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Taste of home for Narnia: Dawn Treader crew

Paul Martin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:32:51 +0000

Big things are coming soon, but this is not part of that, just so you know. You’ll know it when you see it! Anyway, here’s the news.

PLAYING a cast of characters who routinely slip out of England and into the magical world of Narnia should make the British actors who recently finished filming at Cleveland Point accustomed to being away from home.

But they were delighted in the final days of filming to receive a care package from Birkdale couple Louise and Adrian Warner, who run Britain on the Bayside.

Louise took her two sons, Charlie, 8, and Thomas, 5, down to the set with the hamper of goodies, which they handed over to one of Narnia’s fawns.

“I’d been taking the kids down to the set fairly often to see it being built, and when we heard nearly all the cast and a lot of the crew were British, and that they still had filming to finish on the Gold Coast and in New Zealand, we thought they’d appreciate a few treats from home,” Louise said.

“We’ve since heard back that all the cast were thrilled with the hamper, and we referred a few of the directors and producers to The Vine bottle shop next to our store, because they import a whole range of British beers which we heard they were pining for.”

Louise said the hamper included some of their most popular items: Crisps, not chips; a soft drink called Vimto; British Cadbury’s chocolate, which has fewer emulsifiers than Australian Cadbury’s because of the cooler climate; Minstrels, a larger, non-coloured version of M&Ms; Crawfords custard creams and bourbon creams biscuits; and Party Ring biscuits, which are often worn on the fingers of children at birthday parties.

-via Bayside Bulletin

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New On-Set Video and Pictures

Mike — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:19:58 +0000

YouTuber xxchamaraxx has posted a group of no less than seven videos taken near the set of “Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Check them out here. The videos include some actual filming as well as “down time” between takes.

New Videos:
- Eustace swinging something: (View)
- Skandar Keynes and Gary Sweet between takes: (View)
- Drinian reacting to a “bang”: (View)
- The ship rotating: (View)
- Ben Barnes talking to the crew: (View)
- Will Poulter being sprayed with water: (View)
- Eustace shouting: (View)

Also, our other friends at MundoNarnia have posted several new behind the scenes pictures. You can peruse their collection here.

Thanks to narniaweb for the tip on the videos.

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Dawn Treader movie ready to roll at Cleveland Point

Paul Martin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:38:48 +0000

If you’re planning on watching some of the filming for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader at Cleveland Point, on the Gold Coast of Australia, you’ll have to wait until Thursday to do so. According to the Bayside Bulletin, Narnia spokesperson Ernie Malik has commented on the filming this week, and has confirmed a few things, including the start of filming coming up this week.

DIRECTORS are set to call ‘action!’ down at Cleveland Point on Thursday, with filming for the next Narnia instalment at the purpose-built tank at MovieWorld wrapping up last week.

Spokesperson for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Ernie Malik, said everything was in place to get under way at Cleveland later this week.

“You’ll have to excuse the pun, but we’re sailing along smooth seas at the moment, and everything is going to plan,” he said.

“If the weather is really bad at any point during filming in Cleveland, we have a covered set at another location that we can film at, but otherwise we’ll just leave it to the director to work with whatever weather conditions come our way.”

Plans have not yet been finalised for traffic control to Cleveland Point, with high volumes only expected on the weekends. Anyone visiting the area is advised to be patient and, if possible, walk or take public transport to the point.

Brian Sibley’s Worlds of Fantasy

Paul Martin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:05:52 +0000

Brian Sibley wrote to us to invite you all to take a look at this unique event opportunity to spend an evening with him this September. Take a look! EJ Casting.Com is pleased to present an evening with world-renowned writer BRIAN SIBLEY on Thursday 24 September 2009 at 7:00pm in The Library at TEATROS PRIVATE MEMBERS CLUB, 93 – 107 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC1.

BRIAN SIBLEY adapted J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for BBC Radio in which Ian Holm stared as Frodo and Sir Michael Hordern played the wizard, Gandalf. This production was one of the inspirations for Peter Jackson to make the trilogy into movies.

Subsequently Brian went on to write the books about the making of the Oscar laden films The Lord of the Rings; The Making of the Movie Trilogy and has also written the authorized biography of their Director Peter Jackson: A Filmmakers Journey.

His other movie books include The Golden Compass: The Official Movie Guide, Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie and Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3D Animation.

Brian wrote Shadowlands about C S Lewis and has adapted all seven books in Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia for BBC Radio as well as dramatizations of stories by Roald Dahl and Ray Bradbury and a Sony Radio Award-winning adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels

Brian also presented the BBC radio film programme Talking Pictures and the movie quiz Screen Test.

Brian is a recognized Disney historian and expert whose audio commentaries can be seen and heard on the DVD re-releases of many classic Disney films, including 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He has also written the book on the making of the musical, Mary Poppins.

Brian’s interest and knowledge in the world of fantasy: from Dracula to Winnie-the-Pooh and Discworld to Thomas the Tank Engine. He has adapted The Hobbit and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for the stage and is currently working Grimm Games, a play about the Brothers Grimm.

His latest project is researching and writing two books chronicling and celebrating the hugely successful Harry Potter film series.

Brian Sibley will talk about his life and interests with director, actor and broadcaster, JAMES NORRIS.

James’ TV credits include All Creatures Great and Small, The Bill, Grange Hill and Brookside and he was founder director of Omnibus Theatre Co with whom he produced and Directed shows throughout Europe, India and the Far East. He has broadcast extensively on BBC Radio and interviewed many world renowned artists including Rex Harrison, Ian Richardson, Lorna Luft, Ed Mirvish and Saed Jaffrey

He has been Artistic Director of Manitou Theatre in Ontario, Canada and his productions include A Chorus Line in Canada, Sweet Charity, Threepenny Opera, Into the Woods by Sondheim and the rarely performed opera, Paul Bunyan by W H Auden and Benjamin Britten.

This promises to be an evening to remember and heralds the start of a series of presentations featuring Leading Writers and Performers.

Tickets to this event are available at £15 each including a glass of wine and can be ordered by e mailing: info@ejcasting.com or calling EJ Casting on 0207 564 2688.

Tickets are limited for this unique event and advance booking is essential.

Texas State Professor finds Lost Lewis Manuscript
BBC Narnia Cover Art Exhibition UK
The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings similarities and differences
50 Greatest Novels includes Narnia
NarniaHome.com is a brother site to NarniaFans.com, and in addition to hosting some featured stories, it will also host art submitted by others, including eventually video, sound, prose, poetry and animation. It will be home to some contests designed to let the Narnia community show what it can do.

NarniaHome.com has started out with an eye to be tech savvy. Already it has a group on Facebook (look for NarniaHome.com) and is beginning to explore other social networking technologies as it goes.

Come home to NarniaHome!

For more information, contact John Burkitt at magescribe@comcast.net.

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NarniaFans Mailbag #44: Filming Order, Regina Spektor and Invisible Army

Paul Martin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:35:44 +0000

This week has been flying by. I just remembered that it was Thursday, and that I hadn’t written this week’s mailbag. So I’m spending lunch time writing this week’s installment. I spent Tuesday riding roller coasters at Cedar Point, and around that day there were some really huge things happening in the world of Narnia. The third film started shooting, and we’ve gotten some great photos of the Dawn Treader nearing completion. I’ve got a couple of e-mails to answer this week, but before I do, I just wanted to give a status update on the secret project. I’m currently working on speed issues on it, but it’s moving forward. I have guests up from Florida so it’s going to take me a little longer than I had initially anticipated, but I hope that it’s worth the wait.

And a quick update on Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man that just came in from a woman named Barbara: “C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man in correspondence is well known. Tolkien borrowed the idea for Ents from Chesterton’s The Trees of Pride! I hope these facts were brought to your attention.” Thanks Barbara!

Q: Currently, the Chronicles of Narnia are being filmed in the order that corresponds to their publication order. However, Douglas Gresham has expressed interest in filming “The Magician’s Nephew” before “The Horse and His Boy“, instead of vice-versa. What is your opinion on this?

-Skulblaka_Shur’tugal

Paul: This is a great question! I am of the opinion that, when you first read the Chronicles, you always read them in the original publication order. As far as the filming goes, however, wherever they end up shooting The Horse and His Boy, it is the one story that doesn’t really seem to matter when they shoot it. It takes place during the reign of the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They could easily shoot it prior to The Magician’s Nephew, but shooting it after could afford them some story things that carry over, giving it more weight in the Narnia film series. This series is made up of books that all take place in the same world, but they are very different from one another in substance. The filmmakers are likely to, as we have seen, invent things that provide more continuity for the sake of the audience. If they did, in fact, shoot them in that order, it would give them an opportunity to introduce something in The Magician’s Nephew that has great weight in The Last Battle and, perhaps, have the Pevensie’s part in the story during The Horse and His Boy revolve around that particular thing, in some way. It would help to make that more of a trilogy, in some ways, and when the films would eventually be viewed in chronological order by super fans like us, we might notice some through lines to the overarching story of Narnia.

But who knows, this is all conjecture that I’m thinking about only seconds before I’m typing it. A stream of consciousness about Narnia filming, I suppose. It’s really quite intriguing to think about the possibilities.

Q: Hi! Somewhere I heard that The Call was nominated for an award. When will we find out if it won it – or do we already know??? Thanks.

-Dyanthius

Paul: I could not find information about this. Does anybody know if The Call by Regina Spektor was nominated for an award? I deserved to be. It was one of the best songs on the soundtrack, if not the best. If you know more information about this, please comment below!

Q: Hey, I was just wondering if you could give me a quick rundown or if you knew any links for a brief overview of what the Invisible Army is about? I’m doing extras work on it and I’d love to know what to expect in August.

-Dee

Paul: Wow, Dee! That’s fantastic that you’re doing some extras work on the film! It’s one of my dreams that you’re fulfilling. Best of luck to you on the film, and I hope that it goes well for you. If you would like to get a great look at what Invisible Army is all about, pick up the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader or a copy of the audio book. I believe that the audio version is about 3 hours in length. The book itself is not that long and can be read fairly quickly. I will tell you, though: it’s an epic adventure on the high seas, with many locations and troubles along the way. I don’t want to say too much about it, though you can likely find plot synopses all over the web, and you can find chapter summaries here on NarniaFans.com if you look in the book section of the site.

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag! Be sure to send in your questions by using the contact form listed on the menu.

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Dawn Treader Wharf Set Video – Aerial View

Paul Martin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:24 +0000

Narnia Fan Spy Craig White sent us this video from Channel 9 News in Australia that features a terrific aerial view of the wharf set that we finally had some clarification on yesterday. It will only be used for three days of shooting. One thing that is interesting about the report is that they said filming would begin in three weeks. One question on our minds is what part of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is this going to be? More, and the video, after the break.

I e-mailed Craig to learn when the piece aired, and he responded, “It aired Fri 24th July 6PM (Tonight in Australia).” Remember, they are at least 12 to 14 hours ahead of us, in the United States. It is looking more and more like an early August start date for the shoot. The reporter did not say that they were starting to film at the wharf specifically in three weeks, but rather, filming was expected to begin.

However, I did find an update via Twitter, straight from ComicCon: @doorQdotCom writes: Voyage of the Dawn Treader starts principal, in Australia, next week, as per producer Perry Moore.

NarniaFans Mailbag #42: Harry Gregson Williams’ Complete Narnia Scores, and Harry Potter 6

Paul Martin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:29:50 +0000

Welcome to the mailbag, where we answer fanmail that you send in, over the course of the week. For those that don’t know, we’ll take your questions, and if we don’t know the answers, we’ll try to get the answers from people that would know. We might even make something up! I have a very broad sense of humor, on top of a vast knowledge of film, music and comics with a wide range in taste and a great memory that serves to bring great comparisons or answers to your questions.

This afternoon, I saw the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I have to say, having never read any of the books but the seventh, it connected the rest of the movies to the seventh book very well. However, I do have a question, which I posed on my facebook status today, getting a string of hilarious responses. If you’ve not seen the movie, avoid this paragraph:

“When Harry and Gandalf go to the Mines of Moria, why couldn’t Harry use the the Patronus on the Dead Marsh creatures, when Dumbledore was all Odysseus. Instead, he had to cast a Balrog to fight them, when the Balrog is made of light, just like the patronus.”

The point of this paragraph was two-fold. First, it was to point out just how much J.K. Rowling ‘borrowed’ from The Lord of the Rings and repackaged into her own work. However, she also borrowed from some Greek / Roman mythology having them cross over what I instantly thought was a representation of the river Styx, followed by a spell that replicated a scene in The Odyssey. It was set in the Mines of Moria from The Fellowship of the Ring, though, as well as in the Dead Marshes, where Frodo falls in among the dead and Gollum swims in after him in The Two Towers. And then, Dumbledore looks exactly like Gandalf when he’s fighting the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad Dûm. And with the fire behind him, it looks like he’s summoned a Balrog to fight.

This brings us to the second part of the question: could Harry have used his Patronus on the Dead Marsh things? Arguably it is a light based magic, like fire, and does work on creatures of darkness other than just Dementors. I think that Harry just needs to be in trouble now, so the patronas has been limited.

Anyone have some insight for me other than “read the book?” I don’t plan on reading those books. Too many great books to read.

Let’s get started with this week’s mailbag:

Q: When I bought the Prince Caspian Soundtrack I was looking forward to hearing Reepicheep’s theme. Instead I only got a few seconds of it in The Door in the Air. Are they planning to come out with a more complete soundtrack?

-Collin Layman

Paul: Unfortunately a complete recording of Harry Gregson-Williams’ score for either The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Prince Caspian is very unlikely. Perhaps someday there will be a limited print run of a thousand or two copies of the complete recordings. Perhaps this letter will help to generate some more interest in owning all of the score from either film.

Who’s up for complete recordings of the Chronicles of Narnia scores by Harry Gregson-Williams? I sure am!

And this was a light week, with only the one letter. Better one than none, I say.

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Escape to the Kingdom of Narnia at Union Station: A New Narnia Exhibition Review

Paul Martin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:18:58 +0000

I know that I’ve mentioned The Narnia Exhibition before, and quite a bit in the last year, but there’s always someone that hasn’t heard of it. I received an email the other day from someone that has visited it at Kansas City’s Union Station, and written a review of the exhibit. It’s a great exhibit, and this fan told me that she wanted to spend hours looking at the stuff that is there, especially the room with C.S. Lewis artifacts. Having seen the exhibition myself, I must concur. I really wanted to spend more time with the C.S. Lewis stuff, but knew that I had to move on.

In these trying economic times when Midwest area families can’t always afford a summer trip to Disney World, Kansas City’s Union Station has brought Disney to the Midwest!Welcome, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition, now ensconced at Kansas City’s Union Station through August 23, is a 10,000-square foot, state-of-the-art, highly interactive entertainment and educational exhibit, featuring over 150 original film creatures, set dressings, costumes, and props from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and “Prince Caspian” movies.

Read the rest at The Examiner

Read more about The Narnia Exhibition

Narnia Producer Mark Johnson Appears in ‘My Sister’s Keeper’

Paul Martin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:12:43 +0000

Producer Mark Johnson, who is currently working on many projects including The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was recently on the other side of the camera for the third time. He previously appeared in Good Morning, Vietnam and The Notebook. He was also a producer on both films. Most recently, he appeared as Uncle Pervis in the film My Sister’s Keeper. For those who don’t know what the film is about, it is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, by Jodi Picoult.

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

(Order My Sister’s Keeper on Paperback from Amazon)

My sister went to see it with my mom, as did my friend and colleague Kristi, who runs TheLionsCall.com and managed to find Mr. Johnson among the cast. As far as I know, it’s only a cameo in the film.

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Taste of home for Narnia: Dawn Treader crew

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