In Part 1 of our set visit for Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, we gave an overview of our visit to the sets and exterior locations in and around Prague, briefly mentioning a few of the people we spoke to. We also ran a brief interview with the film’s director Andrew Adamson, who was very busy trying to make the “Narnia” sequel even bigger than the previous hit movie.
Adamson clearly couldn’t take on such an enormous task without a support team, and he brought back many of those who helped make “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” such a rich visual experience.
On Day 1 of our visit to Barrandov Studios, we spoke with production designer Roger Ford while standing inside the enormous castle courtyard set, which he claimed to be one of the largest builds of his career.
On our second day at the Usti location, we ran into Richard Taylor and his family who were visiting the sets for the first time. Taylor had remained in New Zealand for the second movie where he was supervising the building of the miniatures, and he took a bit of time off from his family vacation to speak to us.
The film’s star creature performer Shane Rangi prides himself on never having played any character who looked like himself, but some might find the burly actor to be as cuddly as some of the furry characters he plays. For the sequel, he’s been given a lot more roles, not only the head minotaur Asterius, but he also dons a furry suit to represent a bear, a werewolf, Aslan himself and various other creatures, many of which will eventually be replaced by CG creatures. Although we would never insult Rangi by comparing his role to that of Ahmed Best, the actor who played the physical version of Jar Jar Binks on set, we were glad to spend some time talking to him about what he does.
Lastly, we were driven to Modranska Studios where one of the film’s two FX supervisors Dean Wright and the film’s Make-Up FX supervisor Howard Berger, both returning from the first movie and very tired after a long day, entertained us with their banter about how this movie would probably surpass the first movie in every way possible.
Together, these four interviews give one a very good idea of what to expect from “Prince Caspian,” so they should be of interest to fans of C. S. Lewis’ original books, fans of the first movie and movie buffs/hopeful filmmakers looking to learn more about the very intensive production that goes into blockbusters such as this one.
You can access all of our interviews by clicking on the appropriate links below:
Co-Visual FX Supervisor Dean Wright and Make-Up FX Supervisor Howard Berger
Creature Performer Shane Rangi
Production Designer Roger Ford
Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is scheduled to be released on May 16, 2008. Stay tuned for more interviews from the set, including some of the principle cast.
