Film · Netflix · 2019

6 Underground.

For Michael Bay's film starring Ryan Reynolds — a one-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar Netflix production — we built a full-scale mega-yacht and an Italian medieval palace.

Story

Act one

The Italian palace
in faux stone.

The shoot for 6 Underground spans the globe — Florence, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Turkmenistan — for nearly one hundred and fifty million dollars of Netflix production. Our brief was a set building for the Italian sequences: a medieval-Renaissance palace with a courtyard, mullioned windows, an external staircase, an octagonal fountain.

Photos from our archive dated 5 February 2018 show the piece completed on the build lot: faux-stone masonry with squared ashlar blocks, two- and three-light windows on the first floor, a side staircase leading under a portico, a large octagonal fountain with a balustrade in the centre of the courtyard. Everything sculpted by hand: every ashlar, every moulding, every detail of the masonry rendered as if it were genuine period architecture.

The Italian medieval palace built by Creation Art for 6 Underground: a two-storey building in faux stone with two- and three-light windows on the upper floor, an external side staircase, a three-arch portico, an octagonal fountain with balustrade in the centre of the courtyard, sandy ground of the build lot, cloudy sky — The Italian medieval palace, 5 February 2018

Act two

A mega-yacht
at full scale.

Michael Bay's film opens with an action scene on a mega-yacht. For the set we were asked to build the scenographic structure of the ship at full scale, on the open back lot — ready to be shot in daylight with its white silhouette against the sky, from cranes, from helicopters, from the ground.

Photos from our archive cover seven months of work: 27 September 2018 with the structure still a skeleton on a large black metal scaffold; 4 October with the white side panels already mounted; 9 October with a telescopic JLG crane working above the decks; 15 October with the ship almost complete, windows, edge details, on-site finishes. Ten days of intensive build to give the shape of a yacht — an object people know only from advertising or brand catalogues — the physical presence of a film set.

For a film that plays on iconic locations across the world, the mega-yacht was one of those pieces that could either be shot for real or rebuilt as a scene. Michael Bay chose the second option, to control camera angles impossible to obtain on an actual yacht. Our link in the chain: the white surface, the walls, the decks, the handrails, every detail the camera had to see.

Scenographic mega-yacht for 6 Underground under construction on 27 September 2018: imposing black metal scaffold in the shape of a yacht, white panels already installed on the first two decks, yellow telescopic crane with red boom at work above, white bulldozer and other vehicles on the right, sandy ground of the build lot, blue sky — 27 September 2018 — the mega-yacht structure

Another view of the scenographic mega-yacht under construction: detail of the white panels installed on the decks, visible metal structure, vehicles and workers — Side view of the structure

Scenographic mega-yacht almost complete, 4 October 2018: white decks, exterior set design, finished details, imposing structure on the back lot — 4 October — panels nearly finished

6 Underground mega-yacht on 9 October 2018: JLG telescopic crane with orange-yellow boom rising up to the yacht's decks, finished white set design, paved ground of the build lot — 9 October — the JLG crane working on the decks

6 Underground mega-yacht on 15 October 2018: ship nearly completed on the back lot, edge finishes, first-floor details — 15 October — the final finishes

Behind the scenes

Under the production designer's signature:
Jeffrey Beecroft.

The film's design is by Jeffrey Beecroft — Oscar-nominated production designer (Dances with Wolves, 1990), a long-time Michael Bay collaborator. The Italian set pieces of 6 Underground emerge from his drawings and reach our workshops as build specifications: the aesthetic of the action blockbuster, the credibility of Italian stone, the physical presence of the yacht.

The lime-finished faux stone of the palace

The medieval-Renaissance palace is carved ashlar by ashlar: blocks of expanded polystyrene shaped to simulate the squared stone of the masonry, mullioned windows modelled to size, an octagonal fountain and balustrade finished in lime-finished faux stone. The polychrome patina is in natural earths and oxides: yellow ochre, red ochre, vegetable blacks. The piece holds up to the close-up of Bay's camera.

The 1:1 scale yacht

The mega-yacht is not a model: it's a scenographic structure at full scale, with a load-bearing metal frame, panelled in wood and white fibreglass for the external surface. Three practicable levels, handrails, windows, decks. Built on the open back lot to be shot in daylight, by JLG telescopic cranes and from a helicopter — as if it were a yacht moored in a roadstead.

Integration with the real

For some scenes the film uses the real yacht Kismet (launched 2014, owned by Shahid Khan): for other scenes — those with camera angles impossible to obtain on the real one — Bay chooses the scenographic reconstruction. Our link in the chain: the external surface and the decks that the camera sees. The interior shots and the wide shots of the yacht sailing are filmed elsewhere.

~$150M

budget — one of the most expensive Netflix original films ever produced

7 months

of build documented, from 5 February to 15 October 2018

1:1

the scale of the scenographic yacht — not a model, a mega-structure

From the build lot

The hull on the back lot,
in daylight.

Photos from our archive on the build lot — the mega-yacht seen from the ground, in full daylight, from our technicians' JLG crane.

The mega-yacht under construction seen from the front on the back lot: white three-storey hull with open bulwarks and decks, internal wooden structure and visible metal lattice, green protective tarpaulin on the edges, in the foreground an orange-and-white JLG platform crane positioned for high-level finishes, clear blue sky — The JLG crane and the white hull

Panoramic view of the mega-yacht hull seen from the side: long white three-level structure with curved bulwark, black metal lattice on the decks, green protective tarpaulin on the left, yellow crane bottom-left and white truck on the right, industrial sheds in the background — Panoramic view of the hull

The yacht seen from the side

Detail of the build lot: part of the white hull visible at the top, in the foreground build materials and white polystyrene panels resting on the ground, work equipment scattered across the lot — The build lot during construction

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Feature film · action · produced and distributed by Netflix
Release year: 13 December 2019 · on Netflix worldwide
Director: Michael Bay
Production designer: Jeffrey Beecroft (Oscar nomination for Dances with Wolves, 1990 · long-time Bay collaborator)
Main cast: Ryan Reynolds · Mélanie Laurent · Manuel Garcia-Rulfo · Adria Arjona · Corey Hawkins · Ben Hardy · Dave Franco · Lior Raz
Production: Skydance Media · Bay Films · for Netflix
Italian locations: Florence (parkour on the Duomo, 600th anniversary of Brunelleschi's dome) · Rome · Siena · rooftop chase and museum scenes
Real yacht used for some scenes: Kismet (launched 2014, owned by Shahid Khan) · for other scenes our scenographic yacht on the back lot
Premiere: The Shed in New York, 10 December 2019 · Netflix worldwide distribution 13 December 2019
CA build period: Build documented in our archive photos from 5 February to 15 October 2018 · seven months of work
Documented works: Two large works that came out of our workshops for the film:

Italian medieval-Renaissance palace in faux stone (5 February 2018) — courtyard with mullioned windows, external staircase, octagonal fountain.

Scenographic mega-yacht built at full scale on the back lot (27 September — 15 October 2018) — load-bearing metal frame, white external panelling, practicable decks, finishing details.
Techniques: Polystyrene sculpting + fibreglass stiffening for the palace · load-bearing metal frame + wood and fibreglass panelling for the yacht · hand-applied polychrome finishing
Total film budget: ~150 million dollars · one of the most expensive Netflix original films ever produced
Second life: Scenographic yacht and medieval palace dismantled after the shoot · some pieces (faux-stone elements, architectural details) kept in our workshops for reuse

Other blockbusters and historic film sets

Gangs of New York — Scorsese's blockbuster at Cinecittà, 2002
Baarìa — Tornatore's film with the reproduction of the Sicilian village
The Name of the Rose — the abbey for Battiato
Young Pope — Sorrentino's papal chapel
Christ the Lord — Cyrus Nowrasteh's Egypt
Maleficent — the European premiere of the dragon on Stromboli

Second life

Seven months of build,
two hours of film.

The film was released on Netflix on 13 December 2019 with a premiere on the 10th at The Shed in New York. It received mixed reviews — audiences loved the action, critics less so the excess of camera angles — but 6 Underground became one of the most-watched films in Netflix's catalogue in the months following its release. For the platform it was the signal that the "original blockbuster" model worked, and it paved the way for subsequent investments in proprietary blockbusters.

For us 6 Underground remains one of the largest cinematic projects we worked on in the 2010s, behind Young Pope and Gangs of New York: the 1:1 scenographic yacht and the medieval palace are pieces that require months of build but then live for two hours of film, or even just ten minutes if the director decides so. It's the nature of cinematic set design: disproportion between construction and visibility.

The lime-finished faux stone techniques for the Italian palace are the same ones used in our Ancient Rome commissions and in Gangs of New York — a set-design tradition that spans decades of Italian production at the service of international cinema. The mega-yacht is a more isolated piece in our repertoire, but it bears witness to our ability to work at 1:1 scale even with objects that the set-design tradition had never systematically produced.