Interior Valley Environment

The interior side of the valley was designed to feel far more hostile, with scorched terrain and valley walls that appeared to have been vitrified into sharp, obsidian-like glass. This glassification was the result of a jade meteor impact at the end of the valley, forming what became known as “Jade Mountain.” The area serves as the home territory of the film’s antagonists, which provides the narrative motivation for the construction of the Great Wall—to contain them within this environment.True story!

The Wall Boundary

The wall itself served as the visual and narrative boundary between the exterior and interior regions of the valley. The primary hero wall was developed through the standard DMS–TD pipeline, while versions used in distant environment shots were placed and adjusted shot-by-shot by our generalist team, following art direction. Several of the wide pull-back shots are good examples of this approach. These setups relied primarily on full CG, with selective paint projection used where needed to refine or art-direct the final look.

THE GREAT WALL
2016
Studio : Industrial Light & Magic

Role : Lead Generalist

Exterior Valley Environment

One of the film’s primary environments is the valley surrounding the wall. The exterior side initially began as a lush, forested landscape, drawing from countryside photography featuring large limestone mountain formations. As production evolved, the creative direction shifted and the team was asked to progressively reduce the vegetation. Over time, this led to a more arid look, with exposed, layered sediment and painted earth tones that better supported an early story beat to help tie the environment closer to the actual filming location.

On the exterior valley, I helped organize the environment layout, contributed to terrain sculpting, and supported the overall coordination of the asset as it developed. The environment needed to function not only for our internal shots but also as a shared location for multiple external vendors working in the same space. While the look of the valley changed significantly over the course of production, this portion of the environment was ultimately the more straightforward of the two to manage.