Narnia secrets revealed at expo

Three top crew members from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have shared their experiences for the first time about bringing the classic story to the screen.

Weta Workshop head Richard Taylor, visual effects supervisor Dean Wright and makeup expert Howard Berger talked to a crowd of about 200 people at the Armageddon Pulp Culture Expo in Wellington yesterday.

The trio were responsible for designing, making and adding computer effects to the fantastical world of Narnia, where the story is set.

Throughout the hour-long talk, they shared details about characters, technology and experiences on the set.

Some secrets about the film were revealed. Wright said early scenes set in war-torn London were expanded from those in C S Lewis's book.

Taylor said the script, co-written by New Zealand director Andrew Adamson, added many visual details to the suggestive plot of the book. One key battle scene that was only two pages long in the book would be shot over three weeks in the South Island, he said.

The movie script had the same "exceptional visual style and added impact" as the Shrek series Adamson had been working on.

Taylor said they had to reach into many of the other books from the Narnia series to give a sense of the richness of the imaginary world.

One character that proved particularly challenging was the iconic lion, Aslan. His development was a combination of animatronics and computer generation, Berger said.

The physical model had only been recently completed, but it was something he was immensely proud of it. A scene with Aslan on a stone table was shot on Saturday and the child actors had been amazed by the model.

Berger, who recently worked on Kill Bill, said the movie was a nice change of pace. He had enlisted the help of his own children to get a more authentic reaction to the characters he had crafted.

Shooting for the movie finishes in December, then moves to the Czech Republic for a series of winter scenes. The film is expected to be released in time for Christmas 2005.

A spokesman for the film said the backer, Walden Media, would ideally like to make films from all seven of the Narnia books if the first one was a success.

- NZPA