COSTUME DESIGN
by Isis Mussenden

NEW CHALLENGES

The beauty of the Narnia stories is that each book is its own story, yet they’re interconnected and reference each other because the hero and the main character of “The Chronicles of Narnia” is always Narnia. New faces are introduced – we lose some beloved characters but we gain new ones as the stories progress. Having this rich base to build upon for new characters and cultures makes my job as a costume designer endlessly exciting.

The scope of “Prince Caspian” is massive – about 10 times bigger than the first film (we tried to count the rivets on the brigandines and we can’t – it was over a million!). We have a cast that has quadrupled and on top of that we have to build multiple sizes for Georgie and Skandar who continue to grow at such a rapid pace. Georgie hit 5 feet tall finally after all these years. When we started with her, she was just 8 years old – it’s kind of amazing to us! We have probably built over 1,000 pieces just for the extras, including the Telmarine village. In addition we build everything for the soldiers; boots, brigandines, greaves, pants, shirts, gloves – the only thing I didn’t create really are their underwear and socks.

NARNIANS VS. TELMARINES

One of my goals in this movie was two create two distinct cultures with the Narnians and the Telmarines. I was determined to make the Telmarine soldiers, cavalry & lords look completely different – they were from a foreign land and this needed to be evident all the way down to the chain mail. On the other hand, with the Narnian armor we imported through lines, design-wise, from the first film but we re-vamped it to reflect a more renegade style. These old Narnians are essentially on the run, hiding in the woods and their resultant unrefined appearance needed to stand in contrast to the sophisticated look of the Telmarine culture. We conceived our palette for this new culture from the El Greco paintings of the Spaniards. We were searching for colors that were acidic and hot & cool at the same time, because we didn’t want to use red and gold, which are Narnian colors. I’ve known the El Greco paintings all my life, but I did go back to Madrid to look at them again and they were so gorgeous and brutal at the same time.

[Read the rest here at Narnia.com]

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Roger Ford – Production Designer
The role as far as storytelling is of course the job of the writer and the director. It’s my job to bring the story alive and that’s what appeals to me about working in this business.

My office is in the art department, where the very beginnings of the film take shape with the story told in concept art around the walls. We have concept artists who start to get a feeling for how the film’s going to look. This is for my benefit, and of course for Andrew’s benefit to start. Once the look of the film begins to take shape we translate the concept art into models, which are principally for Andrew and the second unit director to use in planning. Everything is finished in model form before we start building.

So, in the very early stages of the film the art department consists maybe of six or seven concept artists and myself and, and really that’s about it. Once we start to get a feeling for how he film’s going to look, then we start doing construction drawings, start designing the sets, brining them to life, in other words. It grows from a small group of concept artists into a very big art department and construction workshop with a huge team of construction people – sculptors, metal works, plasterers, carpenters and painters.

The Beach – Cair Paravel Ruins
We found a location in New Zealand for where the children arrive in Narnia called Cathedral Cove. It has a wonderful tunnel-like arch in the rock. So we started to think we could echo the shape of the tube station in the natural formation of the cliff for the transition. The children go into a man-made tunnel and come out a natural tunnel, emerging onto the beach.

They see the ruins off the top of the cliff and of course they’re unaware at the beginning that it’s the ruins of Cair Paravel. We obtained the drawings for Cair Paravel that had been done for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And we found the location where we could actually rebuild Cair Paravel (in ruined form) on a promontory, looking over the sea.

Cair Paravel – Treasure Room
The Pevensies discover the ruins of Cair Paravel 1300 years since they had last been there. The children soon realize that there’s (as there was before) a treasure room. Presumably in order to conquer Narnia, the Telmarines had to seize Cair Paravel, but why didn’t they find this treasure room? We had to devise a secret door behind the stone statues that lead to the treasure room. The treasure room is underground – under the great hall of Cair Paravel. The set was built immaculately initially, and damage was then added everywhere – the destruction of the castle actually penetrated the treasure room in certain areas, which was quite difficult to achieve.

To read the rest of the article, head over to the production blog!

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The design of Miraz’s ornate armor had its roots in the back story of the Telmarine culture- that being one of pirates from ancient Earth who found their way into Narnia centuries ago and established a new civilization there. Searching for a unique shape and color identity to distinguish the Telmarines, Weta’s artists mined this lost history for inspiration. Despite now being a people estranged from the sea, elements of their nautical past are evident in the direction of the design their armory took and in turn these same motifs were incorporated into Miraz’s plate armor.

Miraz’s helmet was the first component of his armor to find a strong direction during the design phase. From the outset Director Andrew Adamson suggested experimenting with the idea of masks and this eventually lead Weta’s designers to create the stylized, bearded faceplate seen in the final helmet (crafted by Weta sculptor Max Patte). Designer Paul Tobin found inspiration for the shape of Miraz’s helmet in the styles of the Spanish conquistador explorers, while the mask was influenced by the intimidating masks of samurai helmets. Paul reinterpreted them, using sculptural stylization derived from classical European statuary and the iconic representations of the marauding conquistador explorers to marry the helmet and mask together into something new and original.

Among the first of Miraz’s designs to be finalized was his elaborate sword, which designer Brad Goff gave a distinctive, deeply etched hilt. The rich engravings were a mixture of pictorial elements, illustrating the Telmarines’ history, and swirling wave and ivy motifs.

At the same time, Paul Tobin was honing the design of Miraz’s shields, employing three motif themes; that of the compass (another hint to the Telmarines’ seas-going past); stylized fish scales; and strong architectural shapes that would appear also in the design of Miraz’s castle. The shields also established Miraz’s color palette- one of deep sea blue-greens against burnished bronze.

The design of Miraz’s armor flowed naturally out of the shapes being established by his helmet and weaponry. The conscious decision was made to create a broad, imposing figure that would stand in stark contrast to the color and style of armor worn by the Pevensie children and Prince Caspian. By choosing bronze as the metal base tones for Miraz’s armor, he immediately stood out from his fellow Telmarine lords as something different, but also presented a heavy, aggressive contrast to Peter’s lighter, silver-hued armor. Historically, Miraz’s armor references later real Earth styles, drawing heavily from the romantic era and featuring more complex articulation and refined construction than Peter’s outfit.

To read the rest of the article, head over to the production blog!

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Weta Workshop on Prince Caspian

For “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” Weta Workshop was excited to have the chance to return to Narnia once again with Andrew Adamson. Having provided design services and armor and weaponry for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the opportunity to revisit and build upon our previous work in this wonderful world was one we looked forward too.

Narnia had changed since both we and the Pevensie children had last visited. While elements of the Narnia we knew were still present, a whole new culture had to be designed and created and even the familiar Narnians had changed and required new work.

Weta Workshop provided new design work in the form of environmental concepts and armor and weaponry designs, working closely with Director Andrew Adamson and the Los Angeles creative team leaders, Production Designer Roger Ford and Costumer Designer Isis Mussenden. The Pevensie children required new elements to compliment their royal gear from the first adventure and the look of the Narnians’ armor and weapons had to be evolved in a new direction since we last saw it. In addition the Telmarine culture had to be conceived from scratch and a great deal of work was done in the quest to find their unique design signature.

Weta’s armor and weapons departments were kept busy turning these concepts into reality and in sufficient numbers to arm two opposing armies. For the Telmarines Weta made two-hundred polearms in two different styles, two-hundred rapiers of varying design, over a hundred falchions, two-hundred and fifty shields and fifty-five crossbows. The Telmarine cavalry were equipped with soft shields and stunt gear for use with live horses. Weta made stunt-safe horse faceplates for the warhorses and sculpted unusual faceplate helmets for the soldiers.

Befitting rulers of a vast kingdom, Miraz and his lords needed special weaponry. Weta created individual swords, scabbards and sculpted faceplate helmets for the featured lords including Glozelle, who also had a beautiful dagger. Miraz himself had a special shield, sword, scabbard, full plate armor and an ornate faceplate helmet.

Hero Prince Caspian needed a sword, a variant of the Royal guard swords made, while Weta also made prop weapons for specific scenes, including a crossbow for Prunaprismia’s room.

Among the children’s equipment, which had to be refitted and restored after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Weta made new armor for Edmund and a new vambrace for Susan.

Even Reepicheep, who would be a digital character, required an exquisite little sword to be made by Weta at life size.

Read the rest of the article at the production blog!

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Ben Barnes Narnia Blog:

Barnes: Hi, I’m Ben Barnes and I am Prince Caspian and welcome to Narnia.com. I was a massive Narnia fan as a kid. I found my old copy of Prince Caspian when I auditioned for the movie and to find out that I was actually going to be in it was a dream come true. As far as playing the title role, you have to play every moment as truth and hope that those moments translate into something that the audience can really become involved in and really get behind Caspian. I think Andrew’s imagination is just entirely limitless. And whatever your ideas about a particular moment of a scene in general, his will top it. I think Prince Caspian is going to be huge. It’s going to be really epic.

Thanks to AnvardArises and Trevor for the Blog update and Pictures.

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Drawing Caspian – Part 2

Federico D’Allesandro (Storyboard Artist)

A storyboard is more than just a little drawing with a bunch of arrows stuck to it. It’s a tool that can transform words on paper into images for everyone to see. While a script can be interpreted a million different ways, a storyboard can literally put everyone ‘on the same page.’

When I got on the film, I was coming off the heels of another fantasy movie and was excited to jump back into a world of magical creatures and adventure. It’s the kind of stuff I drew as a kid, late at night while watching movies (so I guess not much has changed). Like the last Narnia film, we’d be making an ‘animatic’ – essentially an animated storyboard with sound effects, dialogue and music that can be cut together as if it was the actual movie itself. The idea is to ‘watch’ the movie before anything has been shot and therefore be able to make decisions that normally come AFTER the real cameras have begun rolling. It’s a powerful way to pre-visualize a movie and for the artists who make it, it’s just plain fun. That’s not to say that it’s not a challenging endeavor, because it definitely can be.

The biggest challenge in making an animatic comes from what it does best: it simulates the feeling of watching the movie, so it’s taken more literally than your normal storyboard. If the screen direction is slightly off, or if there’s an awkward cut, or if the blocking of the characters isn’t consistent – an animatic will isolate those mistakes. To make an animatic that flows well, you’ve really got to be on your game. You’ve got to think like a director (what’s this scene about), a cinematographer (how am I going to shoot it), an editor (how’s it going to cut), an actor (what’s my motivation), a production designer (what’s it all going to look like), the caterer (what do I want for lunch). When you make an animatic, you’re ‘filming’ the movie on paper, so you’ve got to be a one-man production team.

Going into the project, I decided that the best approach to the animatic was to not make it like a slideshow (many animatics I’ve seen are guilty of this), but to fully animate almost every frame. This adds to the ‘cinematic’ effect that an animatic can provide. To do this more effectively, I went to an all-digital approach, doing everything from the drawing to the animating within Photoshop. This allowed me to reuse backgrounds and characters, keeping everything on separate layers so they’d be easier to move around and animate. Because animatic boards involve a lot more drawing, I had to keep the process efficient as humanly possible (yes, we storyboard artists ARE human).

Read the rest at Narnia.com!

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Drawing Caspian

by Mike Vosburg (Storyboard Artist)

So what are storyboards? Does every film use them? How are they used on Prince Caspian? How many frames do you draw a day?

Film is a visual medium where the story is told by using a series of images or pictures, with sound (dialogue) added for clarification. That might be an oversimplification, but I don’t think many would argue with the definition.

The storyboard artist takes the script (or treatment in its initial stages) and starts to translate it into a series of pictures. A simple phrase (…the hero rushes in and saves the girl…) might turn into a sequence of several hundred frames, while a page long description of a characters internal distress might be capsulated in a single drawing if the expression is right. But in successful collaborations, the storyboard artist enables a viewer to “look” at the story rather than “read” it.

Not all movies use storyboards. Some directors feel more comfortable letting the pictures materialize through the use of the camera. And boarding out a long dialogue sequence for a Robert De Niro would be a waste of time.

Not all movies use storyboards. Some directors feel more comfortable letting the pictures materialize through the use of the camera. And boarding out a long dialogue sequence for a Robert De Niro would be a waste of time.

But on Prince Caspian, like “The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe,” we storyboarded the entire film so that it could be viewed on an animatic. Then Andrew is able to watch a test version of the film. He can suggest changes..so we draw new frames…he makes more changes…we draw more frames…he makes more changes…we draw more….well, you get the picture. His goal is to solve whatever problems there are in the story and visualization of it before any of the movie is shot.

And the storyboard artists aren’t the only ones involved in this process. Pre-Viz, which creates Computer Generated Images (you’ll learn more about them in a later blog entry), also produces sections of the film, sometimes using our boards, sometimes starting from scratch. And all this is orchestrated by Sim Evan-Jones and the editorial department, who actually take the sequences and put them together for viewing in an animatic. We get our marching…er drawing orders from them.

Read the rest at Narnia.com!

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Adapting Caspian

by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (Co-Screenwriters)

It’s rare for a screenwriter to have the opportunity to deal with characters in more than one movie. Actually, let’s rephrase that — it’s rare for a screenwriter to have the opportunity to deal with characters in even one movie. The odds against a story making it from screen to camera to multiplex are wildly high. The odds against making that trip two or even three times are frankly just silly. But that’s where we find ourselves, in an uncommon position and feeling very lucky to be here.

And that’s where again? Oh, yes. Narnia. But hardly the same Narnia the Pevensies left at the end of the last film. Thirteen-hundred years have passed, and they haven’t necessarily been pleasant. Prince Caspian sets us down in a torn and troubled land where new villains stalk the battlefield and entire races find themselves on the brink of extinction.

As writers, the biggest challenge we faced was connecting the Pevensies’ story to that of Prince Caspian. In C. S. Lewis’ book, they’re essentially two separate narratives which only come together near the end. While this is perfectly entertaining to read, it makes for a strangely structured movie where your favorite characters are absent for long stretches at a time.

Consequently, we decided to weave the two plots together early, bringing the Pevensies into Narnia near the start and giving them a greater role in Caspian’s journey. This not only helped on a structural level, it also allowed us to take advantage of the alliances and antagonisms that would evolve when we tossed three kings and two queens together into the same room — or underground chamber, as the case may be.

Read the rest at Narnia.com!

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A LOOK INTO THE CREATURES OF NARNIA
BY HOWARD BERGER
Makeup Effects and Creature Designer

Once in a lifetime, something so amazing happens and you are so grateful for it. But, to have it happen twice in a lifetime is unheard of. I am talking about the privilege of another journey into Narnia that the creative team at KNB EFX Group, Inc. gets to take for PRINCE CASPIAN.

The first film was a challenge, as we had never tackled a project so huge in scope and with so many creatures playing at once. It was important to bring all the Narnians to life and make it completely believable that they could believably live in this magical land. And here we are again, ready to meet up with the new Narnians that inhabit the land 1,500 years later.

The first step took partner Greg Nicotero and I back to the drawing board, as we wanted to mix things up a bit. We wanted to take another pass at what the Narnians would be like if they had become more wild in their appearance, seeing how they have been living in hiding within the forests all these centuries. What if they were all different age groups, sizes and races? We felt that the Narnians in the first film were all in their thirties, so we designed some study sculptures to demonstrate our concepts and approached director Andrew Adamson with the ideas. He liked our take and felt this could give Narnia an even more real existence.

In PRINCE CASPIAN, we have heavy set fauns, old age fauns, female dwarves, centaurs and their families. The minotaurs are now on the side of good. A new hag, a werewolf and the satyrs are back, but all newly redesigned to be more animal-like than the prior movie.

I think in every film there is one character you fall in love with. The first movie had Mr. Tumnus, played by the great James McAvoy. This time it is Peter Dinklage who plays Trumpkin the Dwarf. The character is so wonderfully written, and once you see Peter as Trumpkin, he becomes alive and real. We gave Trumpkin his look, but Peter gave him his heart, and the collaboration brings to life a new and interesting addition to this rich world.

A lot of the same crew from the first film have joined us, including my co-winner for the Best Makeup Oscar last year, Tami Lane (with key support from our third team member, Sarah Rubano). We are all excited and thrilled as there is an evolution that has occurred in Narnia and we are all privileged to be here to experience another wonderful adventure.

Read the rest at Narnia.com

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Production on “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is currently underway. Director Andrew Adamson took a break to welcome everyone to the production blog and give an exclusive peek at the filming of the next Narnian adventure.

They also have an RSS Feed available but it doesn’t work at the moment.

Thanks to Foro for the heads up!

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