#bloodandchocolate2007

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More about some locations and scenes...

Kevin Phipps, who has worked as an art director on some of the most stylistically distinct films of all time, crafted a world of shadow and muted color for the wolves to inhabit. “He is one of the best art directors in the business and this is his first job as production designer,” says executive producer Hawk Koch. “The sets he created on this film were simply spectacular.”

Phipps was able to use the visual richness of existing locations in Bucharest to the production’s advantage in many instances. He transformed a former heating plant into the Brookwood Absinthe Distillery, which serves as Gabriel’s lair 

and created the Dacian Club by modifying a derelict half-finished concrete structure: Ceaucescu’s (the former leader of Communist Romania) Biblioteca Nationala (the National Library). 

Dancy attests to the seamless integration of Phipps’s sets with the city itself. “The attention to detail is such that the sets fit in perfectly with the city as it really is.”

The filmmakers’ urgent need to provide a secure shooting environment for the wolves as well as for the cast and crew resulted in Phipps’s greatest challenge: the creation of several naturalistic forest sets, including a creek and a river, on MediaPro’s soundstages.

Phipps and his team rose to the challenge by using some 2000 cubic meters of soil, 50-60 real trees along with some polystyrene and fiberglass trees to reproduce a Romanian forest so authentic that it soon attracted its own mosquitoes, lizards as well as a resident owl. He recalls, “The first time we had a show-and-tell on that forest set, suddenly I looked up and there was an owl flying around in the canopy of our trees. Katja looked up and saw the owl and said ‘Kevin, you know that’s a really good sign that we’ll be really happy shooting on this set.’”

Once the creek and river sets were conceived, Phipps worked closely with SFX supervisor Allder on the mechanics, the water system, the pumping system, the filtration and the volume of water that would bring the sets to life.

The filmmaking team had already previsualized the world of the film using small scale models. “You can get down and get your lens into the model and really see how the set is going to shoot and what will be in each frame,” explains Phipps. “This approach was especially useful given the amount of running in the film. Everybody knew what they were getting – stunts, camera, lighting, even the actors.”

sources:

https://www.vladvieru.com/blood--chocolate---2005.html

http://www.kevinphipps.com/b-l-o-o-d--c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t/b-l-o-o-d--c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t/

http://blood-and-chocolate.katja-von-garnier.com/

http://madeinatlantis.com/movies_central/2007/blood_and_chocolate.htm

[bloodandchocolatefans]

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!

So, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned Rafe and Vivian in the Blood And Chocolate movie? In the book they're canonically exes and have no relation, but in the movie they're cousins. There's so much sexual tension and chemistry between them I swear its like decided to make them still exes. Obviously its not technically canon as in both the book and the movie Vivian has other love interests...but the juxtaposition of movie and book verses and the palpable chemistry in the movie make it damn near close. The movie couldn't be further from the book as far as storyline/plot but for Rafe/Viv alone I love it an inordinate amount.

I have seen the movie, but never read the book. It sounds like taking the two of them together does make for a very interesting (and fun) interpretation. I agree in the movie there is great chemistry. it's such a shame that he's not her love interest.

[bloodandchocolatefans]

Am I the only one who loves the way he looks at her?😳🥺😭

[bloodandchocolatefans]

CHOCOLATE SHOP FACADE

The Set Concept Sketch about the Chocolate Shop Interior

CHOCOLATERIE

The location of the chocolate shop was replaced by a grill bar called Bodega "La Mahala" in Bucharest.

(Location: Strada Covaci 8, București 030167, Romania)

sources:

[bloodandchocolatefans]

Just a silly quick fanart I made 7 years ago ❤️🐺🐺❤️ Happy new year! 🥳🎉🎊

[bloodandchocolatefans]

Some cool pictures from the shooting. Enjoy! 🥰

[bloodandchocolatefans]

lt's all in the eyes...

Although the book is originally set in Maryland, USA, “most of the movie was shot in Bucharest while the rest was on a sound stage.”

It is not a coincidence.

Film director Katja von Garnier wanted to work with “real” wolves, and she found an excellent animal trainer in the person of Zoltán Horkai in the neighboring country, Hungary. (Not gonna lie: as a Hungarian, I feel very honored that the directors used - fictional - history of my nation for this wonderful work.)

“During the shoot they used 23 wolf and wolf-hybrids, including one who had one blue eye and one brown, which inspired the contacts worn by Rafe (so the human and the wolf playing him would match.)”

So this could further explain why all the wolves in the movie have golden eyes, and why their eyes turn golden also in their human form when they smell blood.

The director's statement did not end here: she wanted to examine the werewolf (or in this case, shape shifter) mythology behind the loup-garou. Discussing werewolves she said, “Usually it’s like a curse… I wanted the transformation, the change, to be something that’s beautiful, that’s liberating”.

I'm sure that is. I'm so sure.. it almost hurts.

~~~

By the way, Zoltán's animals also excelled in other movies: Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), The Secret of Moonacre (2008), The Way Back (2010), Hercules (2014), On Body and Soul (2017), etc.

~~~

sources:

openbooksociety.com

blood-and-chocolate.katja-von-garnier.com

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Rufus is the name of the wolf who played Gabriel. He was trained by Hungarian trainers. How cute! 🤗

The title says "Blood & Chocolate - training: wolf stops and watches" in Hungarian.

Transcript:

actor: Én résen vagyok! Na jöhet! (I’m on the lookout! Come on!) cameraman: Forog! (Action!) actor: Rufus, ne! (Rufus, don't!) cameraman: Nagyon jó! (Very good!) actor: Rufus! Jól van! Ez az! Ügyes! Megvan! (Rufus! It's all right. That's it. Clever. It’s done.)

Video was uploaded by Horkai Animal Training Center.

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The hunt was held in an area called Parcul Bazilescu (Bazilescu Park). “Bazilescu Park is a park located in the northwestern part of Bucharest, in the Bucurestii Noi neighbourhood. This park has an area of 13.5 hectares and was set up in 1954. It is a park where there are also several old trees, remnants of Codrii Vlasiei, a secular forest that in the past existed over a very large area around Bucharest.

Theater Building Inside the park is the Summer Theater, built in 1953 and inaugurated at the World Youth and Students Festival, which had a capacity of 2000 seats. It was a perfect place for outdoor art events in the summer. Concerts and theatre performances! After 1989 the theatre was abandoned. Since then the building has been degraded and wild vegetation, trees have begun to conquer space.”

[bloodandchocolatefans]

It's just... Wow. Love it!

The title says "Blood and Chocolate 2nd Unit - movie scenes - wolves" in Hungarian.

Video was uploaded by Horkai Animal Training Center.

[bloodandchocolatefans]

This was so interesting to watch. Like a 'second' part of the movie..

[bloodandchocolatefans]

I’ve been searching for locations and places a bit lately, and during a lot of browsing, I accidentally found some information about the “Pasajul Englez” (English Passage) that I definitely wanted to share.

"In 1855, the jeweller Joseph Resch, who had arrived from Vienna in 1837, had a house built in the heart of Bucharest. The house, designed by architect Ernst Wolsch, was located on the Calea Victoriei in front of the area where the National Theatre would later be built. The house was described as "imposing" was 3 stories and a clock tower on the roof.

The house was sold in 1885 to Grigore Eliade, the son of a wealthy innkeeper, who turned it into the "English Hotel" (Hotelul English). The furniture and fittings for the hotel were imported from London. During the conversion, the passage was constructed from Calea Victoriei to Academiei Street. The passage, was built along the lines of other passages that were fashionable in the capitals of Western Europe at the time. The passage is high (the building having a ground floor and three upper floors) but narrow and covered with a glass roof on a metal frame. Most of the hotel rooms were located along the passage. On both sides of the passage, there are metal balconies with windows behind.

The building retained its function as a hotel for only a few years. The rooms were too small to withstand the competition from other newer hotels and was turned into a luxury brothel. The windows on the upstairs balconies were suitable for women of the night to show themselves to the clientele passing through the passage. The passage allowed a more discreet access for customers who preferred not to be seen on Calea Victoriei entering a house of disrepute. In his youth, Panait Istrati worked there for a while as a valet (around 1904). Among the famous clients of the brothel were King Carol II and the writer Alexandru Paleologu. The brothel functioned until 1947 when it was closed by the communist authorities, who banned prostitution. The atmosphere of the place served as inspiration to Mateiu Caragiale for Craii de Curtea-Veche."

Okay, so that particular scene with the “Girl in Red” has taken on a whole different meaning...

source: wikipedia

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Differences between the book and the movie - supplemented -

I recently read a Fanpop article that gathered the most obvious differences between the book and the movie. https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/blood-and-chocolate/articles/30840/title/differences-between-book-film

• The general message of the book is that werewolves and humans cannot have stable romantic relationships because humans cannot love all of what a werewolf is; as a result, Vivian chooses her own kind by becoming Gabriel's wife. The movie states the exact opposite, as Vivian kills Gabriel and chooses Aiden over her pack.

• In the book, all characters are American and the story takes place in Maryland. In the film it takes place in Romania and some characters have English, French or Romanian accents. Vivian and Aiden are the only characters with American accents.

• In the novel, none of the wolves' eyes change to gold when they smell the scent of blood.

• Vivian's mother Esme is alive and her father dies in the novel; in the film both her parents are dead. In the book Vivian is an only child, but in the film it is shown that she had siblings, who were killed along with her parents.

• In the film Vivian blames herself for her family's death; she explains to Aiden that her paw prints were found by the enemy, leading them to her family. In the book, only her father dies and it was caused, albeit indirectly, by the Five.

• Aiden, Vivian, and the Five are all high school students in the book. In the film, Aiden appears to be older than Vivian, who is nineteen, and the Five appear to be in their late teens to early twenties.

• In the book, Astrid and Gabriel were never mates. Rafe is not their son nor is he Vivian's cousin. Astrid is not Vivian's aunt and is actually the main antagonist in the book, but in the movie she takes on the role of Esme, Vivan's mother in the book.

• Rafe and the rest of the Five romantically pursue Vivian in the novel, and she and Rafe had dated at some point before the story takes place. This is not mentioned in the film.

• Rafe and Astrid are lovers in the novel; in the film they are mother and son.

• In the film there is no Ordeal between the male loup-garoux, and no Ordeal between the female loup-garoux. Gabriel is the leader from the start, instead of participating in the Ordeal as he did in the book. In the film leadership of the pack is based on bloodline rather than triumph.

• In the beginning of the novel, a character named Axel - a friend of the Five and Vivian's former romantic interest - was mentioned several times. Axel does not appear in the film.

• In the novel, it was Axel, and not Rafe, who murdered a girl because she rejected him.

• Vivian has an Uncle Rudy, Esme's brother, in the novel. In the film, she has no uncle.

• Vivian works at a chocolate and sweets shop in the film; she has no such job in the book.

• In the novel, when the pack leader takes a mate, she is his mate for life unless another female loup-garoux challenges and defeats her. In the film, the leader takes a new mate every seven years.

• Vivian is presumably a gray and brown loup-garou in the book. However, in the film a white wolf was chosen to depict Vivian in her wolf-form.

• In the book, there is no prophecy.

• The book mentions an elderly female loup-garou, Aunt Persia, who cures every ailment the loup-garoux may have including Vivian's silver poisoning. In the film, she is not mentioned and an old pharmacist gives Vivian an antidote.

• In the book, Aiden gives Vivian a silver pentagram, which he later melts down into the bullets he shot Vivian and Rafe with. In the film, Aiden owns a pentagram necklace that he uses to kill Rafe.

• In the book, silver can only kill a loup-garou if it enters his blood stream. In the film, a loup-garou need only touch it for poisoning to occur.

• In the book, Vivian's parents had been the leaders of the pack before Gabriel, but the film never mentions this.

• When Vivian reveals her secret to Aiden in the book, he is terrified and wants nothing to do with her. In the film, Aiden initially feels that Vivian betrayed him and leaves her, but he reconciles with her after she saves him from the other loup-garoux.

• In the novel, the pack members shape-shift into their alternative forms. In the film, the transformation is much more spiritual, depicting Vivian and the others as humans who almost seem to ascend into a higher (or at least different) state of spiritual being, glowing mystically as they transform into wolves.

• In the book, Vivian enjoys changing into her wolf form, and does so frequently. In the film, she struggles to prevent the change and only does so when necessary to save Aiden from the hunt.

• Gabriel is twenty-four in the novel; in the film he is of indeterminate age, though clearly old enough to have fathered Rafe with Astrid.

• In the book Gabriel truly loves Vivian, but in the film he wants to marry her to fulfill the prophecy.

• In the film, Vivian shows a great amount of resistance to "Tradition" and Gabriel's laws, whereas in the book, Gabriel explains that he loves her because she cares so much for her pack.

• In the book Aiden and Vivian break up at the end, and Vivian falls in love with Gabriel and agrees to become his mate. In the film, however, Gabriel is killed by Vivian and she leaves the pack with Aiden.

• In the film, Aiden's last name is Galvin, while in the book, it is Teague.

• In the film the pack participate in special hunts, which take place in a forest. The prey is human, usually one who has done wrong to the pack, and is told that he must run through the forest in order to win his life back - if he passes the river in the forest then he can survive, if he is caught by a loup-garoux then he is killed by it. In the novel, however, there is no such practice since Gabriel does not advocate the killing of humans.

The other differences have been collected by me, let's make it welcome! (Repetitions may occur)

• In the novel, a leaderless, disarrayed pack tries to choose a new leader while Vivian is dating a human boy. When Vivian finally breaks up with Aiden, she realizes that Gabriel is the one she really needs, so by the end of the story, the two will be the leaders holding the pack together. By the end of the film, the pack (and the Five) are falling apart, in part because of Vivian and Aiden's relationship.

• In the film, Gabriel (and most of the pack) is the hurdle, and Astrid shows empathy by understanding Vivian’s point of view; while in the book, the supervillain is Astrid who tries to put Vivian out of the way by manipulating Rafe, and Vivian was saved by Gabriel. He then kills Astrid for endangering the pack.

• Rafe is killed by a silver necklace around the middle of the film; however, he dies in one of the last chapters of the novel where Aiden shoots him with a silver bullet.

• Since Vivian, Rafe and the other members of the Five are all high school students in the book, much more detailed information is available about them, from their family backgrounds to how they relate to each other. Finn and Willem are originally twins, and Gregor is their cousin. The twins' and Gregor’s father are brothers called Rolf and Raul Wagner. In the book, Gregor is blonde and is the tallest - in the movie, Ulf’s character has a similar look, who, in the book, is Astrid’s son and has the same red hair as her.

• Vivian has blonde hair in the film, but in the book her hair color is described as tawny which is a light yellowish-brown color. Rafe is seen in the movie with chin/shoulder-length golden brown hair, while all that is known in the book is that he has "long brown hair." Aiden is originally a teenaged gothic-hippie poet boy with shoulder-length dark brown hair and dark, dreamy eyes, but in the film version he has a typical “starving artist” look with shorter hair and blue eyes.

• Of the five boys in the book, Rafe is the only anti-hero, but the others are on Vivian’s side, and their friendship will remain unchanged by the end of the story. In the movie they seem to turn against Vivian or hinder her from achieving her goals.

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Recommended Fanfictions (Movie)

https://encyclopediae.livejournal.com/20155.html One of my fave Vivian/Rafe fanfics. Funny, playful and sexy.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3672132/1/Blood-Sex-and-Chocolate An outstandingly good stuff within the M (adult) category. Rafe + OC character. 

https://efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=2372470 A beautiful Vivian/Rafe M story written in Italian but never give up!, just click the Google Translate! I’m glad there are people in several countries who have noticed that brutal chemistry between them. Unfortunately, it is incomplete (yet).

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6617334/1/A-New-Wolf-In-Bucharest It’s a Twilight + B&C crossover fanfic without completion. Rafe + OC character. 

Have fun guys and feel free to share your opinion with us or recommend your favourites! 

[bloodandchocolatefans]

~Yes, on top is how I imagine you.~

[bloodandchocolatefans]

Vivian’s full name is Vivian Gandillon - the writer created Vivian's character as a descendant of the medieval Gandillon family who, in the late 16th-century France, were accused and executed for being werewolves. The term “loup-garou” is used several times in the movie, meaning werewolf in French.

This is a painting of Henri Boguet, the French judge who recorded the Gandillons’ story and took part in their trial.

https://bizarreandgrotesque.com/2016/10/30/the-gandillon-werewolf-family/