Alton Towers Resort - Nemesis Sub-Terra
Bottletop was delighted to be asked by Farmer Attraction Development to create the queue line and main show videos for a new ride developed for Merlin Entertainment's Alton Towers Resort.
The Nemesis Sub-Terra experience takes place within a network of underground caves discovered within the Forbidden Valley close to the famous Nemesis inverted rollercoaster ride. It is the first ever theme park ride to be given an official age rating by the British Board of Film Classification, assessing an attraction other than a film for the first time in its 100 year history.
Described as 'your worst nightmare underground', the theme park carried out research before starting work on the ride, which revealed 75 per cent the population have a phobia of being trapped underground and as many as one in five adults are scared of the dark.
Bottletop's task was to explain the Nemesis backstory, and to update it with the latest discoveries from the caves, through a series of videos. The team also produced videos to appear within the lift descent to the caves and the main viewing chamber itself. Each section of animation was storyboarded for approval by Alton Towers Resort before moving to production. It was essential to build the tension, suspense and excitement whilst also telling the story. Bottletop worked to a tight and immovable deadline as the Nemesis Sub-Terra opening was scheduled for the beginning of the school Easter holidays. Having just under 6 weeks to deliver the final videos, from initially seeing the scripts, meant some fairly long days but no detail was too small to be overlooked.
The team made embroidered badges, sourced uniforms, bought props, organised green screen filming and persuaded the landlord of a local pub to allow filming in its underground cave system. An office was also 'burgled' by a spy - while he filmed the event on a head camera. Enormous fun to make, the videos were finished in time for their deadline and have had great reviews from the audiences at Alton Towers Resort.
