Set Report
Chapter II - The Sets
With New Zealand a mere three hour flight away, last October I was invited along with a bunch of other online journalists to visit the sets and speak with many involved on the project. Landing in Auckland, a city I hadn't been to in about ten years, we began our journey with a visit to some of the thirty or so elaborate sets constructed inside a film production studio a short drive outside of town.
The largest by far was the simply gigantic snow covered Wainui forest used for several key scenes. The set was built inside an old equestrian centre - all around the edge of the building's inside is a solid dirt floor surrounding a raised 'island' which you crossed over onto via bridges. The set stood on top of this island, above catwalks filled with rigging lights and cables overlooked everything. Hundreds of trees covered in fake snow surrounded a clearing - this is the top of a beaver dam on which Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, two computer-animated friendly creatures, have their stick house and invite the children inside for some tea. The same forest is used for the entry into Narnia from the wardrobe, but that set wasn't up that day. A few of the dozen trained wolf-huskies used in a key scene were on hand that day.
In another section lies the base of a thirty foot high frozen waterfall on which a dangerous chase sequence is filmed. Sections of the set are designed to move and break off for the harrowing scene. A similarly-themed set is the Queen's castle hall - gigantic pillars (which will be made to look eighty feet tall) line a rectangular courtyard room with a door on one end, a regal looking throne on the other, and all of it designed to look like its made up of a strange turquoise ice. It was here we ran into some guys on computers focussing some rather serious looking hardware. A brief chat later they were revealed to be military lasers which were being used to map the set, down to the micro millimeter, for rendering digitally into the computer.
Another section of the castle was far more elaborate - the Queen's courtyard. Surrounded by similar ice walls, the set is completely dominated by eighty stone statues of all sorts of creatures ranging from regular animals like rhinos and beavers to all sorts of mythical creatures such as minotaurs, centaurs and the gigantic Rumblebuffin - all frozen mid-action. Each of the statues is covered in intricate detail (right down to hair follicles and skin texture), and all up took around six months to construct. Also there is a creepy looking tree of which Tim Burton would've been proud.
Finally comes probably the most important set in the whole film - the Stone Table. We didn't get to go up to it (it stands on top of a raised grass hill), but from below it looked exactly as pictured - simple, huge and commanding power. The Stonehenge-like structure surrounds the large flat table on which the film's biggest scene takes place and Adamson made it very clear that the scene in question is definitely happening in full in the final movie.
Chapter One >> The Basics
Chapter Three >> The Major Players
Chapter Four >> Costumes/WETA
Chapter Five >> Visual Effects
Chapter II - The Sets
With New Zealand a mere three hour flight away, last October I was invited along with a bunch of other online journalists to visit the sets and speak with many involved on the project. Landing in Auckland, a city I hadn't been to in about ten years, we began our journey with a visit to some of the thirty or so elaborate sets constructed inside a film production studio a short drive outside of town.
The largest by far was the simply gigantic snow covered Wainui forest used for several key scenes. The set was built inside an old equestrian centre - all around the edge of the building's inside is a solid dirt floor surrounding a raised 'island' which you crossed over onto via bridges. The set stood on top of this island, above catwalks filled with rigging lights and cables overlooked everything. Hundreds of trees covered in fake snow surrounded a clearing - this is the top of a beaver dam on which Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, two computer-animated friendly creatures, have their stick house and invite the children inside for some tea. The same forest is used for the entry into Narnia from the wardrobe, but that set wasn't up that day. A few of the dozen trained wolf-huskies used in a key scene were on hand that day.In another section lies the base of a thirty foot high frozen waterfall on which a dangerous chase sequence is filmed. Sections of the set are designed to move and break off for the harrowing scene. A similarly-themed set is the Queen's castle hall - gigantic pillars (which will be made to look eighty feet tall) line a rectangular courtyard room with a door on one end, a regal looking throne on the other, and all of it designed to look like its made up of a strange turquoise ice. It was here we ran into some guys on computers focussing some rather serious looking hardware. A brief chat later they were revealed to be military lasers which were being used to map the set, down to the micro millimeter, for rendering digitally into the computer.
Another section of the castle was far more elaborate - the Queen's courtyard. Surrounded by similar ice walls, the set is completely dominated by eighty stone statues of all sorts of creatures ranging from regular animals like rhinos and beavers to all sorts of mythical creatures such as minotaurs, centaurs and the gigantic Rumblebuffin - all frozen mid-action. Each of the statues is covered in intricate detail (right down to hair follicles and skin texture), and all up took around six months to construct. Also there is a creepy looking tree of which Tim Burton would've been proud.Finally comes probably the most important set in the whole film - the Stone Table. We didn't get to go up to it (it stands on top of a raised grass hill), but from below it looked exactly as pictured - simple, huge and commanding power. The Stonehenge-like structure surrounds the large flat table on which the film's biggest scene takes place and Adamson made it very clear that the scene in question is definitely happening in full in the final movie.
Chapter One >> The Basics
Chapter Three >> The Major Players
Chapter Four >> Costumes/WETA
Chapter Five >> Visual Effects
