Roger Ford – Production Designer
The role as far as storytelling is of course the job of the writer and the director. It’s my job to bring the story alive and that’s what appeals to me about working in this business.
My office is in the art department, where the very beginnings of the film take shape with the story told in concept art around the walls. We have concept artists who start to get a feeling for how the film’s going to look. This is for my benefit, and of course for Andrew’s benefit to start. Once the look of the film begins to take shape we translate the concept art into models, which are principally for Andrew and the second unit director to use in planning. Everything is finished in model form before we start building.
So, in the very early stages of the film the art department consists maybe of six or seven concept artists and myself and, and really that’s about it. Once we start to get a feeling for how he film’s going to look, then we start doing construction drawings, start designing the sets, brining them to life, in other words. It grows from a small group of concept artists into a very big art department and construction workshop with a huge team of construction people – sculptors, metal works, plasterers, carpenters and painters.
The Beach – Cair Paravel Ruins
We found a location in New Zealand for where the children arrive in Narnia called Cathedral Cove. It has a wonderful tunnel-like arch in the rock. So we started to think we could echo the shape of the tube station in the natural formation of the cliff for the transition. The children go into a man-made tunnel and come out a natural tunnel, emerging onto the beach.
They see the ruins off the top of the cliff and of course they’re unaware at the beginning that it’s the ruins of Cair Paravel. We obtained the drawings for Cair Paravel that had been done for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And we found the location where we could actually rebuild Cair Paravel (in ruined form) on a promontory, looking over the sea.
Cair Paravel – Treasure Room
The Pevensies discover the ruins of Cair Paravel 1300 years since they had last been there. The children soon realize that there’s (as there was before) a treasure room. Presumably in order to conquer Narnia, the Telmarines had to seize Cair Paravel, but why didn’t they find this treasure room? We had to devise a secret door behind the stone statues that lead to the treasure room. The treasure room is underground – under the great hall of Cair Paravel. The set was built immaculately initially, and damage was then added everywhere – the destruction of the castle actually penetrated the treasure room in certain areas, which was quite difficult to achieve.
To read the rest of the article, head over to the production blog!
