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pastelcheckereddreams · 1 year

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Four Seasons Manor (四季山庄): Set Layout!

If you’ve been following my descent into madness my research progress for my next set design project, you’ll know that it immediately became impossible for me to work out the layout of Siji Manor from screenshot studies of the show alone. To backtrack to about a year ago: it quickly became clear that the exterior shots of the manor’s first courtyard and the birdseye view we see in episode 24 is not located in the same set, or possibly even film base, as the “interior set”. Unfortunately, that secondary set is where many of the indoor scenes take place (with significant rooms, such as Wen Kexing’s bedroom being redressed to be used for other scenes in the show), and is where the secondary courtyard is located. I soon realised that I had to do three things in order to create a Four Seasons Manor for my project that feels as authentic as possible to the one we are presented with in the show. First, find the full film base on Google Earth (which has the most up-to-date satalite imagery I can find); second, identify all the buildings to create a “complete” Manor and confirm the secondary set isn’t just another part of the first; and third, find the secondary set in order to correctly map its layout and marry it with the birdseye view. Friends, I have achieved two of those three things. The second set still evades me. But so far, I have finally managed to correctly and completely identify the film base that is presented to us as Four Seasons Manor:

(Full research breakdown under the cut.)

This is one of two full manor sets on Hengdian World Studio’s No.1 Mountain in the ‘Spring and Autumn Tang Park’ filmbase. In anticipation for the birdseye plan in my set design project, I’ve gone ahead and mapped it out faithfully to the satalite image:

As you can see, there's five distinct areas that make up this manor: three courtyards (labelled 1,2,4) and two gardens (3,5). The first courtyard will be familiar to everyone who has watched Word of Honor:

It is the main courtyard of Four Seasons Manor. Likewise, the fifth area will also be familiar to you all, although you may not realise it yet. It's Sanbai Manor:*

*With the exception of the main gate. The main gate of Sanbai Manor is actually from another set in the Spring and Autumn Park filmbase - the Tang Palace. There is fantastic drone footage of that set here. The Sanbai Manor gate is at the rear of the set, but you may recognise the opening shot of this clip as another place we see in the very first episode of WOH 🤫 Edit: I forgot I had a second douyin clip for the Tang Palace set.

These are the main two areas used in WOH of this set. Confirmation of the rest of the set comes from drama New Life Begins and various douyin videos and tourist photos on the internet. I won't bore you with a breakdown because Tumblr has eaten too many drafts of this post and I am Tired, but here is a snapshot of my confirmation process:

Find the difference between these two pictures

Edit: On rewatch, I can confirm that are 4 is also used in WOH. We see it in the very first scene of episode 1, dressed as the Military Governer Li’s Manor:

Here is a daylight photograph (source here) of that same building:

You may be wondering though, about the alternate layout I have detailed in my map:

Friends, this is where I would like to hear your ideas.

After scouring many clips and photographs trying to confirm whether these photos are part of this same set or a later development, I've found that since the satalite picture of this site was taken by Google Earth in 2020, corresponding to what we see in WOH, Hengdian has remodeled this part of the set. You can see a wonderful walkthrough of areas 4 and 5 here, in which you can see the remodelled layout:

This douyin video was the last confirmation I needed to place the photographs from the article. This photograph in particular feels very much like Siji Manor to me, and so I will be trying to include this remodelled layout in my project design:

But.

Despite not having located the secondary set yet, I have been thinking over which area would be best to remodel myself, to try and incoporate the kitchen space and the two rooms it sits between, which I have confirmed to be WKX and ZZS's rooms:

Reminder of that early process here.

There are two options that I see right now:

1) I use area 4 as this second courtyard. I remove the gate, make the main room ZZS's room, remove the side halls, drop in a kitchen, put WKX's room where the gate was. Chengling's training dummies then get dropped whereabouts the hexagonal pavillion is in the alternate layout, and I tweak a random building here or there:

However, somewhat crucially - the view from WKX's moon widow would be blocked by the big building that is the centerpiece of area 5. I don't like that. Past the first courtyard, there's a certain sprawl and lack of uniformity to Siji Manor created in part by this CGI shot. I think that's why the above photo appealed so much to me.

So, 2) I remodel area 3. It's pretty sparse. I was thinking of making courtyard #2's main hall into a private study or meeting room, with the sidehalls being ZZS's "medicine room" and the "first night room" - the Cold River Room, as @minnarr called it in their stellar sleuthing post (I hope you don't mind that I'm using the name? And may continue to use it? Also, I'm still searching for this set and your sleuthing is going to be so much help.) - they could later become Chengling's room (and Han Ying's. For hanwenzhou headcanon rights).

Area 4 could then be used as a training courtyard and lecture hall perhaps? Meanwhile area 3 can be completely redone, to have ZZS's room at the bottom facing north, WKX's facing south:

The "training area" is then still technically past a covered walkway to the left of their courtyard. The spirit remains. However, crucially: The dotted line between areas 3 and 4 is indicative of a drop in elevation. The whole set is on a slope, with areas 1,2 and 3 at a higher elevation to 4 and 5. So. If the moon window in WKX's room did face west across the garden and down the mountain, it would actually be true to the CGI we see out of his window in the show: Especially because you see part of a roof. That could totally be the roof of the building that sits against the dotted line.

But additionally, there's also this alternate orientation:

It makes the kitchen feel more tucked away, and the additional screened walkway would give ZZS and WKX their privacy. But the view from the moon window would be blocked, and there's no reason to not have the rooms central to the courtyard the way they are here.

...Does any of that make sense? I bypassed Normal about this show a solid year ago. I'm leaning towards option 2 right now, but I will continue my hunt through cdrama for this other set. What's irritating is that I can see its style in lots of other places, including Lotus Pier, and I just can't find the real world setting for it...

ANYWAY, as always, thank you for joining me on my research adventures. Supporting me through ko-fi, and checking out my previous CQL projects here and on inprnt, would be greatly appreciated.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

#nikkidraws #nikkispeaks #my neurodivergance is showing #but more importantly #also my epic sleuthing skills #true to form i will now yeet this post from me because my brain is DONE with it #woh set design #set design saga #word of honor #four seasons manor #siji manor #wenzhou #my hanwenzhou agenda #shan he ling #hengdian world studios #spring and autumn tang park #spring and autumn tang garden

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