"And that meant that we had to create our own London Bridge, hundreds of churches, thousands of houses and so we decided to build those in the computer. One of the reasons is that the locations that we wanted simply don’t exist anymore."

The team started by studying artists from the period who had painted landscapes of London. They then went to England to photograph buildings from the 16th century.

"These form the basis of the background plates that we used for our visual effects. In order to keep it real we have to start with reality and reality means that we went to England several times and took close to 50,000 different still photographs of locations and buildings all over England," says Weighart.

"Basically wherever we found something that’s still standing from the 16th century, we photographed it."

Emmerich and his team pioneered the technique on 2012 and it paid off handsomely with Anonymous.

"With 2012 we shot plates all over the world and then used them as the basis for our CGI and I thought that this was the way to do it with Anonymous," says the director.

"And I’m very proud of the result because the whole team have done a tremendous job. The computer images are incredible and we have used 2D images and it feels like it has been shot in 3D. The depth is incredible.

"But you know, at the end of the day, it’s the story that matters. I want audiences to be sucked into the story and forget about how it was made. The technology is there to serve the story and that’s the way I look at it.

"If the audience enjoy the story and forget about how it’s been made, then I have done my job."

Anonymous is out now.

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