Inferno was another major international production, this time with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks returning as Robert Langdon.

The production was based in Budapest, with extensive location work in Florence, as well as filming in Venice and Istanbul. For us, Florence was one of the most memorable parts of the job. Working inside and around some of the city’s extraordinary historic buildings meant every effect had to be carefully considered and controlled.

There is something very different about doing Special Effects in locations like these. You are working in buildings and around artwork that simply cannot be replaced, so the challenge is not only achieving what the director wants on camera, but doing it while protecting the environment you are working in.

For the film’s finale, the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul was recreated on stage at Korda Studios in Etyek, near Budapest. Rather than shooting the main sequence inside the historic cistern itself, roughly a third of it was constructed full-size within a large tank and then extended with VFX. Our work included the practical water effects, with large-scale wave effects running through the set.