http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2004/8/22/features/8701480&sec=features
Sunday August 22, 2004
Uncovering a national symbol
The story of the construction of one of the biggest concrete structures
in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers, still fascinates many, including
premier documentary channel National Geographic. MENG YEW CHOONG spent a
day with a film crew last month as they poked and prodded into rarely
seen corners of the towers.
Capturing a never-before-seen view of the towers with a camera attached
to the cradle that is usually used by the window cleaners.
I’M actually afraid of heights,” confessed producer-director Thomas
Viner. This is not what you want to hear as you tag along with the team
that’s filming the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s second tallest
building?.
Viner is comforted by the fact that the fear of heights is by no means
exclusive to him. “We filmed the guy who supplied the lifts to the Twin
Towers, and we kind of made him stand in the lift shaft, and that was
when he told us that he is also uncomfortable with heights,” chuckled
the 32-year old Briton who works for London-based Darlow Smithson
Productions Ltd (www.darlowsmithson.com), the company entrusted by the
National Geographic TV channel to produce some of its award-winning
documentaries.
“This is a medium-budget programme, and our challenge is how to show the
innards of a building after it is built. It is like stripping off all
the skin and flesh in order to reveal the bones,” explained Viner.
Excavating the foundation of the towers being out of the question, of
course, the producer plans on tapping into the power of the computer to
show the hidden details.
“The final product would give you a sense that you are flying into the
building (akin to a bird’s eye view). You would enter the windows, and
then look at what is behind the walls. We will have to use a lot of
computer-generated graphics that are based on the architect’s drawings.
It is about blending graphics with the footage we shoot.”
Darlow Smithson has been awarded the contract to film four of the 13
parts that make up National Geographic’s soon-to-be-unveiled TV series
on mega structures. The Petronas Twin Towers aside, the other three
structures filmed by Darlow Smithson are the 13-year-old Itaipu
hydroelectric project in Brazil (touted as one of the wonders of the
modern world), the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge in Japan (the world’s longest
suspension bridge), and Europe’s Channel Tunnel (the second longest rail
tunnel).
Darlow Smithson is one of Britain’s leading programme suppliers to
British, American and international broadcasters. The company has an
award-winning track record and extensive co-production experience. It
has produced more than 150 hours of high quality factual programming for
the BBC, Channel 4 and 5 in Britain, and leading international
broadcasters including PBS, National Geographic, HBO, Discovery, TLC,
Discovery Health, and the History Channel in the United States.
The company has special expertise in the use of advanced computer
graphics and quality dramatic reconstruction, and it is here where its
expertise comes in handy as it profiles structures or building that have
already been built.
Producer-director Thomas Viner is actually afraid of heights, so getting
up to this exposed 88th level of the towers was no mean feat for him.
Essentially, the National Geographic series is about recreating the
process behind the construction of these mega structures. Prior to
coming here, the team interviewed the architect of the Twin Towers,
Cesar Pelli (cesar-pelli.com) and Charles Thornton, co-chairman and
managing principal of the Thornton-Tomasetti Group Inc (ttengineers.com)
that took care of the structural engineering aspects of the towers.
“The series is about the engineering as well as the personalities behind
the planning and construction of the structures. To that end, we
interviewed the former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, Petronas
chairman, Tan Sri Hassan Marican, and Malaysian contractors, including
those who supplied the concrete and elevators,” said Viner, who is
assisted by Caroline Anstey.
Most of the footage in Malaysia was shot by Paul Teverini, a renowned
lighting cameraman whose work has been broadcast on the BBC and the
Discovery Channel, in addition to National Geographic.
Viner added that he pored over research material for about 10 weeks
before he felt ready to interview the people behind this engineering
marvel.
Viner was lucky as the 10 uppermost floors of Tower Two (the one in
which space is available for lease) are not occupied; hence, he was able
to film columns and walls that would otherwise have been covered up by
fittings on the occupied floors.
In the end, both outdoor and indoor filming proved to be equally
difficult. For the outdoors, it meant having to secure the permission of
owners of nearby buildings to gain access to their rooftops; then there
was the ever-present humidity, which tired out the British crew.
Indoor filming involved moving from the basement floors to the uppermost
floors; and this included climbing ladders with cameras in tow as the
lift stops at the 86th floor of the 88-storey structures. All this was
done under the watchful eye of management and security personnel, of
course.
The crew also made full use of the swing stage cradle used by the window
cleaning crew; they attached a camera to it to film otherwise
unreachable parts of the buildings.
Trying to capture the enormity that is the Petronas Twin Towers …
actually, this shot wouldn’t do it, cameraman Paul Teverini was
obligingly mugging for our camera!
“We were really pushing hard all the time. We were always running an
hour behind schedule. However, if you gave me twice the time, it would
still not be enough,” mused Viner 48 hours before he wrapped up shooting
in KL.
“On the whole, the building is much more impressive than the pictures
and illustrations we had seen prior to coming here.
“It is an amazing building. It is beautiful, tall, and is considered
among the biggest concrete structures ever built. The fact that it was
made of concrete is a miracle in itself, for it is more common for super
tall structures to be built of steel. The shape and material that it is
finished with is really striking.
Currently the main ingredients of any skyscraper are steel and concrete.
A steel structure is lighter, but is more expensive. When construction
began on the NY’s World Trade Center in the late 1960s, concrete was not
a viable option because it would have required huge, unwieldy pillars to
support the towers’ weight. But high-strength concrete developed in
recent years has made the material more practical. And since Malaysia
can produce its own cement, it was cheaper to use concrete for the Twin
Towers.
“When you look at it, you feel all sorts of things. For me, it has an
almost artificial quality, like Gotham City (in Batman’s world) but at
the same time, it is distinctly Malaysian in the design motifs as well
as in the use of local materials like wood and so on. It just doesn’t
look like anything else (ever built), and I think that was the
intention. It is a unique symbol of Malaysia, and I think it has been
executed successfully.”
Back in London now, Viner is in the midst of the tedious task of editing
the six hours of raw footage down to less than an hour. When will we get
to see the fruit of his labour?
“Our responsibility ends the moment we hand the tape over to National
Geographic. It is up to them when to screen it, though we believe that
it should be sometime next year.”
That’s something to look out for: the bones and innards of one of our
national symbols laid out for all the world to see.
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