent viewers. So it’s at all times the main focus: the way to make the magic grounded, the way to make it really feel actual, and the way to make the performances really feel modern.”
The Wheel of Time season two streams new episodes Fridays on Prime Video.
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