The film's snowstorms profoundly affect the mood of the film.

A More Real Epic Style
In order to step away from any prior envisioning of the Arthur story, both the production design and the visual effects departments studied extensive historical sources in order to impart as convincing a sense of reality as possible to the production. This attention to realism is as evident in the CG landscapes as it is in the costumes or any of the practical effects. Johnson says, “In keeping with the realistic look of King Arthur, wherever possible, textures were based upon photographic source material then retouched by the matte painting team during integration into the scenes.”

The dramatic atmosphere was added to by snowstorms that give the landscape a profoundly desolate mood. “Procedural textures were used to create the internal structure of ice; this was used extensively throughout the frozen lake sequence.” Actual snow at certain locations was often replaced to create a balanced feel. “Jerry Bruckheimer’s particular request was for Cinesite to replace the practical snow texture on the ground with an icier, CG surface.”

The battle of the lake of ice is the quintessential battle of the film.

Walking on Thin Ice
King Arthur takes place in the height of the Dark Ages, about a thousand years prior to the usual time-period of the story. Artorious, (Clive Owen) a Roman commander stationed in the British Isles, leads a band of knights conscripted from Sarmatia, a country below Russia. On the desolate isle they fight mainly against the Woads, a guerilla-fighting forest people led by Merlin, their mystic elder. The Woads are those people written about by Julius Caesar among others — savage tribes who paint themselves blue before going into combat, so as to terrify their enemies.

After fifteen years of service to the Empire, Arthur and his knights are ready to go back to Rome in retirement. But they are given one last mission from a visiting Roman Consul — they are ordered to advance into the northern wastes of Britain to rescue a young Roman living there at a distant outpost. So, despite the threats of the omnipresent Woads and an invading Saxon army, Arthur and his knights venture forth. It is during his fights against the Saxons and in his growing romance with the Woad princess Guinevere (Keira Knightly) that Arthur’s allegiance shifts from Rome to forging a British nation with his new allies, the Woads.

One of the highlights of the film is a battle pitting Arthur and his five principal knights against a vastly larger Saxon force. The fight takes place on a frozen lake, recalling the classic battle on the ice in Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky. Cinesite was especially attentive to detail in the creation of the ice battle. “Previsualisation was used extensively for the sequence,” Johnson says. “Crude animatics were generated from the director’s storyboards and given to editorial so they could approximate the timing of the sequence before it was filmed.” Oddly enough, the scene was shot at a location that hadn’t a single snowflake on the ground, but was rather a sprawling meadow! Hence the frozen lake sequence required 3D environments and texturing. “This scene required the replacement of everything from the canyon walls to the floor the actors were standing on. We turned a green Irish field into a rocky ice-covered gorge.”