I was curious about the hungarian film-studios
who assisted in the many foreign productions and found out that Korda Film Studio
– one of the five biggest film-studios
near Budapest is open for visitors. I was really excited about it and on a nice
and sunny Sunday afternoon I visited the film-studio in Etyek. 
Etyek is a very nice wine region, which
can be found 30-40 minutes driving distance from Budapest.
Arriving at the Korda Film Studio I had a
feeling that I was in the middle of nowhere. Huge gray buildings surrounded me,
and as it was a Sunday afternoon I had not seen a single soul by the entrance
of the studio. Luckily I found my way around to the lobby where I could pick up
my ticket (which had to be reserved on the studio website in advance). The cashiers kindly asked me to wait
for our tour guide in the Studio’s restaurant. The restaurant was in a huge gray
buildings, and it seemed to also be a studio building as well. I noticed a
poster at the restaurant’s door which illustrated the strict seating system of two
film groups. It turned out that the two film groups are The Borgias and the continuing of World Without End which are filming now at the Korda Film Studio.
The film studio tour started with a brief memorial
exhibit of the Studio’s founder:
Sir Alexander Korda (Korda Sándor) and the Korda brothers success
story. Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian
born film producer and director who is today remembered as the founder of the
international British film industry.
During the next section of the studio tour, we were able to gain insight
into the history of film-making. We saw the initial attempts of painters from the
Napoleonic era, who were experimenting with paintings tricks, in the hope of deceiving
the viewer and letting them see the first attempts at motion picture. Then we saw early prototypes of
inventions which turn the single-moment representing photographs or drawings
into something that changes like life itself. This exhibit help me to
understood a little bit more about the evolution of film-making.
Then, in the next section our tour, the guide lead
us into the world of film-making tricks. We were fooled by optical illusions
and visual oddities being used today by the film-making industry to deceive our
perception and create on screen magic.
And then came the most interesting part of the
tour for me. We were taken behind the scenes of a real film studio! We entered
in a so called noise-room, where sound engineers add special sounds and noises
to the completed film. Our task was to imitate the sound of clattering hooves, the tappings of a high heel
shoe, and a roaring wind with the help of different tools to make the film more
realistic and lifelike.
Then we became familiar with scale models and
their usage in films, we saw a scene from an action movie, and were able to inspect props, fake snow and a dead person’s doll which were used in the film.
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| Taxidermia mask |
Then we could see a little exhibition about
the art of masking which fascinated me. We gained an insight into the work of a
special make up effects artist who contributed to the succes of a pretty
grotesque hungarian movie, Taxidermia. We were able to see the method of constructing a face mask
and body mask of a character from the movie. The conception was to create a fat
man who is almost impossible to be living, but he exists in the movie.
Finally, we could take a look at the old craft
of cartoon making, done step by step. This began by drawing every move, then colouring and adding the
backgrounds to every picture until the final step of synchronizing the movement
of the character’s mouth with the voice over.
By the end of the 2-hour studio tour we took a
walk around the outdoor sets, it was like we had been walking around the
streets of New York which were build for Hellboy 2, or we could catch a glimpse
of the Renaissance Town where the Borgias is filming now starring Jeremy Irons.
Overall I have spent a great time in Etyek,
and i really liked all the experience I have gained there. The only thing I missed
was more time to walk around Etyek and visit one of it’s wineries for a nice glass or two of wine.
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| Etyek |
Info:
Read the article about how many movies have been shot in Budapest:
Anna Bödecs is a volunteer contributor to our blog.
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