Putting ‘Elizabeth’ on the map

In Lights, Camera. . ., a below-the-line craftsperson answers a question about his or her current film. This week: Guy Hendrix Dyas, production designer on “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” talks about how painting the battle map on the war council floor contributed to that scene.

THERE are many wonderful films that revolve around this time period, so one of the challenges for us was to try to create powerful and unexpected visuals while remaining historically accurate. The map room sequence was originally scripted as taking place around a table with the queen and her military council poring over maps but we knew that we needed to bring something more to this crucial scene.

Director Shekhar Kapur’s style is very unconventional and he choreographs scenes in a manner that naturally conveys a sense of grandeur to the sets. During some of my research, I came across a small 18th century sculpture showing Elizabeth I and King Philip II playing chess. The symbolism was evident and conveyed so perfectly the political turmoil of the time that it became the inspiration for the map room set. We turned the entire floor into an Elizabethan mosaic map and added handcrafted golden ships and turrets to represent the British and Spanish armies.

This really opened up the scene and when Cate Blanchett and the other actors began rehearsing in this set everything became very dynamic. Props were moved around the floor and Remi Adefarasin, our cinematographer, was able to set up a bird’s-eye view to film Elizabeth moving around the map, speaking with her council and assessing the threat of the Spanish Armada.

This also allowed us to get the emblematic wide shot of Elizabeth standing alone on the map of England, the most powerful woman in her country but also the loneliest.

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To view this scene, go to TheEnvelope.com.