Revelation began principal photography on October 29th, 2000, on location in Malta, the crossroads of the Mediterranean. The eight-week shoot continued in France, Cornwall - where the mediaeval castle on St. Michael's Mount, complete with its own myths and legend, stood in for Magnus Martel's Sacred Island base - London, Cambridge and at Pinewood and Bray Studios. Stuart Urban points out, 'We chose Malta because the island is steeped in ancient history and every square inch of the terrain is packed with interesting temples, monuments and burial places with a pan European look that offers wide varieties of architecture similar to Greece, France and Italy. We used Imtahleb (near Bahrija) for the opening Crucifixion prologue. Imtahleb is also where we built our full-size Magdalen's Chapel. St. Dominic's monastery in Rabat doubled as the Patmos convent for the finale. Malta was invaluable because it allowed us to get the best out of our eclectic locations and gives Revelation a truly epic feel'.
But as a staunchly Catholic society, Malta was also a potential problem as a location - permission to film in the famous St John's Cathedral was refused by church authorities sensitive to the occult aspects of the stunning floor where the Knights of St John lie buried under graves riddled with symbols of alchemy. Fortunately an alternative cathedral was found in Mdina where similar graves of the Knights attracted less attention.
Right from the start it was clear to everyone that Stuart Urban had a singular directorial vision. Terence Stamp says, 'In my experience, directors fall into one of two categories. There's the Stanley Kubrick variety that have a steadfast mental picture of the overall film. And there's the Federico Fellini and Steven Soderbergh type that leave corners open for interpretation. Stuart definitely falls into the former category and that's absolutely fine with me'. James D'Arcy agrees with Stamp's assessment of Urban's skills. He adds, 'Sometimes I'd be left to my own devices and Stuart would let me explore certain avenues to see where I could go with Jake. But most of the time he was very specific about what he wanted because of the Chinese Box script. One false move on anyone's part and the tightly constructed plot and the well-placed clues might not have worked so brilliantly. Revelation is my first major motion picture so I watched and learned and his advice was invaluable'.
Responsible for the one hundred plus effects shots on Revelation are Double Negative, the London Soho-based company who created computer-generated images for Pitch Black, Enemy at the Gates, The Nutty Professor 2 and the television series Randall & Hopkirk: Deceased. Double Negative producers Matthew Holden and Matthew Plummer and visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin are the trio involved in putting the finishing touches to the supernatural quest. Franklin explains the main effects: 'Our forte at Double Negative is to augment the existing story with creepy atmospherics and finessed landscapes. We've changed a lot of backgrounds for Revelation, removed modern structures and added architectural detail to existing buildings. It's all about making the environment exactly serve the parameters of the plot. The two most exciting challenges are creating Praenuntius' acolytes, his Army of Darkness, which we've given a slow-motion ghostly feel, and ensuring the climactic avalanche of sand in the catacombs attains a thrilling, seat-edged dynamic. For the latter effect we've used miniatures and digital manipulation to extend the scope of the sequence for maximum suspense and excitement'.
The computer screen images of cryptography, sacred geometry, and ancient symbolism came courtesy of the Useful Company, another rising British firm which devised the computer screen imagery for Tomb Raider among other major motion pictures.
No newcomer to the trials of special make-up effects, Terence Stamp had gone through the arduous process on Superman, Superman II and Alien Nation. For Revelation a full body cast of Stamp had to be made for Magnus Martel's gruesome death scene. Stamp elaborates, 'Although the process has moved along technically since I first did it, it's still an uncomfortable chore. I was plastered all over with a rubber solution to make an accurate body mould. It was fine, if a little cold at first, but unfortunately I'd put the protective Vaseline on my torso myself. And I didn't put enough on! The rubber set to the hairs on my chest and it was very painful. I certainly wasn't going to let anyone rip the mould off so they gradually cut it off instead. I lost a lot of hair. It spooked me out so much I refused to see the final model - and still haven't!'
Filming subject matter that was laden with premonitions and images of death and driven by the actual savagery of historical persecution gave Stuart Urban and others frequent pause for thought; 'I was continually haunted by morbid dreams, intimations of mortality that have never troubled me before. After all we re-enacting Roman rites of execution - as practised by Praeununtius and his Order - that were grisly in the extreme. And sometimes the locations linked directly with this feeling, such as the day in the Norman House in Mdina, Malta, when we were preparing to film the massacre of the Jewish alchemist and his family by Crusaders, a scene set in 1299. We discovered that our location was not only the original home in mediaeval times of the Grand Master of the Knights of St John, but also that this had been the ninth century synagogue before the pogroms against the Jewish community there. To top it all, a traitor found during the siege of Malta had been held in the pit below where I stood prior to being taken out and burnt alive 'by the town's children!'.
