Now for the thirtieth edition of the NarniaFans Mailbag! It’s good to be back, and I’m having a great time at this so far. I just need more letters. Then my esteemed team will be able to help answer questions (the earlier you ask them, the better). It gives us more time to do research and give you the best answer possible on the Thursday release date! This week’s questions cover the qualifications of Michael Apted, if there is any more Dawn Treader promotional material and scenes that a reader feels were missing from Prince Caspian.
It is of common knowledge that both Lewis and Tolkien took part in the First World War, and that in the years following the conflict they became distinguished scholars of the English language and literature at Oxford University. Those who accuse these writers of escapism tend to overlook the fact that such a curriculum vitae would make it virtually impossible for them to remain ignorant of, and not to at least in some way reflect in their own writing, the events that changed the world and the literature in the first half of the twentieth century. This paper aims to offer a new approach to the place of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings in this common context, and also to discuss how these works differ from each other with reference to the way in which they combine Christian and pagan elements.
CS Lewis’ beloved classic is listed among other notables like JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird as one of the top 50 novels . The list, which was featured in the Telegraph.co.uk story about Play.com’s top 50 Novels, listed some of the 50 best novels of all time.
Here is a look at the top 10 novels:
1. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
2. Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- C.S Lewis
4. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
5. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
6. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
7. Animal Farm – George Orwell
8. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
10. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Give the full list a look over if you are interested in getting ideas for what to read this summer. Here at NarniaFans, of course, we recommend you start with Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first and then read Lord of the Rings. Once you’re done, I’d say read Pride & Prejudice followed by Great Expectations. After that it’s all up to you.
You can read the full list here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Prince Caspian. The Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Heroes. Battlestar Galactica. Science fiction and fantasy comprise some of today’s top entertainment.
In recognition of the best work within this genre, Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, recently announced the nominees for this year’s highly coveted Hugo Award —the most prestigious award in the science fiction field. Diana Glyer, a Tolkien/Lewis expert and Azusa Pacific University professor, has secured a spot in the Best Related Book category.
“It is so rare for a book about Tolkien or Lewis to gain this kind of recognition,” said Glyer. “But this is about their interaction. I think there is a renewed interest in creative collaboration, even in business, science, and technology. We are in the age of Wikinomics: it’s not so much about being a solitary genius as it is about teamwork, relationships, and context.”
A book that has captured the attention of creative writers, Lewis and Tolkien scholars, and science fiction fans, Glyer’s The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community (Kent State University Press, 2007) explores:
The Inklings
Small-group dynamics
Transformation
The creative process
Glyer’s book describes writers in community, and her home life illustrates it. “My husband and I are both writers,” she said. “Our desks stand side by side in our converted garage. We constantly turn to one another for encouragement, and feedback.” Her husband, Mike Glyer, edits File 770, a science fiction news magazine. He is an eight-time Hugo winner, and File 770 has been nominated again this year for Best Fanzine.
The Hugo Awards, given for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, have been awarded since 1953. Final awards will be announced at Denvention’s Hugo Awards Ceremony on Sat., Aug. 9. For more information on the nomination, visit www.devention.org or www.thehugoawards.org. For information on Glyer and her book, visit www.theplaceofthelion.com.
Christys’ & Company has revealed Prince Caspian Costumes for Kids. They include Peter the Knight, Susan, Lucy, and variations of Prince Caspian. And let’s not forget the continuing releases of Special Edition Monopoly sets. I’ve got Lord of the Rings and Star Wars editions. Now I’ll be able to add the Prince Caspian Edition!
[Check out the Prince Caspian Costumes]
Thanks to everyone who sent this in early in the morning. 
J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, as most of us know, were great friends and colleagues. Now Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is coming to the Big Screen!
Press Release:
ACADEMY AWARD-WINNER PETER JACKSON AND NEW LINE CINEMA JOIN WITH MGM TO PRODUCE “THE HOBBIT,” EAGERLY-ANTICIPATED FANTASY ADVENTURE EPIC
NEW LINE AND MGM TO CO-PRODUCE AND SHARE WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS
PETER JACKSON AND FRAN WALSH TO EXECUTIVE PRODUCE TWO FILMS BASED ON “THE HOBBIT”
Los Angeles, CA (Tuesday, December 18, 2007) Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson; Harry Sloan, Chairman and CEO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM); Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs of New Line Cinema have jointly announced today that they have entered into the following series of agreements:
* MGM and New Line will co-finance and co-distribute two films, “The Hobbit” and a sequel to “The Hobbit.” New Line will distribute in North America and MGM will distribute internationally.
* Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will serve as Executive Producers of two films based on “The Hobbit.” New Line will manage the production of the films, which will be shot simultaneously.
* Peter Jackson and New Line have settled all litigation relating to the “Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) Trilogy.
Said Peter Jackson, “I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to put our differences behind us, so that we may begin a new chapter with our old friends at New Line. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is a legacy we proudly share with Bob and Michael, and together, we share that legacy with millions of loyal fans all over the world. We are delighted to continue our journey through Middle Earth. I also want to thank Harry Sloan and our new friends at MGM for helping us find the common ground necessary to continue that journey.”
“Peter Jackson has proven himself as the filmmaker who can bring the extraordinary imagination of Tolkien to life and we full heartedly agree with the fans worldwide who know he should be making ‘The Hobbit,’” said Sloan, MGM’s Chairman and CEO. “Now that we are all in agreement on ‘The Hobbit,’ we can focus on assembling the production team that will capture this phenomenal tale on film.”
Bob Shaye, New Line Co-Chairman and Co-CEO comments, “We are very pleased we have been able to resolve our differences, and that Peter and Fran will be actively and creatively involved with ‘The Hobbit’ movies. We know they will bring the same passion, care and talent to these films that they so ably accomplished with ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy.”
“Peter is a visionary filmmaker, and he broke new ground with ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” notes Michael Lynne, New Line Co-Chairman and Co-CEO. “We’re delighted he’s back for ‘The Hobbit’ films and that the Tolkien saga will continue with his imprint. We greatly appreciate the efforts of Harry Sloan, who has been instrumental in helping us reach our new accord.”
The two “Hobbit” films – “The Hobbit” and its sequel – are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set for a 2009 start, with the intention of “The Hobbit” release slated for 2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011.
The Oscar-winning, critically-acclaimed LOTR Trilogy grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide at the box-office. In 2003, “Return of the King” swept the Academy Awards, winning all of the eleven categories in which it was nominated, including Best Picture – the first ever Best Picture win for a fantasy film. The Trilogy’s production was also unprecedented at the time.
For more information about “The Hobbit” films, please visit www.TheHobbitBlog.com.
About New Line Cinema Corporation:
Celebrating its 40th anniversary year, New Line Cinema is the most successful independent film company in the world. Its mission is to produce innovative, popular and profitable entertainment in the best creative environment. In addition to the production, marketing and distribution of theatrical motion pictures, the fully-integrated studio has divisions devoted to home entertainment, television, music, theater, merchandising and an international unit. In 2005, New Line partnered with HBO to form Picturehouse, a new theatrical distribution company to release independent films. A pioneer in franchise filmmaking, New Line’s Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the most successful film franchises in history. New Line is a division of Time Warner, Inc. (TWX).
About Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., through its operating subsidiaries, is actively engaged in the worldwide production and distribution of motion pictures, television programming, home video, interactive media, music and licensed merchandise. The company owns the world’s largest library of modern films, comprising around 4,100 titles. Operating units include Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc., United Artists Films Inc., Ventanazul, MGM Television Entertainment Inc., MGM Networks Inc., MGM Domestic Networks LLC, MGM Distribution Co, MGM International Television Distribution In, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment LLC, MGM ON STAGE, MGM Music, MGM Worldwide Digital Media, MGM Consumer Products and MGM Interactive. In addition, MGM has ownership interests in international TV channels reaching nearly 120 countries. MGM ownership is as follows: Providence Equity Partners (29%), TPG (21%), Sony Corporation of America (20%), Comcast (20%), DLJ Merchant Banking Partners (7%) and Quadrangle Group (3%). For more information, visit www.mgm.com.
About Peter Jackson/Wingnut Films:
Peter Jackson is one of the world’s most successful filmmakers. His monumental achievement co-writing, co-producing and directing The Lord of the Rings trilogy (with fellow Academy Award winners and frequent collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) earned a total of 30 Academy Award nominations and 17 Academy Awards. Jackson and Walsh received their first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for their acclaimed film Heavenly Creatures. Jackson, through his New Zealand-based Wingnut Films banner, also was responsible for the globally successful 2005 remake of King Kong which earned over $500 million worldwide and 3 Academy Awards. Currently, Jackson is directing an adaptation of The Lovely Bones, from the acclaimed best-selling novel by Alice Sebold. He is also developing a trilogy of films with Steven Spielberg based on Tintin, the world renowned comic book series by Herge.
A recent survey in the United Kingdom (UK) found that The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the eighth most re-read book among UK readers. The Narnia book was beaten by many noteworthy novels and series, including Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, and the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, which took the number one spot.
The survey was conducted by Costa to mark the 2007 Costa Book Awards. Out of a sample of 2,034 people, it was found that 77% of UK readers re-read books, and almost a fifth of readers will re-read their favourite book more than five times.
Other books re-read more often than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe are The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, 1984 by George Orwell, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and The Hobbit, also by JRR Tolkien.
There is magic in the last line of The Lord of the Rings. To recap: the stolidly courageous Sam Gamgee, having watched his best friend, Frodo Baggins, sail towards the Grey Havens and into a kind of death, is left to walk back to the Shire where he finds his wife and children waiting with the promise of a quiet life far from the slaughter of the War of the Ring. J. R. R. Tolkien finishes with the sentence: “‘Well, I’m back,’ he said”. It is a touchingly understated conclusion which returns the prose to the homely simplicity of the inaugural chapters after the archaic epic mode of The Return of the King.
However, as Diana Pavlac Glyer tells us in her scholarly and perceptive study The Company They Keep, this is not how Tolkien originally intended to finish his trilogy. He had in mind a further epilogue, set sixteen years after the events of the rest of the book, which would have provided another, superfluous glimpse into Gamgee’s domesticity. In this ultimately excised version, a grey-haired Sam reads stories of his adventures to his children, spinning them tales of wizards and orcs and walking trees. There is even the faint suggestion that Sam has been narrating the story of The Lord of the Rings itself, before, at last, we depart the Shire for good, leaving Sam and Rose in a state of connubial bliss, tale-telling by the fireside.
What stopped Tolkien from publishing this ending was his membership of the Inklings – that renowned circle of Oxford writers and academics who met for seventeen years from 1932 and which counted C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and E. R. Edison, the author of The Worm Ouroboros, among their number. It was they who pointed out the glutinous sentimentality of the scene, marshalling their forces to argue that it added nothing of substance to a narrative which had already swollen far beyond the “second Hobbit” requested by his publishers. Glyer suggests that this incident typifies the way in which the Inklings affected one another’s work, despite the fact that in later years its members were frequently to insist that their meetings acted more as a social club than a writers’ circle, brushing aside any suggestion of real influence.
Douglas Gresham appeared today on Radio Rhema (a New Zealand radio network) with Rob Holding to discuss his experience filming Prince Caspian. Rob has kindly given us a recording of the interview.
Rob Holding: What are your impressions on the New Zealand leg of the filming?
Douglas Gresham: Once again, absolutely amazed by the wonderful scenic values and light values that you have in New Zealand, its a wonderful place to film for location work…of course you do have a problem with not having any really good studios and that sort of facilities. It’s incredible to me because you have some of the best locations in the world, if not The Best locations in the world, you have some of the best crews I’ve ever encountered in the world, some of the best artisans and technicians, and yet you haven’t got any facilities to really back them up properly, which is a bit of a shame.
Rob: Yes, and may cause a bit of a problem for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because I know the Aussies are after that with their big water tank.
Douglas Gresham: Well, they’re not the only people – I mean quite a few people are after the next movie; we’ll just have to wait and see what works the best. I mean, it’s a simple matter really of where the best facilities are, the best deals are, is where you make your movies these days.
Rob: I remember we sat down as a family and watched the one of the documentaries on the Narnian – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe DVD. And of course you’re all over the world — one of the things Andrew Adamson talks about is filming in this location, got the water tank in that location, we did this over in this country — it’s almost an international effort, isn’t it?
Douglas Gresham: The bulk of the work was actually done in New Zealand for ’The Lion The Witch’— small parts were done elsewhere but the bulk of it was done in New Zealand, under pretty adverse conditions in some circumstances — I mean we were shooting in – I suppose they were semi-converted aircraft hangars in Hobsonville, for example, and every time the rain got heavy we had to stop because you couldn’t hear yourself think. It just wasn’t a good way to try to make a movie. The great skill of the crews and the people that we worked with in New Zealand was so good that we were able to make a fabulous movie.
Rob: Locations this year including down the West Coast of the South Island — that’s a bit rugged.
Douglas Gresham: Yes, you’re not kidding! It was a wonderful place to be, and a wonderful place to experience, but we did a bit of some interesting New Zealand summer weather down there at times. But yeah, it’s a lovely area, absolutely beautiful; I loved being there.
Rob: To us that would be similar to, I suppose it would be the north east coast of England?
Douglas Gresham: Yeah, I guess a bit. It’s probably even more precipitate in the Alpine areas of New Zealand; it’s a fabulous, fabulous area. I imagine it must be pretty grim in the winter down there.(laugh) I mean, the summer’s not that great at times.
Rob: You were filming down in Cathedral Cove, weren’t you?
Douglas Gresham: Yeah, the Cathedral Cove, down on the beach there for a while. And that was a very, very beautiful set. We had several sets there actually, but it was absolutely lovely. And the weather was very kind to us there too, which helped enormously. We got some great footage there — lovely, lovely part of the world.
Rob: One of the things with the whole Narnian Chronicles is you’ve got this ongoing thing with the children. Is that going to be problematic in the future?
Douglas Gresham: You mean the children growing up? Well, not really. You see in the next movie after Prince Caspian, – in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe we have all four children, in Prince Caspian we have all four children, and in Prince Caspian they are about a year to 18 months older than they were in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and that works for us in a sense that the children have grown up a little bit, in fact they’ve grown up more than their characters have. So we’re just with make-up and so forth making them look a little bit younger. But it works for us in that they are more mature. And then in the next movie which will come after Prince Caspian they’re another year or two older again, and we have two of the same children back again. So they will be considerably older, which will work for the next movie. And then of course we lose that cast, because they don’t reappear until they’re adults, in The Last Battle. So by the time we get round to filming it, they probably will be adults, and we’ll be able to use them again!
Rob: That’s where my reading must be wrong, because I’d pegged The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as almost hard on the heels of Prince Caspian.
Douglas Gresham: Well, it is, yes, but in this Earth time I think it’s about a year or a bit later — maybe eighteen months later. Peter goes off to the Professor to be tutored, because he’s not doing very well at school, Susan goes off to America with the parents, and Edmund and Lucy are sent off to their aunt and uncle’s house – Alberta and Harold.
Rob: That’s where they meet Eustace.
Douglas Gresham: I think this is about a year or two, maybe even two years later.
Rob: Are we going to expect a similar gap then, between this movie and the next movie?
Douglas Gresham: We hope to get the next three or four done quite quickly; certainly the next two we’d hope to get done quite quickly. We’d like to keep the continuity rolling as fast as possible. I would personally like to see probably no more than a year or eighteen months between movies.
Rob: And you’d be looking at using Andrew for all of them?
Douglas Gresham: Andrew’s not going to direct the next one; I think he’s realized that it’s time he took a break. I think probably he has devoted so much time to us, we would be very remiss to ask him to do it again. I don’t think his wife would be very pleased if he had to take off for another two years to make a movie in the far parts of the world and so on. But in any case I think it’ll probably be good for Andrew and very good for us to change a little bit of style here and there.
Rob: I was thinking about that. The comparison obviously between Narnia and Middle Earth will always come about now, but I was just thinking that with the discussion over The Hobbit, and I sat down and thought “I don’t know if I want The Hobbit to look like Lord of the Rings — it’s a totally different feel.”
Douglas Gresham: Yes, The Hobbit is very different in many ways; it was written as a children’s book to start with, whereas The Lord of the Rings wasn’t. So yes, I think it should look very different; I think it should have a totally different feel about it, myself. I think that’s true of some of our books as well; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has to have a very different feel from anything we’ve done to date. It takes place in an entirely different part of the world of Narnia; and it’s a different kind of adventure as well.
Rob: It’s a very swash-buckling adventure.
Douglas Gresham: A little bit more that way, certainly. It’s a little bit more cerebral in some ways too.
Rob: You’re looking at the moment for horse riders in the Czech Republic.
Douglas Gresham: (laughs) Yes, I’m sure we’ll find plenty of them. There’s quite a lot of cavalry work to be done in this movie.
Rob: Now, see , that’s the thing. When Andrew came to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe he wrote down his memories first, and then read the book again. And I can’t remember too many places in Prince Caspian that call for lots of horses.
Douglas Gresham: Well of course we’ve had to amplify things a bit. What you can do in a book very often won’t work on the screen. A lot of Prince Caspian is walking and talking, which is fine on the pages of a book, but doesn’t really come across very well in the cinema. So there are things we’ve had to do to make things a little more lively. But you realize of course that there is the horse Destrier, in the book which is ridden by Caspian in his flight from Miraz’s castle. And he was pursued by horsemen, no doubt. The Telmarine army will have to have some cavalry attached to it.
Rob: That’s a good point, I suppose! I’d better go back and re-read the book.
Douglas Gresham: (laughs) We’re working to make this movie as exciting and as delightful as possible.
Rob: One of the other things that if I remember from Caspian is Bacchus and the nymphs and all the wood elves and those sorts of things; how does that fit with you from a Christian point of view? Because for some of us, we know C.S.Lewis was a Christian… but how do some of those things fit into the Christian world from your point of view?
Douglas Gresham: Well I think the first thing one has to realize is the nature of myth. Myth itself, and the myths that evolved in the ancient Greek and ancient Roman civilizations were the outreaching, the sort of groping of men for explanations of the wonders of creation. And these people saw that when they put grain in the ground it grew and it produced a crop, and so forth, and they saw the great fruits on the trees and all this kind of thing. And they searched out and looked up and tried to find some kind of explaining how all this was coming about, how it was happening. And they came up with all kinds of explanations with supernatural overtones of course, which is inevitable; which was their way of groping toward God. Of course the True Myth, the Christian Myth is when God Himself came to reveal Himself to us. And in a Narnian context, all of these demi-gods if you like, or mythological or semi-godlike type creatures like Bacchus and Silenus and others, they are all under the power and under the rule of Aslan himself. I think that puts them in their perspective, in a Narnian way.
Rob: Because it’s a whole different world for us today, with those sorts of things. I mean, we haven’t grown up with the same literature as was around.
Douglas Gresham: That’s very true, and it’s a great shame, because so many people look at the mythological characters and they immediately think that they’re all demonic — which is complete nonsense! They were the early man’s groping for God, not finding Him very successfully, but doing the best under the circumstances. In fact the book of Romans makes it quite plain that if a man grows up on a lush island somewhere, and never hears the name of God, or the word of God, or the name of Jesus, or anything like that, but he doesn’t pay homage to some being as a result of reveling in the glory of the creation around him, he is without excuse. So God expects and demands that we pay homage to something if we never hear the name God.
Rob: Paul goes right through that at the beginning of Romans, doesn’t he? Is there a Christian element to the movies apart from the original book?
Douglas Gresham: Apart from the original book, I’d say probably not. One of the temptations I have to fight against, quite strongly at times, is the temptation to inject some of my own Christian faith into the screenplays and the movies that we do. That would be a very wrong thing to do. The right way to do these movies is to stick to what Jack said in the original books, Jack’s original intention, Jack’s original meanings as closely as we can, and incorporate them into our film scripts and screenplays.
To do anything more would be, I think, the wrong thing to do. So then, I think that what you will find in PC is the same messages that Jack was teaching in Prince Caspian, only translated into film.
Rob: Speaking of Jack’s books, we mentioned Mere Christianity before, one of the things that colleague was saying in reading it is that she’s got to re-read paragraphs and re-read chapters because we’re not used to receiving that sort of information today in that sort of a way. We’re much more used to being entertained.
Douglas Gresham: I think you have a point there, but I think that’s a sad reflection on modern education.
Rob: Agreed. But even for mature Christians, we’re not ready to receive it; we like to be entertained in our messages.
Douglas Gresham: Yes. But I think that’s completely the wrong way to look at it. I don’t think Christianity is supposed to be a medium of entertainment. I think Christianity is supposed to be something you do, not something you’re entertained by. In fact I take issue with an awful lot of churches who make Christianity as they see it, a performance. They make their worship a performance. The worship of Jesus Christ should be enacted in every minute of every day of our lives; we should be doing Christianity, not just shouting and yelling and talking about it.
Rob: When did you discover that for yourself?
Douglas Gresham: I discovered that relatively late in life; I was in my forties. My problem has always been, although I believed in God and believed in Jesus, (so does the devil of course, and it doesn’t make him a Christian) I didn’t want to submit my life to the authority of anyone but myself. Therefore in a sense I was worshiping myself, and therefore I had a fool for a deity. But I eventually did come to the realization that I am not qualified to run a human life, and least of all one as complex as my own. So I handed it over to someone who is, who of course is the person who made it.
Rob: That’s the best thing for all of us to do.
Douglas Gresham: Of course, of course!
Rob: Again, in watching the documentary on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Andrew talks about the number of CGI shots, which I think was around 1500. Are we looking at more – the whole Lord of the Rings thing, where every movie got more and more — I’m sure you’re hoping that doesn’t happen with these ones.
Douglas Gresham: Well, one has to be a bit careful for budget reasons. But we do have some new and interesting CGI characters we have to deal with in Prince Caspian, of course . I’m sure that everyone in the world who has read Prince Caspian is looking forward to meeting Reepicheep. There will be quite a few CGI shots in this movie; I’m not going to give too much away though.
Rob: No. But those who have seen the show reel are very impressed with it, from what I’ve read.
Douglas Gresham: I believe so indeed, yeah.
Rob: Well, we will count down, another year and a bit, isn’t it?
Douglas Gresham: We’ve got just over a year, actually — May of next year it should come out. We’ve got a pretty steep hill to climb, and we’ve got to get up it pretty fast.
Rob: Well, we’re always here if you need us.
Douglas Gresham: Thank you. I will have to tell you this though: once again, going back to New Zealand and meeting up with a lot of the same crew members who helped us on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was an absolute delight. I mean, you do have some of the best crews I’ve encountered anywhere — great plasterers, great painters, all of the people who work so hard behind the scenes. And I really am very grateful to them for all their work — and they know who they are, if they hear this programme they’ll know who I’m talking about. Great guys, great girls, they did a wonderful job for us in Lion Witch, and they’ve done it again on Prince Caspian. And they deserve every credit we can give them.
Rob: Doug, thank you so much for your time!
Douglas Gresham: You’re very welcome, Rob.
WETA has e-mailed us to invite you to a forum blitz. Daniel Falconer, a member of the Narnia design team will be appearing on WETA’s Forums next Monday, 18 December 2006, to answer your questions and reply to your comments.
This is how it will work: simply log onto www.wetanz-forums.com and if you haven’t already, sign up as a user (this is simple, quick and, best of all, free). Then simply click on the applicable subject and enter your own question. He will scan the entire forum throughout the day and attempt to answer as many posts as he can.
Daniel is one of a group of designers who worked on The Lord of the Rings and has a deep knowledge of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Since The Lord of the Rings, Daniel has contributed design work for various projects including King Kong, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Halo. In 2005 he collated and wrote for Weta’s first book, The World of Kong, A Natural History of Skull Island, showcasing the illustrative work of the entire design department.
If you have a question for Daniel, post it in the applicable forum (eg LOTR enquiries in the LOTR forum) and he will do his best to reply over these two dates. So have you got questions burning a hole in your pocket yet? Well get to it – at www.wetanz-forums.com for the blitz date.
Loading ...
