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.

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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is due to start shooting on the Gold Coast in Australia later this month, and it looks like it will move to Cleveland Point at some point in September.  The film is still in pre-production, however, and no real start date has been set, according to our sources.  However, it’s looking like they are beginning to solidify details of start dates.

Last I had heard, filming would begin in August, and end in October.  However, there is a forum for the Australian Surf Rowers League where someone is “looking for several wooden boats to use in a film we are shooting on the Gold Coast. With view to hire or purchase.”  When asked when they would need them, they respond: “At this stage between 20th July to 5th Sept.”

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MoviesOnline.ca is reporting that “according to Production Charts CS Lewis’s novel ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader‘ has gone into development.”

They report that there is no word on a cast or director, but we know well, by now, that Michael Apted is attached to direct, and Ben Barnes, Liam Neeson, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley and Eddie Izzard are all signed to reprise their roles.

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The same article in Variety mentions the start of shooting for the third film in the series: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It seems that the WGA strike has in fact pushed the start of filming from the summer into the fall of this year. Filming was originally scheduled to begin around June, and now it appears that production will ramp up in November.

There’s a bit of a typo in the article, though, as it targets the films release in May of 2009. However, as most of us know, the films release has already been scheduled for May 7, 2010. I’ve contacted the author of the article to inform her of the correction.

Johnson is also shepherding the third “Narnia” adaptation, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” After being stymied by the WGA strike, it’s scheduled to start filming in November for a May 2009 release. “As long as the Narnia movies keep succeeding and I don’t make a big mistake,” Johnson says, “I will continue doing them.”

UPDATE: I’ve gotten in touch with the folks at Disney, who have confirmed that the dates given in the article are incorrect. Filming is still set to begin in the summer for a May 2010 release.

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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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