Greek filming for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ad shoot
Filming locations on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula were chosen for a live-action campaign promoting Ubisoft’s videogame Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
By Nick Goundry 27 Sep 2018
Filming locations on Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula were chosen for a live-action campaign promoting Ubisoft’s videogame Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey.
Riffing on an iconic sequence from Danny Boyle’s classic British movie Trainspotting, the Odyssey campaign follows a young warrior having adventures in ancient Greek settings to the tune of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life.
The hero flees the authorities, camps in the wilderness, fights for his life and finally escapes a squad of soldiers by diving off a clifftop into the sea.
Production company Stink considered filming locations such as Bulgaria and Slovenia before choosing to shoot Greece as itself. Avion Films of Athens provided local servicing.
The government was happy to support a shoot celebrating an adventurous version of its own history.
Greg Panteix is a senior executive producer at Stink’s Paris office and worked on the Odyssey shoot.
“We were looking for the Greece of antiquity and nowhere else looked right,” Panteix tells KFTV of the production’s decision to film in Greece.
“The Greeks were very happy that we were shooting Greece as Greece, and especially as ancient Greece.
“For the opening shots of the village we needed a big street in an historic village setting.”
The team found the sparsely-populated village of Vathia not far from the southern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. This became the town seen in Odyssey’s opening seconds – following our warrior hero as he flees a pair of soldiers – once the design team had spent a few days building a fully-antiquated aesthetic around the existing historic architecture.
“As we were shooting in Greece, it was very easy to get the ancient-world props and dressing we needed to complete the final effect,” says Panteix.
A crucial advantage of the peninsula locations used was that they were all available within a short drive of each other. Still, the production needed to buy local hotel nights across several days for the 150-strong crew, most of whom were hired in Athens, a four-hour drive away.
Athens-based historical re-enactment enthusiasts were hired for the spot’s fight scenes, along with real Greek soldiers.
The spot’s final shot of the hero warrior leaping from a high clifftop was filmed using a drone over a real cliff location, with the diving warrior added digitally.
Greece is not yet established as a European production hub, partly because of a range of news-making economic problems in recent years. However, earlier this year the government launched a 25% cash rebate as the country’s first formal filming incentive.
Selected Credits:
Client: Ubisoft
Production Company: Stink, Paris
Director: Traktor
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Kalchev
Executive Producer: Greg Panteix
Director of Photography: Linus Sandgren
Production Service Company: Avion Films
The hero flees the authorities, camps in the wilderness, fights for his life and finally escapes a squad of soldiers by diving off a clifftop into the sea.
Production company Stink considered filming locations such as Bulgaria and Slovenia before choosing to shoot Greece as itself. Avion Films of Athens provided local servicing.
The government was happy to support a shoot celebrating an adventurous version of its own history.
Greg Panteix is a senior executive producer at Stink’s Paris office and worked on the Odyssey shoot.
“We were looking for the Greece of antiquity and nowhere else looked right,” Panteix tells KFTV of the production’s decision to film in Greece.
“The Greeks were very happy that we were shooting Greece as Greece, and especially as ancient Greece.
“For the opening shots of the village we needed a big street in an historic village setting.”
The team found the sparsely-populated village of Vathia not far from the southern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula. This became the town seen in Odyssey’s opening seconds – following our warrior hero as he flees a pair of soldiers – once the design team had spent a few days building a fully-antiquated aesthetic around the existing historic architecture.
“As we were shooting in Greece, it was very easy to get the ancient-world props and dressing we needed to complete the final effect,” says Panteix.
A crucial advantage of the peninsula locations used was that they were all available within a short drive of each other. Still, the production needed to buy local hotel nights across several days for the 150-strong crew, most of whom were hired in Athens, a four-hour drive away.
Athens-based historical re-enactment enthusiasts were hired for the spot’s fight scenes, along with real Greek soldiers.
The spot’s final shot of the hero warrior leaping from a high clifftop was filmed using a drone over a real cliff location, with the diving warrior added digitally.
Greece is not yet established as a European production hub, partly because of a range of news-making economic problems in recent years. However, earlier this year the government launched a 25% cash rebate as the country’s first formal filming incentive.
Selected Credits:
Client: Ubisoft
Production Company: Stink, Paris
Director: Traktor
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Kalchev
Executive Producer: Greg Panteix
Director of Photography: Linus Sandgren
Production Service Company: Avion Films
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