Harry Gregson-Williams Concert to feature Narnia Music

As it attempts to halt the year’s box office slide, Hollywood is bringing out the howitzer for the holidays — the turbocharged children’s film. For the last five years, PG-13 has ruled the box office; it’s the imprimatur of the top-grossing films of the year. Now kids’ films, PG-rated and amped up with computer graphics, are trying to catch up. […]

This essay will analyze The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to demonstrate that the Narnia Chronicles are not so much didactic allegories, but rather are well-crafted children’s fantasies that incorporate Biblical themes in a way that young readers can appreciate. […]

“We needed to find a way to model the performance to create the essence of the noble, all-powerful lion,” explained Dean Wright, the film’s Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor, “So we used Gregory Peck in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ His Atticus Finch performance has some of the same regal qualities we wanted, so we used frames of Peck from that film to create movements for Aslan. That helped us build our library of movements, emotions and expressions so that when Liam gave his performance, it gelled perfectly with our Aslan.” […]