Cpetruz1’s Weblog

In her article, Karen Moltenbrey focuses on a key problem Ron Howard faced when he decided to make “The Da Vinci Code”: how to depict the Church of Saint-Sulpice. The famous Parisian church is a critical visual and narrative aspect of the novel, yet it would be nearly impossible to bring this same description onto the screen. While in other movies, there is the option of shooting at a different location and simply claiming it is the one mentioned, the same could not be done with Saint-Sulpice. Because it is such a recognizable and described church, anyone who had visited it would immediately be able to tell if a double was being used. Plus, there was never even a possibility that a film crew would be granted permission to film in the actual church. However, effects supervisor on the film, Bickerton, had previously worked on another film requiring special assistance as far as effects were concerned. He called in two talented effects artists, Breakspear and Rainmaker, who were able to devise another plan. Rainmaker went into the church and took hundreds of pictures (the article emphasized that photography is allowed within Saint-Sulpice). The images were then used to create a 3D computer generated version of Saint-Sulpice. Even when the effects artists reached the problem of how to make the image appear as though it is night, the CG artists used alpha channels, maps, and controls to grade and rebuild a nighttime version of the composition. A set was actually created on which to film the scenes-it was just enhanced the the CG replica of the church. The entire process used  to digitally create Saint-Sulpice really makes me question the idea of sacred space. The movie was not filmed in the actual church, but was rather a created replica of the space. Therefore, I think a fairly obvious question comes to mind: is the church still sacred? The greater issue behind all of this is that this isn’t the only digitally created area of worship; take Second Life, for instance. The churches and cathedrals within this world were created in a manner similar to that of Saint-Sulpice in “The Da Vinci Code”. People worship in these churches as though they are physically attending a service-this is the same in the case of actual online churches. I wonder: what actually makes a space sacred? Is it the person who built it? Because if that’s the case, then all churches are sacred, digital or not, for they are all created by man. If it’s the activities that occur within a space that make it sacred, then any form of building could be considered sacred. And one final question still comes to mind: in “The Da Vinci Code”, Dan Brown manipulates the facts of Saint-Sulpice with fiction, so can the space still be sacred if it doesn’t actually depict the real church?