Ian Brodie is author of Cameras In Narnia: How The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe Came To Life. Ian also wrote the hugely successful The Location Guidebook, the definitive Lord Of The Rings guidebook, which has sold a whopping 250,000 copies to date. His latest offering goes into the world of Narnia to reveal how the magic was made.
What are you trying to get across with this book?
It’s a whole mix of artistic people joined together, and that’s what I’m trying to get across in the book. This whole mixture of different crafts, all artistic in their own right, that work 20 hours a day, six days a week for a common goal that, in the end, most of them you only see as a rolling line of credits at the end of the film.
I interviewed over 50 people for the book, including the body doubles for the actors, and the two New Zealanders that are playing Centaur Oreius and General Otman, Shane Rangi and Patrick Kake.
Where was the most memorable filming location?
Flock Hill is amazing. To create the battlefield, they needed mountains in the background with snow on them as the spring melted Narnia and the witch loses her power, so they decide on this outrageous place up in the middle of the Southern Alps. But of course they needed nice spring grass as well, not Canterbury tussock, so a year before filming started they turned around and re-sowed the entire area with English grass, and kept it watered. It was this bizarre feeling of being in the Canterbury high country, but with beautiful long thick lush grass. So, that was a wonderful place.
What are the highlights of Cameras In Narnia?
The photos. Photography is my hobby, so the opportunity to be on set with a camera is pretty rare. I’m very proud of the photos because they do show what happened. I took 3000 pictures. I’m really pleased with them and they will hopefully get across to someone who has never been on set, or hasn’t been that fortunate, what it’s like. The other thing I’m proud of is the support of all those people. With a busy schedule, I would sit there with a microphone and they would make time for me.
Have you seen the finished product?
I’ve seen about six minutes of it. It was quite a special experience. I got to know the second editor Jim May pretty well, so I wandered in to say gidday to him with my 14-year old daughter. He played us six minutes of the movie and Sally Ann said, ‘wow, this is pretty cool!’. And there was a method to the madness because he wanted to see her reaction. I can’t wait now till December!
For the rest of the Interview, visit the source.
