The Circle of the Suns set was shot towards the end of the shoot for the Dark Crystal Series. Space on the 2 stages was tight, squeezing in several large sets as well as some smaller set pieces with working space all around each other, making an already challenging set more difficult. In these scene there are several scales of puppet, each with a different method of puppeteering.
The ramp up to the Wanderer's sleeping platform not only had to safely allow the puppeteer to walk down it in a difficult squatting position with head down and arm out in front of him, but every panel and cross brace had to be removable to allow the director the option to have Gelfling puppets, which are operated from underneath and need the floor of the set removed, to also travel up the ramp.
To give flexibility of camera position, every rock slice around the edge of the set was sculpted in polystyrene and sprayed and spread in plaster to keep weight down, these were top hung from a temporary grid overhead that allowed them to either be lifted just over camera height, or else swung out of position off set.
Another challenge here was taking the floor pattern from the graphic artist on the show and turning it into a layered file that could be cut from CNC and laid down in a grid pattern that would allow for floating one square of 4ft rostrum at a time, while always concealing that the square grid exists at all. You can see a hint of this in the drawing shown here.
