Mediaset España shoots the series 'Alatriste' at the Korda Studios in Budapest

This new series is being filmed these days on sets with 14,000 square meters, in which 2,500 extras, 50 specialists and 40 actors take part. 145 hours of recording are invested in each chapter with 12-hour work days.

Cloak and sword fights, palace intrigues, ambushes and duels of honor in the Madrid of the Habsburgs of the 17th century are some of the scenes of Alatriste, a European blockbuster that brings Arturo Pérez-Reverte's literary saga to television and is currently being recorded in Budapest.

Aitor Luna plays Diego Alatriste y Osorio, a Spanish soldier hardened in a thousand battles and veteran captain of the Tercio Viejo of Cartagena who survives by renting his steel as a hired swordsman. The filming of this adventure production by Mediaset España and Beta Film with the collaboration of DLO Producciones (production company led by José Manuel Lorenzo, creator of the television adaptation of the series), will conclude next December.

Characteristic situations of Golden Age Spain such as the corruption of the different social classes, the complex mechanisms of power, the ineffectiveness of the court and the degeneration of the Inquisition and the monastic convents are addressed in the plots of this period fiction starring Aitor Luna, Natasha Yarovenko, Lucía Jiménez, Patricia Vico, Aura Garrido and Carmen Sánchez.

Behind the cameras of this epic story is Enrique Urbizu (winner of two Goya Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for There will be no peace for the wicked in 2012), acclaimed filmmaker from Bilbao who has determined the aesthetics and guidelines of the series, directing the first two chapters and heading the directing team, which includes names such as Luis Oliveros (The angel of Budapest), Salvador Calvo (The Duchess I and II) and Norberto López Amado (The King) and those of the screenwriters Alberto Macías, Curro Royo, Carlos Molinero, Marisol Farré and David Muñoz.

The process of preparing the fiction has lasted three years, in which Pérez-Reverte himself has collaborated in revising the scripts.

Madrid, Paris and the Vatican, three nerve centers of high European politics in the first half of the 17th century, have been recreated in the prestigious Korda studios in Budapest, a film center where major European productions such as The pillars of the Earth, A world without end y The Borgias.

The set and backlot of Alatriste Korda constitutes the main filming sets of the fiction, which also takes place in the Hungarian towns of Göböljárás, Fót and Alcsút.

North American style production

The Madrid of the Austrians and various enclaves of the Vatican and the city of Paris have been recreated in the Hungarian studios for this series, which combines both natural exteriors and on-set sequences and whose recording will last a total of 27 weeks, until next December 20.

There are two main filming sets for Alatriste at the Korda studios: a 6,000 square meter covered set that houses the interiors of the emblematic places where the action takes place in the Pérez-Reverte saga such as the Alcázar Real, the Guadalmedina and Alquézar palaces, the Taberna del Turco, Quevedo's house, the theater and the silver shop, among others; and a backlot (outdoor surface where various exteriors are reproduced) of 8,000 square meters, in which enclaves such as the Alcázar gardens, the entrance to the headquarters of the Holy Inquisition, the Mentidero de San Felipe, the Registry office and the wall and access gate to Madrid have been simulated.

The sets of this adventure production are completed by the Fót and Göböljárás backlots, measuring 2,000 and 2,500 square meters, respectively, where the court prison, the Jerónimas convent, an asylum and an abandoned village have been simulated. In addition, various sequences of the fiction are set in natural locations in the Hungarian municipalities of Göböljárás and Fót, as well as the Alcsút Botanical Garden.

More than 40 actors and 2,500 extras make up the artistic team of Alatriste, which has also required the work of 50 specialists, many of whom participate in the horseback sequences and sword fights of the fiction.

In addition, a hundred professionals make up the technical team of this blockbuster, which records an average of 145 hours of recording per episode and uses the typically North American filming system, which includes 12-hour work days with one day off in the first week and two days off in the following week.