Animated Views’ Jeremie Noyer e-mailed us to tell us that his newest Caspian article is online: a second interview with art director Frank Walsh, on the Final Battle, with exclusive pictures and blueprints. Here’s the summary from the top of the article, followed by a link to the rest!

You may remember that, in our first interview with Prince Caspian Art Director Frank Walsh, there were some memories of his experience on set that he wanted to save for another time.

Now, that time has come to share with you all these amazing behind-the-scenes stories that make us realize today’s animation is not only about making animated features and shorts, but also that the present and the future of this art is in its co-operation with all the exciting disciplines at work in filmmaking. Frank Walsh’s position in the process, at its core, made him the perfect expert to tell us about that, and he has several stories to share with us!

So, let’s begin with some aspects that may be taken for granted on screen, but that prove to be highly characteristic of state-of-the-art visual effects filmmaking: the Telmarines’ weapons in Prince Caspian’s final battle. As you shall see, there’s more than meets the eye!

Frank Walsh: On set with Prince Caspian ’s Final Battle

0 people like this post.

Like 

In its spectacular setting and storytelling, Prince Caspian proposes a unique blending of live-action and CG animation. So, Animated Views was anxious to talk with the movie’s VFX supervisors Dean Wright and Wendy Rogers about how they made the magical world of Narnia really take life right before our eyes. Both VFX wizards are no strangers to the company of Andrew Adamson, one having worked on the visual development of Shrek and the other having been part of the first chapter of the Chronicles.

But that’s not all about their respective credits!

Dean Wright’s been involved with motion picture VFX for over a decade, on such prestigious projects as Titanic, What Dreams May Come, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, all Oscar winners for their innovative effects work. In fact, the Michigan native enrolled in the University of Arizona film school to pursue a career as a filmmaker. After completing his studies in 1986, he secured his first job on a western movie-of-the-week entitled Desperado. Relocating to Los Angeles in 1989, he soon landed work with one of the industry’s most prominent directors, James Cameron, on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The rest is history…

And, as for Wendy Rogers, she has a background in both live-action and animation since she was involved in animated features like Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Flushed Away for DreamWorks and in Batman & Robin, her second Batman movie since she made her debut working at Pacific Data Images – now PDI/DreamWorks – (Batman Forever, Waterworld). A native of Melbourne, Australia, she majored in business studies as a student in Brisbane. She began her career in computer programming before segueing into graphic design and visual effects. She moved to the US in 1991 and first worked as a senior animator at PDI , where she first met another rising visual effects talent, Andrew Adamson (first working with him on Barry Levinsonʼs Toys). Her early animation and CG work includes such live-action credits as Oliver Stoneʼs Natural Born Killers and Brian de Palmaʼs Carlitoʼs Way, as CG supervisor on the epic Waterworld and as digital artist on Peter Jacksonʼs 1996 horror film, The Frighteners, before joining DreamWorks in 1997 on Shrek.

So, let’s move forward in time, 1300 years after the first chapter of the Narnia Chronicles, and discover a whole new world…of Visual Effects!

Read the interview at Animated Views

0 people like this post.

Like 

iF Magazine has interviewed composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Check out the full interview at the source link, or just read the portion below.

iF: There’s a real flow to PRINCE CASPIAN. Talk about how you integrate the orchestra with your samples for its unique, and melodically pleasing sound?

Harry Gregson-Williams: Caspian is more or less an acoustic score, as was LWW. As I often do, I integrated some of my customized sounds (nothing heinously electronic!) alongside an orchestra, a choir and various ethnic instruments from all around the world to create the sound of Narnia. It is amusing to me that on LWW I seemed to ruffle some people’s feathers for sounding too electronic. Please! I enjoy and listen to plenty of ‘electronic’ music and sometimes create scores along those lines, but…. well…. I don’t know what some people’s idea of ‘electronic’ is, but it’s not mine.

iF: You make ample use of choral music in PRINCE CASPIAN. Do the words have any actual meaning, a la Howard Shore’s use of Elvish in his RINGS scores?

Harry Gregson-Williams: As it happens they do, and they did for the most part in LWW. There are many sections where I used various Runic phrases (a very old English language) which served as exclamations that the choir would sing – usually small, rising phrases that I always thought of as a sort of ‘Greek Chorus’ commenting on the action as it happened. Also, in the more noble and heroic parts of the score there is a large use of Latin. Secular Latin.

iF: Is it more difficult writing “lighter” fantasy scores like SHREK and the first NARNIA, or going for the more sophisticated sound of epics like PRINCE CASPIAN?

Harry Gregson-Williams: If you know me, you’ll know that I find it stimulating and creatively necessary to move between genres. I wouldn’t say I find any particular thing easy, either. Working on the NARNIA movies has been a blessing and I have been aware of what a responsibility this has all been. I’d follow Andrew Adamson in to any old battle at any old time, too. He’s a brilliant director who has an amazing ability to get the best out of the people around him, and he’s a good friend too.

iF: How do you see your NARNIA sound developing for the next film THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER?

Harry Gregson-Williams: No idea. Ask David Arnold — he might have given this subject some thought!

iF: In addition to scoring CASPIAN, you also voice the swashbuckling squirrel Pattertwig. What’s it like to finally be part of the fantasy universe? And do you hope for an action figure?

Harry Gregson-Williams: When I phoned my two children from a London ADR stage to tell them that I was about to voice one of the characters in the movie, there were squeals of utter delight- initially. But as my son, not so much his sister, discovered that it was to be Pattertwig’s voice that I was going to do and not some mighty Minotaur or something, he had great difficulty hiding his disappointment! It was fun to do nonetheless, and yet another reason I feel amazingly fortunate to have been a part of the Narnia adventures thus far. Of course, a Pattertwig action figure would have to be kept on a very high shelf, well out of sight …

0 people like this post.

Like 

Here it is, the interview that many of you have been waiting for. Prince Caspian himself, Ben Barnes. He walked into the room and really ran the place. A totally cool and laid back guy, he was really easy to talk to. After the interview, Ben got a sword. One of the toy, Caspian swords, that makes a noise when you swing it. The first thing that he did when he got it: he swung it at my neck. He was very excited to finally have a sword, and whenever he walked around, he was swinging it, so that it would make the awesome slashing sounds.

Paul Martin: Hi!

Reporter: Hello, gorgeous!

(laughter)

Ben Barnes: (laughs) Dang! This is gonna be fun!

Paul Martin: How you doing? Paul Martin, NarniaFans.com

Ben Barnes: Ben, nice to meet you. How are you?

Paul Martin: Good, nice to meet you.

Ben Barnes: Narnia fansite, huh, that’s cool.

Reporter: So, how exciting was it for you to get this part to be Prince Caspian?

Ben Barnes: Um… do you know, I can’t even describe that, that evening I found out. I told them to ring me anytime that they made their decision. Just ring me either way, I’ve gotta know either way, and it was about four a.m. London time when they called me, and I was just ran around the house, screaming. I can’t explain to you the thrill of the first, you know, lead… Hollywood… big film.. and particularly when it’s something that you’ve grown up reading and you don’t get many moments like that.

Reporter: It is quite big though… the pressure on you alone must have been quite a bit. At what point did that hit you, the size and scope of the movie as a project?

Ben Barnes: I don’t know. I rented the first movie when I was auditioning, and I thought ‘these are big, aren’t they?’ Cause I remember watching the BBC series and finding it just charming and lovely and I, you know, I was eight, and it’s magic and it’s real. And then you watch it back, and you go ‘It’s just a dwarf in a mouse suit. It’s just a… that’s not an effect! That’s not a mouse, that’s a dude!’ And I brought that up with Warwick, cause it was him in the original series. You know, and I watched a few minutes of it when we were shooting this, and I just, you just think it’s lost… you can’t watch too much of it because it’s like all those things. It’s like when you rewatch old He-Man episodes and you realize they’re just using the same frame over and over again, and you don’t want it to lose it’s magic. Kids today don’t know how good they’ve got it, I mean, I was completely overwhelmed by the way it looked last night. I mean, I wondered what Andrew’s been doing since September and now I know.

Reporter: Was it easy for you to watch it as just a movie and enjoy it…

Ben Barnes: No.

Reporter: …or were you picking at everything you did?

Ben Barnes: I wasn’t picking, I found it very hard to form any sort of thoughts about anything as I was watching it. But I was… I might as well have been watching it on my own. I mean, I was totally engaged in it. I remember watching the first ten minutes of it and sort of sitting with my feet up on the seat, thinking, you know, as Glozelle moves towards the wardrobe that I’ve hidden in, with the secret passage… feeling tense. And then realizing that I knew that I’m not in there, so there’s no reason for me to be. And I kind of felt a little bit like that all the way through. I felt like I wasn’t quite sure what was gonna happen next, even though I’ve already shot it, because a lot of the lines, even the dialog had changed for the animated characters. They changed a lot of the dialog from the original script, you know, Eddie Izzard, one of my comic heroes, I’ve seen him so many times on stage. And he’d obviously just gone in there and thought, ‘well it’d be funny if I did this, and how about this way’ and I can just imagine him doing it. And it was great to sit down and see what is essentially a year of your life condensed into two and a half hours of relentless action and emotion and all that good stuff. What was the question?

(laughter)

Reporter: It think you got it, about could you just watch it and enjoy it as a film, that was the question.

Ben Barnes: Right, yeah. I mean, no I think is the short answer to that. I mean, I need to see it again to be able to relax a little bit. I was feeling kinda sick before it. Because it’s been such a long time.. ‘what did I do? Did I know how to act then?’

Reporters: (talking over each other) Ben did you — How did–

Ben Barnes: Wait, uh disfu– (laughter)

Reporter: Was..

Ben Barnes: I didsu– (laughter)

Reporter: Was it tough to get used to the choppier style of acting as opposed to the stage, where you are a character all this time?

Ben Barnes: Yeah, yeah. It is, it’s a different skill entirely. On stage you have two and a half hours to go through a two and a half hour journey. And this is seven months to go through a two and a half hour journey. So you have to kind of syke yourself up for each individual moment. And I think, actually, the main enemy there is that you can syke yourself up too much for one particular moment, because it’s the only moment you have to make sure of that day. And so it’s the most important thing in the world to you at that moment and it actually might not be that important a moment. And I think you have to remember that it’s part of this whole through line, and there are moments where it has to ease off, and you can’t be too intense and earnest about it all the time. But I think it’s probably something that takes years to get used to the difference and be able to kind of flit between the two, and obviously most of my experiences on the stage. I’m kind of looking forward to doing more in the film world and seeing how I get on.

Reporter: I can imagine how excited you were to get the role, but I’m sure there was a lot of stress as well, having to make the decision to leave History Boys as well. Could you talk about that?

Ben Barnes: Yes. It was a very difficult period for me, actually. Much more difficult than I kind of let on at the time, I think. You know, it’d always been my dream to work on The National Theatre. (England’s Royal National Theatre). If you’re British and an actor, and you’re ten years old, and you’re going to The National Theatre with your parents; that’s the pinacle of all acting, really. And then I got this job, and I’ve been on the tour with them for six months and I was in the west end, and it was this amazing play by this brilliant British playwright, Alan Bennett. And then it just so happens that a few weeks before the end, you get this opportunity to work on C.S. Lewis, another great British thing, in a film context, which you haven’t really done. I had only done two films before and it was just unfortunate that both those, sort of, dreams came true in the same year. And that sounds like an awful, conceited thing to say, you know, ‘whoa is me, two of my lifelong dreams have come true in the same year.’ But actually, it was a difficult time, because I consider myself to be quite a loyal guy, and it was tough for me to leave earlier than I wanted to. And I hoped it would work out, but it didn’t quite.

Reporter: Ben, did you feel that your character conveyed a specific message, and if so, what?

Ben Barnes: I’m not sure there’s… I’ve been discussing this in the other room. What I like about Caspian: it’s not too spoonfeedy. There’s not one particular moral message that kind of comes to the fore, but I think that there are good lessons in there. I mean, there’s moments where he makes mistakes and you learn about his regret of those mistakes. And there’s moments where he has to trust in other people around him, and their ideas, and learn to kind of concede. And then there’s, obviously, this sort of overarching message that believing in something that’s greater than yourself. And, you know, nature is the thing that saves the day at the end, and you know, fifty years ago when these books were written, that was a much more allegorical message. And now it’s something that looks really cool, but I think it’s there if you choose to see it. I think that Miraz – Telmarine – imagery is very strong. I mean, you’ve got all the eagles, which is a very sort-of Nazi-esque kind of look to it, but it’s only there if you really look to see it, you know, this faceless race with this ethnic accent. And it’s set during World War II, and you know, Sergio would be the first to say, he thought Miraz was kind of, that sort of Hitlerian figure. And then you look at Caspian, and his uncle has murdered his father, and has him thinking whether vengeance is the best policy, you know, which.. Pop quiz: which Shakespeare play does this remind you of? You know, so yeah, I think there’s a lot of these interesting layers, and I think there’s a lot of good, interesting moral messages about humility and all those. You know, there’s a lot of different messages in there, and they’re there if you choose to see them, and if you don’t, then there’s cool battle scenes.

Male Reporter: What are your thoughts on being sexy and a Hollywood heartthrob?

Ben Barnes: Ummm…

Male Reporter: Sorry, I have to ask.

Ben Barnes: Really, ummm… you don’t have to.. Sorry..(laughter) that was your question?

Female Reporter: Let me, take it from a woman.

Ben Barnes: Okay, you ask. (laughter)

Reporter: I saw the film last night..

Ben Barnes: Yes, yes.

Reporter: And all of the women around me, including yours truly, were swooning.

Ben Barnes: She’s much better at this than you. (laughter)

Reporter: We were like, all, is he good looking?

Ben Barnes: Yeah, now you’re embarrassing me, stop it. (laughter)

Reporter: How are you going to take it, because you’re going to get this?

Ben Barnes: I don’t know, I take it as it comes. It’s all very flattering, and still feels slightly ridiculous and surreal at the moment. You know… take it as it comes. It’s putting a smile on my face.

Reporter: Was the kiss between you and Susan, or Prince Caspian and Susan, the epitome for you?

Ben Barnes: Was it what?

Reporter: The epitome, the big thrill in the film.

Ben Barnes: No. I was worried about it, actually, if I’m being honest. Not doing it, it’s fine. You know, I’ve done screen and stage kisses in almost everything I’ve done, so that part of it is fun. But I was actually worried about it because it wasn’t in the book, and as a Narnia fan I knew it wasn’t in the book. And I thought, actually, there’s certainly one massive scene between Caspian and Susan that’s not in the movie. It will be in the deleted scenes, but it’s not in the movie. And I think it helped a lot that it wasn’t in the film. I understand why they took it out. And actually, seeing it last night was one of the things I was most relieved about, because I thought it really was something that felt very real. There’s a few glances between them, and then they go through this thing together, and they don’t really talk about anything because they’re in the midst of doing all this stuff, and then they say goodbye, and she walks away, and she thinks ‘you know what, I’m not coming back, why not?’ And it felt like a real moment, and that’s thanks to Anna and thanks to Andrew and you know, I’m just standing there, really. You know, I receive a kiss, that’s the easiest job in the world. But it did feel like something kind of quite subtle and real, and I felt the same. Well not the same, kind of relationship between Caspian and Peter, because I was worried about that being a bit too rotting stags, or whatever. But actually, it does feel very born out of the story, and born out of these situations they find themselves in, and the tragedy of losing the people in the night raid, and stuff, and it sets them really on edge. And neither of them are quite sure where they fit in this world. One was a ruler and then came back, and the other, my character, is very ambivalent about where he finds himself and he doesn’t feel he’s ready to be a king or a leader or a man yet, really. And yet he’s forced into this situation, so I think, I was very please at the subtlety and the, sort of, the adult feel of the relationships.

Reporter: How is it playing a younger person when you’re twenty-six – but you look like you’re seventeen or eighteen – to play that?

Ben Barnes: I honestly didn’t play an age, I think it’s very hard to try to play younger or older. I think you get in a world of trouble if you start trying to play an age. I think you are the age you look, and people will kind of believe it, or they won’t. And I thought it was very important for the story of our version, that Peter and Caspian seemed like similar ages, and I think they do.

Paul Martin: Now, you said before that you had never ridden a horse before, but then you said that you did. Can you sail a ship for Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

Ben Barnes: No. And, uh, but now I’ve definitely got the part, I can say whatever I want, so I CAN’T SAIL A SHIP! (laughter) AT ALL! (laughter)

Reporter: Did you get to take a sword home with you, or anything from the set?

Ben Barnes: Do you know what? I asked for a sword, I still haven’t got it. WHERE’S MY SWORD? (laughter) They said they would give me a sword, but I really wanted one. I got one of, you know, Edmund’s torch. I’ve got one of those.

Reporter: You’re gonna need one to beat the women off. (laughter)

Ben Barnes: (laughter) Ha ha! I love her!

(laughter)

Reporter: Can you tell us about one of your most embarrassing moments on set? Were there any?

Ben Barnes: Do you know what, there were a couple. My very first day on the actual set, I wasn’t shooting anything, I was doing a costume and make-up test. I’m sure William has told you this already, because he’s kind of proud of it. I had hair extensions in, they were trying a wig as well, they weren’t quite sure which to go for, so I had the hair extensions and the wig, and this fake tan, and I had the costume on for the first time, and I had spent two hours. They were trying to get it right for when we started filming, because then you can’t change it. And I was standing there, waiting for them to come back from set, and I could see Andrew’s car coming towards us to come and sort of check me out and we were discussing it. I was a little nervous, I had only met him like twice before, and Will comes up to me as a joke, and pretends to throw orange juice in my face. But instead of pretending, he squeezed the thing, and it goes *sshhshshshhhh* all over me. (laughter) And I’m like ‘you little..’ and I start, and he just runs. (laughter) Will is really fast. So he’s just gone. And I’m just standing there, surrounded by these poor people who spent ages dressing me up and making me up and doing the hair, and they’re all surrounding me, just going *mouths dropped open*. (laughter) You know, their mouths agape, and Will’s run off, and Andrew’s come up, and we have to go in and get changed again, so that was really embarrassing. But one they really set me up on was, you know the scene at the beginning, where the professor wakes me up and he puts his hand on my mouth and I go, ‘Oh, it’s you, five more minutes.’ You know, that bit. Andrew came in and he goes ‘Okay, that was good, we got it, we just want to change a little something with the lights. We just gotta turn up just slightly, do exactly the same thing Ben, same thing.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And I go back to sleep. You’re kind of vulnerable in this position, I realize now, when you’re asleep with your eyes shut. And instead of Dr. Cornelius, I feel these lips on my lips, and I’m like, ‘if this, if I open my eyes, and this is the professor, I’m gonna be furious.’ (laughter) So I open my eyes, and it was the director’s assistant, who’s quite good looking, so it was okay. (laughter) I’m sure it will be on the extras.

Reporter: Did you ever get Will back?

Ben Barnes: Did I ever get Will back? No. Well, not in so many words, but ther was continual banter every time I would draw my sword. I’d be like ‘Oh, so.. how long is your sword, Will? Big as that?’ And he’d be like ‘no, it’s not.’ So, I had the biggest one, so I was one up on him there.

Reporter: Speaking of that, are the action scenes all just work, or can you have a little fun when you’re doing that, too?

Ben Barnes: Umm, half and half. I really enjoy choreographing them and rehearsing them, and when you actually get to do them, actually, it’s four o’clock in the morning, and it’s raining and you’ve got pathetic tennis elbow and it can be quite grueling. But really satisfying when eight guys come at you and you’re just like: ‘one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and done.’ (laughter) And you can’t lose because you’re in the next movie.

Female Reporter: Are you dating anyone?

Ben Barnes: No.

Male Reporter: Is there a follow-up question to that? (laughter)

Female Reporter: No.

Ben Barnes: Thank you, everyone!

Reporters: Thank you!

Paul Martin: Thank you very much!

Ben Barnes: Cheers.

Paul Martin: Awesome job in the movie.

Ben Barnes: Thanks

Paul Martin: (hands Ben a NarniaFans.com card) Here’s my website.

Ben Barnes: Cool, these are the real, the real real fans.

Paul Martin: The real deal. They’re gonna love it!

Ben Barnes: Oh, good! Thank you very much!

Up next in the series, we’re going to talk about the exhibit that was on display upstairs from the interviews. It’s right on time, as the exhibit opens this weekend! Stay tuned!

0 people like this post.

Like 

This is the fifth interview in the NYC Prince Caspian series. In this interview, we have producer Mark Johnson talking about the challenges that they faced with bringing Prince Caspian to the screen. He spoke of the difference between the filming of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Prince Caspian, and the possibility of combining Caspian with Dawn Treader.

Mark Johnson: Who have you already talked to?

Paul Martin: Almost everybody

Mark Johnson: So, you all saw the movie last night?

Paul Martin: Yes, very much enjoyed it.

Mark Johnson: Oh, good, perfect.

Reporter: Tell me about the challenges going into a second one. The first is always hard because there are no expectations, but now you have so many expectations. What are those challenges?

Mark Johnson: You know, the first one we were so mindful of the readership, the loyal readership to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and didn’t think we could make a lot of changes. Because we almost felt that the audience was sort of daring us to make a movie that was faithful to the book. I’ve done a lot of movies based on books, from The Natural to Donnie Brasco to My Dog Skip to The Notebook, and a lot of them: we’ve made big changes. We made big changes to The Notebook and The Natural, for instance. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe we just didn’t feel that we could do it. And we were very, I felt, very faithful to it, and that’s what the audience told us. Even to the degree they’d say things like ‘gosh it was so great that you were so true to the book, loved the scene in the frozen waterfall,’ which of course is not in the book, but it just felt that it was in there. On this one, two things: one, we felt that we had the trust of the audience, that they knew that we were not trying to bastardize the books in any way. And we also felt that Prince Caspian the book didn’t really lend itself to a movie. Didn’t lay out as a movie. We were really perplexed. Andrew and I talked, briefly, about possibly combining it with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. So we made some structural changes and elaborated on some things that are in the book. But I think we’re still very faithful to the characters, the journey of the characters, and to the themes of loss of faith and regaining faith that are in the book. But the readership is so strongly loyal and these books are so vivid in so many people’s minds that you just have to be careful about not playing around with them.

Reporter: Did you ever run into any licensing problems using the books? Or how does that work?

Mark Johnson: No, because the C.S. Lewis Estate works sort of hand in hand with us. And, in fact, Douglas Gresham, who is C.S. Lewis’ stepson, is a co-producer of the film with us. So they’re very involved. And they read all of the scripts and are involved in casting and luckily, we have a wonderful partnership with them and we like working with them a lot.

Reporter: You also have a partnership with Walden Media, with the travelling show with the costumes, and what have you. Why did you see a need to keep this going?

Mark Johnson: I’m not involved in that. I know that there’s, right now, a sort of exhibit, I think at Disney World. I’ve never been to it, but I’ve seen what it is. It’s supposed to be as much promoting the books as the movies. And the world of Narnia. And, as it turns out, these movies will be.. in a perfect world every two years we’ll have one out there. So it also keeps them alive.

Reporter: Were you surprised by how much money the first one made? Because there’s a good movie, and there’s a great movie, and then you go beyond into the stratosphere. How surprising was that for you?

Mark Johnson: I know.. I know.. It’s always surprising. People said ‘Oh, you must have seen it coming.’ You didn’t really. That’s a lot of money. We did three quarters of a billion dollars worldwide box office, you know, and we were successful everywhere. You can’t and I can’t take it for granted on this one. People said ‘Oh, of course you’re gonna do fine, you’re a sequel to a successful movie.’ I don’t think that’s true, and there are examples of movies that weren’t that successful. You still have to make a good movie. That kind of money is pretty staggering. But then again, I just heard that Iron Man did thirty-eight million dollars yesterday, so it’s sort of like… numbers.. it’s all sort of relative. You know… who knows. Most of the films I’ve produced have been successful, but nothing on that level. Rain Man did probably about four hundred million worldwide, or something like that, but most of them are much more modest than that. So all of a sudden to happen to do one in those numbers is both exhilarating and a little scary.

Reporter: Do you have a Narnia jet?

Mark Johnson: (laughter) Well, my yacht says The S.S. Narnia. No, there’s no yacht. No, a lot of people share in the success of it. For me, I’ve never done a movie like that. I would see some of those big fantasy effects films, and say ‘how do they do that? how do you do a second unit and a third unit, and visual effects where you have a character talking to a two-inch mouse which is really just a tennis ball on a wire that somebody’s moving around like that, you know. And so I just wanted to do it. And then I just fell in love with the world of Narnia. And what’s great about the franchise is that each book is so different from the one that preceded it and the one that follows it.

Reporter: You mentioned all the things you have to deal with, the CG effects and everything. How important is it to have somebody like Andrew who knows all that stuff?

Mark Johnson: Well, it’s remarkable, because often a director will be involved in a big visual effects film, and he or she will say to the visual effects supervisor: ‘can I do this?’ or ‘can I do that?’ Andrew knows those answers better than anybody. He has a great team around him, but he knows those answers. So that he is invaluable. And yet at the same time, I was telling somebody earlier, the most important thing is that you not… it’s all about characters. It’s all about characters in the story. And so the effects can be great, and the locations are great, but at the end of the day, those are the side-dishes. So what you have to keep mindful of, when you’re looking at dailies there on the set, is ‘do I really care? Is this moment coming across?’ Because it’s so easy to get distracted and say ‘oh good, that explosion went off beautifully there, and the camera moved like this and that.’ But it’s really in the face of an actor and whether or not that actor shows, or can somehow give you the feeling.. the sensation that you want out of him or her.

Reporter: I have no doubt this film will do well, but it is coming out in a summer that is ridiculously overloaded with potential blockbusters. The first movie came out over Christmas. Was there any kind of hesitency to release it in the summer? Especially like this one?

Mark Johnson: Well the first movie made sense for Christmas, and not just the snow. Father Christmas and all of that. It was very much a Christmas film. We were told at the time we were gonna get stomped by King Kong. And we ended up taking care of the big ape. Ironically, the only place in the world that King Kong did better than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is in New Zealand. Which.. Andrew Adamson is from New Zealand, as is Peter Jackson, so I don’t think Andrew took it well. (laughter) But, you know, it’s ideally, I think the adage, or what people want to believe, is that successful movies beget successful movies, so people start going to the movies again, and yeah. It’s really scary. I look at Iron Man is going to do over a hundred million dollars this weekend, and next weekend is Speed Racer. The next weekend is us. The next weekend is Indiana Jones. And there’s The Dark Knight, and a bunch of really good movies coming out there. So hopefully we’ll stick around. There’s no doubt that Indiana Jones will be number one movie of Memorial Day. So we’ll see. It is scary.

Reporter: Because you mentioned the worldwide success of the films, do you notice more of a fervency in the fanbase in England as opposed to the United States? Or is it pretty common across the board?

Mark Johnson: I think it’s pretty common across the board. You know what’s interesting: New Zealand, when we did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all of our crew members had read it as children. C.S. Lewis was one of the staples. It’s not quite as across the board in the U.S. But in England and Australia and New Zealand, everybody has read those. And I don’t know if that’s true of just fantasy books in general. And a lot of people have said to me over the past six months, ‘aren’t you worried that fantasy films are falling apart?’ And there are a couple of movies that they could point to. And I always think that those movies just didn’t have the characters, and consequently the heart, that hopefully we have. Because at the end of the day, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the scene that’s most important to me is not the big battles, and flying this and talking lions. It’s really Lucy meeting Mr. Tumnus, and you say that’s sort of the heart and soul of the movie and that’s why the movie works.

Reporter: Andrew said that he had signed on to produce the next one, too. Will you still be a producer, and how do you feel about the next director?

Mark Johnson: Well I think that the perfect person to direct the next movie would be Andrew. And Andrew’s not going to do it. So you say, alright, who’s the perfect person after Andrew? And Michael Apted is a director I admire a lot and he’s very strong with performances and consequently story. And I think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a perfect movie for him to be doing. And, I think, it’s not that he hasn’t done big visual effects films – he did a James Bond film – but I’m excited about that. And of course Andrew will still be involved. One of the smartest things they did on Harry Potter was have Alfonso Cuarón direct the third one, and in many ways he was not a likely candidate; he had just done Y tu mamá también. He and I had done A Little Princess together, so I knew that he would be perfect for that, but I’m not sure that the world did.

Reporter: What was it about Ben Barnes that fit the role of Prince Caspian?

Mark Johnson: I think it’s…in a strange way you needed to buy him more, as a character who wasn’t sure of himself – who didn’t think he was a prince or a king – than, when at the end of the film, when he becomes that person. In many ways, the key moment is when Aslan says ‘rise kings and queens of Narnia’ and the four Pevensies get up and Caspian stays down, and he says, ‘all of you’ and Caspian says ‘I do not think I am ready.’ I like that Caspian, and that’s what we needed in it. We didn’t need just a good-looking, heroic, self confident young man, but a man who was, I guess, vulnerable. And we saw hundreds and hundreds of actors for that part. And Andrew had originally thought that the Telmarines would be this pirate race, so he liked the idea that they had a Mediterranean accent. Spanish, Italian, French – somewhere in there. So we saw a lot of boys and young men from Spain, Mexico, Italy and it was hard. You need the character, you need the physicality, you need the vulnerability, you need the ability to play that accent. And then, also, in some cases, also be able to speak English well.

Reporter: With the success of the first movie being so huge, was there ever any danger of this one having too much money available to you?

Mark Johnson: Well, that’s an interesting.. there’s never enough money, no matter what you do. I executive produced a film called Ballast that won the Sundance Best Director award, this year, and we did it for nine hundred thousand dollars, and there wasn’t enough money there, and all of a sudden you’re doing a movie that’s seemingly hundreds of millions of dollars and there’s never enough money. But the beauty of making films and not having enough money, from a producer’s standpoint, is that it forces you to be resourceful and inventive, as opposed to, ‘okay, we’ll just sort of throw money at the problem.’ And yet, when you are in this world and you are creating characters, believable characters, it just unfortunately costs a lot of money. There are people who do it, you know, people I’m constantly trying to learn from. I’ve become good friends with Guillermo del Toro because Pan’s Labyrinth was made for a lot less money, and it’s visual effects were pretty remarkable. But, you know, Aslan has to be completely believable. If you don’t believe that’s a real lion, I guess until Liam Neeson’s voice comes out of his mouth, then we’ve failed.

Reporter: At the end, I was getting ready to scream, because ‘Where’s Aslan?’ You guys were really able to milk it, and keep the movie exciting to the very end! Because I was looking for this lion to come.

Mark Johnson: I know… I know… I’m really pleased to hear that. It’s in the book. It’s a hard one, because Lucy’s sister and brothers may be dying in the middle of a battle, and yet she’s having a conversation in a field, you know, with Aslan. And yet, he comes in and wakes the trees and saves the day.

Reporter: Thank you!

Mark Johnson: Thanks everyone, and so long!

Up next, the final interview in the series, before we move onto the next day in the NYC Prince Caspian series. Look for the interview with Ben Barnes, Prince Caspian himself, soon!

0 people like this post.

Like 

WETA wrote us today, telling us about the latest issue of Toy Collector Magazine, that is currently available for download.

There’s a terrific article about WETA’s Prince Caspian line of toys, followed by a small one about the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe line from a couple of years ago.

Here’s an excerpt:

CS. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia has been a classic in the realm of fantasy since The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first hit bookshelves in 1949. The storyline follows the adventures of four London children who are sent to a professor’s country home to put them out of harm’s way during World War II. There they discover a magic wardrobe that leads to a mystical land – Narnia – whose ruler is a malevolent witch.

In late 2005, the movie version of Lewis’ fantasy tale joined the ranks of highest-earning films of all time with a worldwide box office take of almost $745 million. Along with the amazing film, titled The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, came more Narnia merchandise than even the literary genius C.S. Lewis ever could have imagined. Toy stores were filled with action figures and role-play toys, and the shelves of collectors were adorned with some of the finest statues and replica weapons ever made.

A couple of years may have passed, but with last month’s release of the new Narnia film, Prince Caspian, the hunger for collectibles based on Lewis’ characters is as strong as ever. Whether you are looking for toys for the kids, or a high-end collectible that you’d never let your kids near, there’s something for everyone coming to market in the next couple months.

Download the full article here. It starts on page 61.

1 people like this post.

Like 

Sci-Fi Pulse has finally posted their red carpet interview video for Prince Caspian. In that, Douglas Gresham mentions a bit about what they’re doing with the production order for the Narnia films. From what he says, it looks like the production will continue as the books were published.

This is the smartest way to do it. Narnia purists will tell you that the only way to read the books for the first time is the original publication order. That’s what I tell anyone to do, that has not read them yet to do.

Anyway, on the red carpet in New York, Douglas Gresham says:

We still have five books to do. I’m working right now on pre-production on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I’m already starting discussions on The Silver Chair; and we’re just toying with the idea of doing The Horse and His Boy after that. So we are thinking ahead.

This doesn’t confirm it solidly, but it does show a bit more of what they’re planning. That’ll just leave The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle to close out the series.

Watch the video on Sci-Fi Pulse. There’s a great part where Georgie Henley meets Liam Neeson. Priceless!

0 people like this post.

Like 

We’re getting to the home stretch of the interview series from Day 2. This one features Anna Popplewell, who played the role of Susan Pevensie in both Narnia films, and Peter Dinklage, who played the role of Trumpkin. There are some spoilers in this interview, so if you’re still avoiding those, then tread carefully. Otherwise, have fun. It was another great interview. At the end, learn who is next in the interview series.

All of us: Hi!

Anna Popplewell: Hi!

Peter Dinklage: Hi!

Reporter: So what’d you guys think of the film, last night?

Peter Dinklage: Umm..
(laughter)

Reporter: It was your first time seeing it, right?

Peter Dinklage: Yeah, it was great. I just.. I have no perspective on it, my wheels are still turning, and I have to see it again to sort of watch it with a clearer head.

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, I feel a bit speechless about it. I was very excited and nervous to see it, and I need to see it again so that I can watch it without thinking ‘oh but this day we were here and then we were over there’ and watch it as a movie rather than making so many connections. But I was really pleased with it.. I was really excited by it.

Reporter: Peter, what was it like being welcomed into the Narnia family?

Peter Dinklage: They welcomed me with big open arms. It’s great working with a bunch of people, like these guys and Andrew and some of the producers and one of the effects people had worked on the first movie. So they already have a built in relationship that you sort of walk into, which was sort of… you get passed the meet and greet stage. A lot of the times on a movie, for an actor, you sort of meet somebody and five seconds later you’re doing a love scene with them, and it’s so disorienting and crazy but it happens. But for this movie, for people that hadn’t been a part of the first one, felt like you were walking into a whole world that had already been created. And relationships. And they really welcomed myself and Ben and anybody else who had not been on the first movie.

Reporter: I’m wondering if they kinda had any traditions set up or ways they spent their down time that might have struck you as a little odd at first.

Anna Popplewell: We’re very eccentric people.

Peter Dinklage: They’re very eccentric. They stay in one trailer together. They have these pamphlets they’re always trying to convert us to (Anna Popplewell: Yeah, it’s more of a cult, really.) some sort of cult thing: The Pevensie Way. (laughter) They would chant on lunch breaks, it was creepy, but uh… what was the question?

(laughter)

Reporter: You’re answer is good enough, thank you.

Peter Dinklage: Okay.

Reporter: Anna, Peter, are there any particular messages you wanted your character to convey?

Peter Dinklage: Wow, uh..

Anna Popplewell: I don’t know, I think… people often… I think from the first film, Susan is kind of not very likable because she’s always the one saying ‘well hold on a minute, this doesn’t make sense.’ And I think that a lot of people forget that actually, if you’re treating it at all realistically, and you’re plunged into the world of Narnia, then someone is gonna stand up and say ‘well hang on a minute.’ And she’s kept that element this time around. She’s still asking questions and posing problems, but I think she’s a lot more human this time, so I wanted people to be a little bit more sympathetic and kind of see where she’s coming from.

Reporter: She’s also a bit more of a warrior princess in this one, too!

Peter Dinklage: She kicks..

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, yeah. We were talking about the death count after we saw the movie last night, and you know it’s a PG film so you don’t see a lot of people dying and you don’t see a lot of blood, but I think I probably win the death count. I mean, Will kills a lot of people in the night raid, but they’re on his own side, so that counts negatively.

Peter Dinklage: So death count’s important to you!

Anna Popplewell: Yeah.

Peter Dinklage: Sorry..

(laughter)

Peter Dinklage: Death is.. killing is good to..

Anna Popplewell: Maybe not killing, but the whole…yeah.

Peter Dinklage: Yeah..

Anna Popplewell: Yeah

Peter Dinklage: Good.

Anna Popplewell: But, yeah, I was really… I really enjoyed being part of the action sequences this time around, because it wasn’t something I got to do last time, and it was fun to be involved in that.

Reporter: What about you, Peter, what did you feel that your role conveyed? You have a very strong character.

Peter Dinklage: Healthy cynicism. A little bit of comedy. I think in this world of wonderment and exploration, it’s important to have somebody who’s like ‘I don’t want to do that.’ You know, like ‘I want to go eat a sandwich!’ You know, just somebody who kind of.. for a Narnian it’s weird to be the character that sort of roots it in reality, cause it’s sort of an oxymoron, if you will, right. I just, sort of, love that disgruntled hero, if I can call Trumpkin a hero. Yes.(to Anna) I save you, don’t I?

(laughter)

Reporter: Anna, how was the kiss with Ben? Was there a lot of practice?

Anna Popplewell: Umm, there was no practice, whatsoever. We filmed it right at the end of the shoot, so we did it after we’d known each other for five months already. And it just felt like, okay, this is something that we’re gonna do on set.

Peter Dinklage: That’s not what Ben said. Ben was looking forward to that a long time!

(laughter)

Anna Popplewell: I thought it was gonna be really awkward and it wasn’t at all, so it was fine.

Reporter: Did you have any extra archery training on this one because of the extended battle sequences you had to be in?

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, I had some more of that. I mean, I’m not a perfect archer. I’m sure if you put something in front of me, I’d probably fire behind or something. But they make me look good with CG arrows and things. And I really enjoyed knowing how it’s done. It’s just that you then have to alter it to fit cameras under your arms and over your head and things like that. The nice thing about this movie is that it’s not just kaboom, I get to use the bow more creatively and throw arrows around.

Peter Dinklage: Alan Poppleton is our stunt coordinator, and he was the stunt coordinator on the first one as well and he worked on Lord of the Rings. He’s really really good at what he does. And he has a great team. They’re a New Zealand company. They make us look really good. I mean, all that stuff is because of them and the training they put us through.

Anna Popplewell: We’re not like real life action heroes, really.

Peter Dinklage: No. Kind of scared of that.

Anna Popplewell: Kind of ordinary.

(laughter)

Reporter: Peter, is this the most action you’ve done in a film?

Peter Dinklage: Yeah, I guess so, right? Yeah. I’ve done a lot of emotional action but..(laughter) alright, I’m gonna stop now. (laughter) Sorry. What’s wrong with me? I can’t help it!

Anna Popplewell: It’s the coffee, Peter.

Peter Dinklage: It’s the coffee. I’ve had a lot of coffee. But, yeah, definitely.But it’s fun. When you get a sword and a bow and arrow, and you’re in armor you, it really helps with the make-believe. It really does a lot of the work for you. It really puts you into that world.

Reporter: Anna, you’re studying at Oxford now?

Anna Popplewell: Yes.

Reporter: So, how difficult is it for you to be acting and juggling your education?

Anna Popplewell: Well, I should be writing an essay right now, so actually I should.. (gestures for the door) (laughter) No, it’s, I’ve been doing bits and pieces since I was about seven on sets and things, so it’s always been part of the routine for me, studying in the evenings or during lunch or whenever I can. And I’ve always been really determined about juggling the two, and I think if it’s something that you want to do, you manage it. So while I’m in Oxford, I’m doing lots of student drama and when I’m not, I hope to do some stuff in the holidays, and I’m just gonna see how it goes and try and keep both up for as long as possible.

Reporter: Do you have any upcoming dramas at Oxford?

Anna Popplewell: I’m doing Spring Awakening in a couple of weeks. Not the musical version, because I just can’t sing for toffee, but the play.

Reporter: So your major is drama?

Anna Popplewell: I’m actually studying English literature.

Peter Dinklage: Sing for toffee? I like that.

Anna Popplewell: British expression.

Peter Dinklage: Sing for toffee.

Anna Popplewell: Can’t sing for toffee.

Peter Dinklage: I’m gonna use that with an American accent.

Anna Popplewell: If somebody offered me toffee, then could not sing.

Peter Dinklage: I can’t sing for toffee.

Reporter: Peter, do red heads have more fun?

Peter Dinklage: Do red heads have more.. oh Trumpkin’s a red head, right! (laughter) I’m like ‘Hello, back there! Let me think, what magazine do you work for?’ (laughter) Yeah.. apparently. Although Trumpkin is losing his red hair, isn’t he? He needs to go to Red Hair Club for Men. (laughter) Yeah, that was fun. That was all yak hair and human hair. Somewhere on a mountain top, there’s a very cold yak, because of my make-up. But I made sure the yak was treated properly. Yeah, it’s fun. It’s a little toasty in the hot weather of Eastern Europe.

Anna Popplewell: Pete was amazing. You know, in a battle scene I have a leather bodice on, and bits of chain mail and stuff.

Peter Dinklage: You had a corset though, you could breathe!

Anna Popplewell: Yeah. And I feel uncomfortable, and I look at Pete and he has a yak on his face. (laughter) And he’s still smiling.

Peter Dinklage: Some days, I was smiling.

Anna Popplewell: Occasionally.

Peter Dinklage: Yeah, Occasionally I’d smile.

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, every now and then.

Reporter: What was it like working with Ben?

Peter Dinklage: Ben’s great. I have a new friend. He’s really funny. We have a very similar sense of humor and that’s always important and I loved his performance last night in the film. Movie acting’s tricky. I think with a lot of it, you can’t tell. I mean, I’ve worked with some great actors, and when you’re doing scenes with them, you sort of can’t tell if they’re acting. You can’t see their greatness, really, and then you see it on screen and it’s amazing. I think Ben has that quality and he made the eight months much easier. I think he has a great career ahead of him.

Reporter: Peter, you’re a star in your own right.

Peter Dinklage: Thank you.

Reporter: James McAvoy’s career really soared after Narnia. Do you have great expectations after this film?

Peter Dinklage: Uh.. yeah.. I mean. You know, expectation is a funny thing. I enjoy working. As an actor I think you’re lucky if you’re working, so you just sort of surround yourself with good people and good scripts and hopefully it will pay off. And apparently I’m doing the next one. I can say that because our producer announced it at comic-con last week, so I’m looking forward to that.

Paul Martin: So you worked with Warwick Davis a little bit.

Peter Dinklage: I did.

Paul Martin: Would you like to work with him again?

Peter Dinklage: Sure! If the opportunity arises, yeah. I don’t think we had enough in this film, so I’d love to work with him again. Yeah. Definitely. He’s a very good actor and very experienced with the make-up. I mean, that was sort of one of my first times in that heavy make-up, and Warwick has done so much of that work. He’s an old pro. So, yeah, he’s a good guy.

Reporter: Other than the Narnia projects, are there any other projects that’re coming up that you’re working on?

Peter Dinklage: Yeah, I’m gonna do a play over the summer. A Chekov play.

Reporter: On Broadway?

Peter Dinklage: No, summer theater, upstate New York. Then I’m doing about three or four independent films here and in Los Angeles, before the next Narnia.

Reporter: Did you audition for Narnia or not?

Peter Dinklage: No, I met with Andrew Adamson out in L.A. and I wasn’t actually completely sold on doing it until I met Andrew. I really loved the first movie, but I was a little wary of my involvement and my character because I hadn’t read the script yet. I had read the book. But meeting Andrew changed my mind. He brought me into the animation department where they were already storyboarding the whole movie on computers, and I saw that they had used my face as a reference for Trumpkin. And there I was all over the walls, and running with a bow and arrow on a computer. I was like, ‘That’s me as a video game! Hmm! I guess I can’t say no! I guess I gotta make their jobs easier!’ (laughter) But, not, that was interesting, but it was really meeting Andrew. He’s such a creative force and such a nice person in a great way. You know, cause you meet nice people all the time, but they are nice to sort of just to be a people pleaser. And Andrew’s just genuinely nice, and so talented and creative, so I couldn’t turn that down.

Reporter: Well you mentioned reading the book. When you have a movie that’s based on such a beloved book, do you feel the need to immerse yourself in it, or is the script enough to get you through it?

Peter Dinklage: The script and the director is enough for me. I mean, that’s all you have when you say yes to a movie, or no to a movie. You don’t know who you’re going to be working with. You don’t know what egos you’re going to be working with at that point. So, yeah, it’s all decisions that I make as an actor are all based on meeting the director. I have to meet the director before I say yes. And the script. Although I didn’t read the script for this, I just met Andrew, and that was enough. And seeing all the storyboarding and everything. And obviously the first film.

Reporter: Peter, it’s me back here again.

Peter Dinklage: Hello! (laughter) I’m ready for your sauciness. (laughter) Are you listening to music while we do this? (referring to her headphones) (laughter) What are you doing? (laughter)

Reporter: Listening to my audio.

Peter Dinklage: Are you with these people? (laughter) No, I’m just kidding.

Reporter: You have a serious persona, but yet you are funny in the movie. Was that scripted or did you improv at all, your lines?

Peter Dinklage: No. I didn’t improv anything. I mean, we had tweaked stuff a little bit, I guess, on set. And Andrew was always very willing to change things dialog-wise for everybody, if they weren’t working. Sometimes words on a page are different than words being spoken by an actor in the environment you are in. So that’s just common sense to sort of change things, and if you’re working with a really good director, who is luckily also – we’re lucky to have Andrew as one of the writers of the movie as well – you don’t have to call L.A. and get approval, Andrew just goes ’sure, alright, yeah, let’s change it, because you’re right.’ So that’s always nice. But improving, no. It was more about tweaking some dialog and mutually agreeing upon it.

Reporter: Anna, your character is not in the next one, and we talked with William about it and he actually seems ready to kind of move on, just like his character, move on and he’s learned all he can from this movie and he’s ready to move on. Do you have the same kind of feeling or are you kinda sad to see your end?

Anna Popplewell: I mean I think Will and I were both sad, you know, on the last days on set. This has been a big, long journey for both of us, purely in the amount of time that it’s taken up. let alone what has happened. But at the same time, I don’t think that I would gain a lot, or that audiences would gain a lot from me playing the same character seven times for seven months at a time. And so, I’m sad to go, but I’m happy to move on. I finished shooting in September, August/September, and I started Oxford in October and I’ve just been reading and playing and doing plays and things like that ever since. And having a great time, really.

Reporter: What do your friends think of you as like a movie star, or as a film star?

Anna Popplewell: I don’t think my friends really think of me as a movie star. (laughter)

Peter Dinklage: Friends are like that, aren’t they. (laughter) I guess that’s why they’re friends.

Anna Popplewell: Yeah! Well, I mean, the people I’m friending with are very cool about it, and not particularly interested in it really. I mean, I’m sure they’ll see the film, but they’re not sitting around.. uh..

Peter Dinklage: I think we both have friends who are outside of the business, which is very healthy sometimes.

Anna Popplewell: Exactly.

Peter Dinklage: Who are just like: ‘I don’t care.’ (laughter)

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, I mean, I don’t walk down the street in London with huge sunglasses and a sign saying ‘look at me, I was in Narnia.’ (laughter) I lead a pretty regular life.

Reporters: Thank you!

Peter Dinklage: Thank you guys!

Anna Popplewell: Thank you!

Reporter: What are some stuff that you indulge in or splurge on, like…

Anna Popplewell: Indulge in…um… I don’t know, really.

Reporter: Shoes, bags, music, make-up.

Anna Popplewell: All the normal stuff, really.

Peter Dinklage: With her? Books.

Anna Popplewell: Yeah, a lot of books, DVDs, that kind of thing.

Reporter: Favorite book?

Anna Popplewell: Oh, it changes all the time. At the moment, I’m really into Henry James.

Reporters: Thank you!

Coming up next in the day, producer Mark Johnson. Beyond him is the final interview in the series: Ben Barnes. Stay tuned!

0 people like this post.

Like 

Young Hollywood had a BLAST hanging out with William Moseley from The Chronicles of Narnia! Be sure to check out their interview with him. No doubt Narnia and Will’s fans will love to see it!

0 people like this post.

Like 

The next person to walk into the room for an interview was director Andrew Adamson. He is a very nice man, and deserves the break that he’s taking. The night before I asked him about the cat that appears in Prince Caspian. I mentioned that I thought it looked really similar to Puss in Boots. He told me the reason is because both actually look like a cat that he used to have. Very cool bit of information there. Here, he talks about each of the cast members, the challenges of filming a sequel, the music, and passing the reigns to Michael Apted, among other things.

Andrew Adamson: Hi!

Paul Martin: Hello, again!

Andrew Adamson (referencing me): This is the most excited man from last night.

(laughter)

Paul Martin: I didn’t even know what to say.

Andrew Adamson: (laughs) Have you thought about it for today?

Paul Martin: I little bit

Andrew Adamson: Oh, good, thank you very much. The enthusiasm was very enjoyable, thank you.

Paul Martin:Oh, you’re welcome, I just loved it, and my friends gave it very high marks as well.

Andrew Adamson: Good.

Reporter: So, not that the first one was like trial and error, but it had to be a little bit easier coming on the second one..

Andrew Adamson: Yes, I think it was easier, and therefore, we made it harder. Basically, we had some idea going in this time of what we were facing, which made it harder to actually commit to, in some ways, because it’s much better going in with sort of a blissful ignorance. But I think with any situation, you end up putting challenges in front of yourself and trying to make this film bigger for my own sake and I think that’s as big a challenge as any.

Reporter: Were you happy with the audiences reaction last night?

Andrew Adamson: Yeah, you know, I mean particularly seeing half audience was you guys, and you’re all cynical. (laughter) It was really nice to hear cheering and clapping and things like that, and some of the unexpected. I really liked one of the scenes with Ben and Anna when there was like “oooooh,” because I hadn’t really heard that before, so that was nice.

Reporter: And the bear got a couple of reactions there, too.

Andrew Adamson: Oh really?

Reporter: ..which I found funny there at the end.

Andrew Adamson: You know, it’s worth watching, and I hope that people will, it’s worth watching again, sometimes for background animation. One of my favorite bits of animation is actually behind Reepicheep when their doing the thing about cutting their tails off. One of the mice is just very reluctant to cut his tail off, and it’s just a really cute piece of animation. One of the nice things with animation, ’cause you’re looking at it again and again, you get to layer in stuff, and so very often there’s just some sort of background piece that comes forth, so it’s always nice to catch those.

Reporter: Does that make it harder to actually be finished with the film? Because isn’t their always…

Andrew Adamson: You’re never finished with the film, you just run out of time, basically. (laughter) It’s true, it’s like the last few weeks of finishing any film are really difficult, because leading up to that point, all the decisions you make have heavy consequences, but in those last few weeks, all the decisions you make are final. It’s a letting go process, it’s kind of like, okay, I can’t do any more. I just have to hope that everyone’s happy with it at this point.

Paul Martin: You said you finished it like two days before, what was the last thing you were cutting?

Andrew Adamson: The last thing, it wasn’t actually cutting, we locked the cut probably about a month ago. But it was putting in visual effects and so on and you’re always tweaking those, both in terms of lighting and finish. And the last few shots to go were a couple of the River-god shots, a couple of the Reepicheep shots at the end. Because of the nature of it, we had a very short post-production schedule, and we were actually handing reels over before the last reel was even finished. So it was a sort of strange thing where reels one through six, the first two-thirds of the movie basically, were done and being printed while I was still working on reels seven, eight and nine. So that’s kind of a little challenging, not to feel like you’ve finished the whole thing, watched it and then having to move on. You know, I only saw the whole thing completely finished on Wednesday.

Reporter: Do you have any favorite scenes from the film, yourself?

Andrew Adamson: There’s always that question that people ask me, you’re like, do you have any favorite children? (laughter) Different scenes for different reasons. And different, every time that I watch it, actually. It’s who you watch it with and how the audience responds. You know.. I really like Reepicheep and I think he came out very much how I’d hoped. I love the scene when their sucked back into Narnia. I love the scene when the four kids come to the How and the Centaurs do their thing and they’re sort of re-living their coronation. The scenes like that, that sort of get me on an emotional level. When they go into Aslan’s How and it’s dark and it lights up. That gets me on an emotional level. But then I like the night raid, I like the intensity of the night raid. I love how much that’s action and drama. I mean, there’s a lot of story being told at the same time as a lot of action happening and so I find that very emotional. When I watch that reel, cause reel five is basically the whole of the night raid, when Peter rides away from that bridge, I find I still get a little bit choked up.

Reporter: How many actors auditioned for the role of Prince Caspian?

Andrew Adamson: I honestly don’t know. I mean, I looked at a lot of people on tape. We were casting all over the world. I really don’t know the number. I would say it would be over five-hundred people that we had on tape.

Reporter: What is it about Ben Barnes that attracted you?

Andrew Adamson: Have you met him yet?

Reporter: I have.

Andrew Adamson: Well, do I need to answer then? (laughter) Well, you know, we were casting all over the world and I wanted somebody that had sort of a Mediterranean feel to them, so they’d get on with the Telmarines, and hadn’t been searching as hard in the UK or the US as I had been in Spain, Italy, Argentina, Central and South America in general. So, when Gail sent a tape of Ben, she had seen him in The History Boys on stage here in the UK. Where am I again? (laughter) She sent him on tape and he did a very good accent that was vaguely Spanish, and he just understood something. He got something in one of the scenes. He got a nuance in one of the scenes that was in the writing that not everyone had got. When I talked with him, he seemed to have a good understanding of the character and what he was going through. And then, I was in New Zealand prepping and he was in the UK on stage and we met in LA and he was obviously very charming and he looked great for the part. I wanted someone who looked very different from William. I wanted the boys to seem like they really came from different worlds. And he just brought all that to the role, and on top of that, he’s a very accomplished actor who still looked about sixteen years old. So he worked out very well.

Reporter: When you did the first movie, the kids were basically, you know, their first big movie. Talk a little bit about how they changed by the time you started filming the second one.

Andrew Adamson: Well, one of my biggest fears was, of course, how much they’d change, cause I was very happy with them in the first one. And you always worry that they’re going to go through that gangly stage, or go through some unfortunate stage that kids go through. But all our kids grew and matured really well, both physically and in terms of who they were as people. I met Anna and auditioned her for the first film before I put it on hold. For the first film, I started auditioning and then I put it on hold for script work, and then got back auditioning again. I met her when she was thirteen and she’s now studying literature in Oxford. Will was, I think, fifteen and he just turned twenty-one last week. So there’s obviously been a lot of changes. Skandar grew five inches in the last film and probably another four or so in this film. Georgie, I just saw her, has grown another three inches since I saw her two months ago. I mean, they’ve all changed a lot, but one of the things that I’ve been really happy about is not just how they’ve changed in terms of their abilities as actors, but that they’ve stayed true to who they are as people. I think a lot of this has to be attributed to really good families, or really good parents. But I remember after the first film, when the trailer came out, I contacted Georgie. Just kind of seeing if she was okay, and was it too weird to suddenly have people see her or something. And she had e-mailed me back and she had written that she’d seen the trailer and she thought I was doing a very good job. And then she went on for two paragraphs to describe a game, Rounders, which is a game they play in Britain at school, which she had scored two goals in. And it was kind of like, that was her big achievement and that made me really happy, and that made me realize she was still staying true to being still a kid.

Reporter: When you have a film like this that’s kind of a family film, but there’s also a lot of action and a lot of fighting, how hard is it to decide how much death you show, how much you keep to the side, how tough is that?

Andrew Adamson: It is difficult. I mean, we all wanted to make a PG film. At the same time, I wanted an intensity and a visceral quality to the action that made the life and death situations and the jeopardy feel real. You know, I think children are okay as long as you don’t traumatize them, and that’s the balance. You have to be able to let them get scared, let them get tense, to go to all those places, but not take it so far as to be gratuitous or traumatizing. And sometimes it’s duration. Sometimes it’s how long you stay in a dangerous moment for. Sometimes it’s the use of sound. It’s like, you could watch that whole battle, with different music, without sound effects, and it would have a whole different impact on you. So sometimes it’s a matter of letting the action play, and then letting the emotion be carried by the music and actually dropping some of the sound of the action away. And all of those things are kind of how you shape it in order for it not to be traumatizing or harmful or abusive. And then other things just test how far you go, I mean there’s really very, there’s little bits of blood in the film. I think when Miraz bleeds at his neck and I think when his leg’s cut, but there’s really no blood. There’s a lot of times you see the sword swipe but you don’t see the impact. You see the arrow, you hear the arrow hit, but you don’t see it, and those kind of things.

Reporter: I found myself wondering what those mice were doing, exactly.

Andrew Adamson: Yeah, (laughter). you hear a swish sound and somebody falls over, yes. It’s that kind of thing, and it’s somewhat arbitrary, to be honest. It becomes a very subjective thing, I mean obviously the ratings board look at it, and they look at it from a somewhat subjective point of view. There’s a group of people, they’re looking at it, and between them they’re deciding if it’s acceptable for a PG or a PG-13 or whatever the rating is. And then as a director, you kind of have to take notes, like, I think the fight’s a bit nasty, and interpret that to, what do I have to do to make it not nasty. And so it’s always a judgment call.

Reporter: How do direct a huge action scene and get what you want out of it?

Andrew Adamson: A little piece at a time. A small mouthful and then chew. I do a lot of pre-vis. I do a lot of development work before going into the scene. Particularly because a lot of it is also second unit and so you have to lay a road map because sometimes there’s three units shooting on an action scene at any given point in time just to accomplish how much needs to be shot. So I sort of map it out, I allow for things to kind of evolve from there. Then you have another chance, I think, when you do the visual effects to kind of hone and fix things again and reorder things and change things around. But it really is, sort of, you set a road map and then you just tackle it piece by piece. If you try and think about the whole thing, your head explodes. You have to do it a little bit at a time.

Reporter: How much pressure was it this time around?

Andrew Adamson: A little bit. (laughter) Definitely in terms of audience expectations, in terms of my own expectations, you know you always want to do better than you’ve done before. You know you want to improve as a filmmaker. You hope you’re growing with your films, so all of those pressures. It’s a very loved series of books, so there’s the pressures of people like this gentleman over here (gestures to me). (laughter) But to some degree, I’ve sort of really felt that on the last three films the first trip was kind of under the radar, it was, nobody knew what it was. The second trip was a lot of expectations. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was probably the most beloved of the series of books, so that carried those expectations. But the movie was successful, so then this one carried those expectations. So, to some degree, the last three films felt kind of pressured.

[When he talks about three films, he's including Shrek 2.]

Reporter: Did you expect the first one to do as well as it did?

Andrew Adamson: Now you obviously hope it will do well, but no, I didn’t. I didn’t really. It exceeded my expectations.

Reporter: Were there things that you wanted to do in the first, that for any reason you couldn’t, that ended up in this one?

Andrew Adamson: Mainly the amount of location work. I’d intended to shoot a lot more of the last film on location, because I’d scouted through central Europe and I’d found these beautiful winter locations. Luckily, my production – Philip Steuer, the production manager, the line-producer and producer, was largely responsible for talking me out of it. Because if you take an eight year old child and put them in minus forty degrees temperatures, you don’t get a lot of takes. So last time, because of those logistics, we wound up doing a lot more on stage. This time though, because I wasn’t dealing with the limitations of winter, I really wanted to shoot a lot of locations. And it meant shooting the New Zealand summer and then going to Europe and shooting the European summer in order to get a lot more time outdoors. And that was sort of , I’d say, the biggest thing. And then on top of that, probably, there’s a lot more creature work on this one. A lot more CG and prosthetic creature work, because I wasn’t putting as much money into the backgrounds and generating backgrounds as I would have. I put that money into the characters.

Reporter: Do you have to direct the actors doing voice-overs as well?

Andrew Adamson: Yeah, but I enjoy it, I mean that’s obviously what I did all through the Shrek films so that’s something that’s very comfortable. I enjoy it cause I usually work opposite them, I read the off lines and you can just play around, and improv. Eddie ends up being somebody who loves to just improv and I would go in with a script and then we’d just rewrite it as we went and it’s actually a lot of fun.

Reporter: Reepicheep really reminded me of the cat from Shrek, was that intentional?

Andrew Adamson: I know. Well the thing is obviously I was exposed to Reepicheep at a very early age. I read these books when I was about eight years old, and in creating Puss in Boots, I didn’t conciously draw upon Reepicheep, but in retrospect, when I came back to do this film, I just went ‘Oh no!’ (laughter) It’s like I’ve done all of this. And so then it was a matter of finding a very different character. Obviously Reepicheep is not a latin lover, so there was a very discernible difference. But it was a hard character to find because of that, and it wasn’t really until I got in a room with Eddie that we were really able to define somebody who was a very different character from Puss in Boots.

Reporter: Having worked so close with Ben, what is he like as a person?

Andrew Adamson: He’s a really lovely man, I mean that’s in all honesty that’s really the nice thing. He’s one of the most well adjusted people I know, which again I attribute very much to his upbringing. But he’s really self-effacing. He’s just really a gentleman. He has a very youthful enthusiasm. I mean, he’s twenty-six years old, he looks seventeen, and sometimes acts seventeen. (laughter) In a positive way. For a twenty-six year old to want to put on a sword and get on a horse and be Prince Caspian, I think is great and I think he’s hanging on to what’s good about being a child.

Reporter: The writers were saying they’re already working on the next script. Are you gonna be back for the third one?

Andrew Adamson: You know, I’ve been staying involved. Not so much in the last month or so, but definitely I’m not going to direct it. I’m producing with Mark. But I want to make sure that, it’s sort of like what I did with Shrek 3, that we stay true to what I’ve set up. You know, at the same time, Michael Apted is directing it, and it’s his film, it’s not mine. And it’s, again, the letting go process. (laughter) But the thing is to try and help him achieve what he wants to do, still keep it true to the tones, the themes, all of the things that we’ve accomplished, and not step on Michael’s toes and that’s the ballance that we’ll find. But largely it’s gonna be kind of easy because I want to take some time off. So his toes should be pretty free for a while.

Reporter: So doing this kind of means you’re not working on other projects?

Andrew Adamson: No, I’ve actually really really tried not to. There was an experience I remember when I finished high school, when two weeks on I suddenly went ‘I don’t have any homework to do, I’m free!’ I kind of want to regain that feeling, because I’ve sort of overlapped projects since the first Shrek, and it’ll be nice to sort of have a little break.

Reporter: Can you talk about the music?

Andrew Adamson: Yeah, I like it. (laughter) I think I’ve worked with Harry Gregson-Williams on all the films. He did both Shreks and both of these, and actually Shrek 3 as well. I think he’s a fantastic composer and I think this is probably one of his best scores. I think he’s really… the storytelling, in this score.. I’m very fond of the score of the last film, and in some ways the score of the last film was a little more eclectic. The movie went, sort of, more different places tonally. I think this is a little bit more consistent tonally. I think there’s scenes that are held together by the music, that were working on an emotional level but Harry has actually amplified the emotion significantly. I think Caspian’s theme in the opening of the film is fantastic. I mean it just sucks you in and it just tells you that his is a big, exciting movie straight away. So I’m really happy with what Harry’s done.

Reporter: Before they pull you out, can I ask you what you think of the idea of Shrek coming to Broadway?

Andrew Adamson: It’s something, obviously that we talked about a long time ago. I haven’t seen the final production yet, so I’m as intrigued to see it as anyone. You know, it’s a funny thing. It’s a funny thing when they take something that you create and it gets re-purposed and changed and so I’m sort of, cautiously optimistic about it. I’m sure it will be good, because there’s enough people involved that are concerned that it’s going to be good. But I’m still, you know, it’s a weird thing when you see something that you’ve done translated into another form.

Reporters: Thank you!

Andrew Adamson: Alright, thank you very much. Good bye!

0 people like this post.

Like